| INDUSTRY |
IS THE CASINO “BAND-AID” FA LLING OFF ? The danger signs are everywhere. Casinos at racetracks were always seen as a band-aid—a temporary fix to horse racing’s massive problem of not doing enough business to survive, let alone prosper. What happens when the band-aid falls off?
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n Illinois, where horsemen battled for nearly 10 years to finally get casinos approved at its racetracks, Churchill Downs’ decision not to pursue a casino at Arlington Park has left the future of this international-caliber, iconic Chicago racetrack in dire doubt. In Florida, another Churchill Downs’ racetrack—Calder Raceway—which has operated as Gulfstream Park West on a lease agreement with Gulfstream Park, sought and received legislative approval to keep its casino open with jai alai replacing horse racing. This year’s Gulfstream Park West meeting is its last, with horsemen having to remove their horses by April 15. In the interim, horsemen are hopeful that an appeal and two lawsuits will change that reality. The governor in Pennsylvania in February called for revenue from casinos legislatively targeted to racetracks be used instead to offer free college education. And that was before the coronavirus pandemic made every state in America revenue strapped.
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Pennsylvania horsemen are hoping they’ll be protected under existing legislation. The sky is falling. “Frankly, not everyone is going to survive,” trainer John Servis, a board member of the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen Association, said. “We all knew this was going to come. We need to be able to stand on our own two feet. We have to stop relying on the casinos.” Can they? The plight of Illinois horsemen is downright depressing. “The thing that strikes me is that Illinois never had the band-aid of the racino,” said Dave McCaffrey, a long-time harness racing trainer who was president of the Illinois Harness Horsemen for eight years and is now the executive director of the Illinois Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. “At least Delaware, New York and Pennsylvania had this nice run of 10 or 15 or 20 years of dramatically increased purses and increased racing dates because of casino revenue.”