Want to understand the proposed future of Pimlico Race Course? One place to look would be to a race even older than the Preakness Stakes (G1) at a venue far more ancient than even Old Hilltop: Il Palio, the twice yearly horse race around the Piazzo del Campo, the central square in Siena, Italy.

The Dec. 13 release of the second phase of the Maryland Stadium Authority's study on the future of Pimlico generated a blizzard of news inside and outside of the racing industry. But, as blizzards are wont to do, this one obscured in some ways an even more critical point: The study is merely one more step on a journey that, however it concludes, will leave Maryland racing radically transformed.