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Maryland slot legislation trampled in house { April 13 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6645-2004Apr12.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6645-2004Apr12.html
Slots Legislation Trampled in House
Md. Horsemen Angered by Committee's 21-0 Vote
By John Scheinman
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 13, 2004; Page D01
Sounding angry and dismayed, members of the troubled Maryland horse racing industry could envision only the accelerated decline of the sport in the state after a Maryland House of Delegates committee yesterday killed a bill that would have legalized slot machines at state tracks.
The House Ways and Means committee voted 21-0 to defeat slots legislation supported by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. and passed by the Senate but opposed by House Speaker Michael Busch.
Fighting a losing battle for several years with racetracks in neighboring states that have purses fueled by slot machines, the Maryland racing industry had pinned its hopes on a rescue by the state legislature.
Now racing, at both thoroughbred and harness tracks, not only will continue to be muscled by Delaware Park and West Virginia's Charles Town Races & Slots, but also faces the specter of slot machines in Pennsylvania and New York as well as recently boosted purses in New Jersey.
"I think it's pathetic," said Lou Raffetto Jr., chief operating officer at Laurel Park and Pimlico. "The games people play that impact the lives of so many individuals."
Said Maryland Jockey Club President Joe De Francis: "The thing that is most disappointing is we have an industry that contributes $1 billion a year to Maryland's economy, from horse racing to breeding and all the cottage industries that support it. It employs 15,000 to 20,000 Marylanders, and it continues to suffer because we can't have the tools available to compete with our neighbors in Delaware and West Virginia."
With a month until the Preakness Stakes, the second leg of racing's Triple Crown and the signature sporting event in Maryland, Raffetto said he plans to focus his energies on putting on the big day while trying to find ways to make ends meet.
The thoroughbred tracks, owned by Canadian racing conglomerate Magna Entertainment, were operating at a $1.2 million deficit for the year through March, Raffetto said. Magna Entertainment President Jim McAlpine did not return calls seeking comment.
The Maryland Jockey Club, which operates the tracks for Magna, will have to consider further cutting its stakes schedule, reducing the number of racing days from its current 220 a year and trimming purses.
These decisions must be approved by the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, which has scheduled a meeting for Thursday.
"Short term, I don't see anything different happening," Raffetto said.
"Long term, the product will continue to erode and Maryland racing will become an embarrassment, and people will not go to it. The Preakness will continue to be the one bright spot we have."
Raffetto said Magna would go forward with plans in June to install a new turf course at Laurel Park, as well as widen the existing dirt course and move the paddock.
The Maryland Jockey Club offers a daily average of $155,000 in purse money, while Delaware Park, which opens April 24, offers $254,000. Many Maryland-based trainers have said in recent months that they were hanging on, hoping slots would pass and subsidize purses in the state. With that possibility gone, many trainers will race elsewhere this summer, increasing pressure on the local tracks to find horses to fill races.
"I train for [the country's leading owner Michael] Gill, and all the good horses are going to go to [his trainers] out of state," said trainer John "Jerry" Robb, 52, who has worked in Maryland the past 30 years. "I've tried to stay in Maryland, and I'm going to get all the [bad] horses nobody wants. And rightly so."
Robb trains 80 horses, 60 based at Laurel Park and 20 at Bowie. He said he plans to race in the state through the summer but said after that he probably would take his string to tracks in Louisiana or Florida.
Robb and other trainers have said they will run horses at Monmouth Park in New Jersey this summer when that track opens May 29. New Jersey tracks recently completed a deal in which they will receive $86 million for purse money over four years from the Atlantic City casino industry in exchange for not installing slot machines at tracks. The state, as part of the deal, vowed to give the casinos more than $90 million for revitalization efforts.
Robb blamed De Francis as well as the legislature for failing to help the industry.
"The reputation of De Francis didn't help things," Robb said. "It's no secret they've said hundreds of times, 'We're not going to fatten the pockets of a few.' But if that was the only problem, they could have found a way around that. I don't understand it."
While Maryland racing suffers, the breeding industry also is in a precarious position. Under pressure to develop their property, horse farmers also held out hope for slots to galvanize the industry. Higher purses would have created a demand for more Maryland-bred runners, said trainer Larry Murray, who also manages Glade Valley Farm, a highly successful private breeding operation in Frederick County.
"We're locked into Maryland right now with all these Maryland-breds we have, but there's nothing to keep us in Maryland in the future," Murray said. "The industry here has been depressed for a while. There are less and less farms and less people are breeding. I think it's very shortsighted, that they let one guy [Busch] stop that bill, when it wouldn't have hurt anybody. You say you hurt people by picking their pockets, but they're gambling anyway by going to West Virginia and Delaware. And they're picking pockets here with Keno and lottery."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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