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Sunday, Mar. 08, 2009

Snapshot of racing's future

FRANKFORT — It was just one day, and a makeup day at that. But when Turfway Park canceled its race card Monday due to a lack of entries, it provided a snapshot of racing's future in Kentucky if lawmakers don't give the state's tracks the opportunity to compete with their counterparts around the country.

As Turfway President Bob Elliston noted in announcing the cancellation, the lack of entries stemmed from a very simple reason.

"Horses that otherwise would prefer to run in Kentucky, and traditionally did so, are instead racing in jurisdictions where purses are enhanced with revenue from alternative gaming," Elliston said in a statement.

"Kentucky has not been permitted to level the playing field, and we are now beginning to feel the effects of the competitive advantage other states have over us, tradition or not."

Skeptics may question Turfway officials' motives in scheduling a Monday card (to make up for an earlier race date canceled due to weather) and then canceling it. They may wonder if the whole event might have been staged for effect, for pushing the cause of expanded gambling in Kentucky. Though I have no reason to believe that was the case, some opponents of expanded gambling are sure to harbor such doubts.

But even if such skepticism were justified, it really doesn't matter. Monday, or some other day like it, has loomed on the Kentucky horizon for at least 15 years.

In the early years, not all in the racing industry recognized the threat. Former Keeneland President Ted Bassett came to regret his "mythical armada" reference to riverboat casinos, which now float along the north shore of the Ohio River from near its confluence with the Mighty Mississippi to the Cincinnati suburbs.

Now, few in the industry, if any, pooh-pooh the threat. When Presque Isle Downs, a new "racino" track in Pennsylvania, opens and immediately offers purses nearly four times what Turfway offers on the same race days, only the Pollyannas among us can feel confident about the future of racing in Kentucky.

Turfway in Northern Kentucky and Ellis Park in Henderson cannot long continue to conduct racing at the disadvantages they face today. Let either track close its doors because it can't fill racing cards, and the year-round circuit that has kept racing thriving in Kentucky for many decades disappears.

Then, the heart and soul of Kentucky racing, the small and medium-sized operations who fill the race cards between the big events, will have no choice but to move to where such an annual circuit exists. They can't take days or weeks or months off. They need access to competitive purses on a year-round basis to survive.

Even with Kentucky's circuit still intact, the exodus of those operations has started because they aren't getting access to competitive purses on a year-round basis here now. And they won't get it until Kentucky tracks can supplement their purses with revenue from expanded gambling, whether racetrack slots or full-blown casinos scattered around the state.

I favor full-blown destination casinos because they would have a significantly larger economic impact and offer a better means of stopping the flow of Kentucky dollars to the riverboat states. But if racetrack slots are a necessary first step toward that end, I'm OK with it.

What puzzles me is why Gov. Steve Beshear, who campaigned on the issue of saving the state's signature industry with revenue from expanded gambling, remains virtually silent on the subject during this session of the General Assembly.

Sure, a $459 million revenue shortfall in the current fiscal year, which has less than four months to go, preoccupied him early on. But the bandage was applied to that fairly quickly, in the form of tax increases on alcoholic beverages and tobacco products and some creative use of the state's "rainy day fund."

But with the economy floating down to the bottom of the septic tank, bigger shortfalls loom in years ahead — shortfalls that easily could be large enough to swallow Kentucky's share of the federal stimulus package and still hunger for more. Action this year on expanded gambling could have brought revenue from that source on line in time to help fill the void in years to come.

Whether it be a casino amendment that would go on the ballot in 2010 or statutory approval of racetrack slots, a gambling vote would have been easier for lawmakers to cast in this non-election year than it will be in 2010, when all 100 House seats and 19 of the 38 Senate seats will be on the ballot.

But this year's opportunity has been wasted, leaving all Kentuckians who support the state's signature industry wondering when the next race card will be canceled because the non-competitive purses at the state's tracks don't attract enough entries.