What’s old is new again.

After years of planning to “rotate” the racing oval at Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course — that is, rebuilding it at a different orientation — state officials now expect the track to remain right where it is when the historic venue is rebuilt in the coming years.

The track’s alignment has been hotly debated over time, as various plans to renovate the dilapidated but storied racetrack in Park Heights have started and stopped. A consultant report to the Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority in January said that, if “presented with this program and site as a greenfield, the consultant team would not orient the” track as it is currently. The consultant, Populous, favored rotating the track as the “most efficient use of the available land.”

The authority agreed at the time, saying it expected to rotate the oval as part of the renovation.

Now officials have pivoted from the pivot. Racing authority Chair Greg Cross told the authority during a regular meeting Friday that leaving the track where it sits would shorten the build time and decrease construction costs for the state-funded project.

“Sometimes the more you study something, the more you come back to where you started, and it looks like that’s where we’re going to land,” Cross said. He noted the decision is not final, though, as the design continues to be studied.

A vocal group of racing fans has long argued for preserving the oval’s placement as a nod to the history of Old Hilltop, which opened in 1870.

Leaving the oval where it is will extend the “schematic design process,” Cross said, since the authority had been contemplating the pivoted track. But it “simplifies the project,” he said, expressing confidence that Pimlico would be rebuilt by spring 2027.

“While it’s still a very complex project — I don’t want to sell it short, it’s a very aggressive schedule, the stadium authority is doing a good job on that — this makes it more likely to hit the schedule, rather than less likely,” Cross said. “So sometimes you take a step back to accelerate.”

The authority also on Friday approved the number of racing days that Maryland will host next year.

Historically, the state has seen at least 175 days of thoroughbred horse racing at its two operational, milelong tracks at Pimlico and Laurel Park in Anne Arundel County, along with the smaller Maryland State Fairgrounds track in Timonium.

But, as Maryland makes sweeping changes to the industry, including the installation of a state-created nonprofit operator instead of a private Canadian company, the Stronach Group, next year will see only 127 days of racing, down from 159 this year and from 187 as recently as 2019.

There will be no racing in the state in July or August, which is a time when several nearby tracks, including Colonial Downs in Virginia, hold racing days.

Alan Foreman, a member of the racing authority and general counsel for the state’s horsemen, said Friday in an interview that hosting 160 or more annual racing days is “no longer tenable, particularly given the competition in the region in the summertime.”

The Pimlico renovation plan calls for demolition to begin at the track after the 2025 Preakness. While the venue undergoes renovations, racing in the state — including the 2026 Preakness — will relocate to Laurel Park until 2027.

Next year, the state fairgrounds will host seven race days, and Pimlico will host six, including the 150th running of the Preakness. The remaining 114 will be held at Laurel Park.

The state will pay $400 million for the Pimlico rebuild and the construction of a training center elsewhere in Maryland.