Posts Tagged ‘VLT’

After much back and forth about the legitimacy of the deal struck by Governor David Paterson and AEG, the Division of the Lottery in New York has refused to give the controversial investor group the slots bid at Aqueduct.

Because of this refusal, Paterson’s administration informed AEG the state has withdrawn their support of the organization.

No doubt this came as a result of the political pressure and lack of transparency in the bid process for the long anticipated VLTs at the Queens racetrack.

Read it at Bloodhorse.com

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

Since embattled Governor David Paterson named Aqueduct Entertainment Group the vendor for Aqueduct’s proposed VLTs, there has been nothing but controversy swirling around his decision. And while nothing specific has been released, it appears the probe from state investigators into AEG is only making matters worse.

"It’s becoming clearer and clearer that there’s a problem there," a source close to the investigation said. Digging through emails and documents between the state and racino bidders, officials have told investigators they were shocked with the selection of AEG.

"AEG was not highly thought of, at least not by the (administration) bureaucrats."

Read at the NY Daily News

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

Baltimore-based Cordish Companies filed a suit against Citizens Against Slots at the Mall, alleging their recently filed petition was ‘riddled with fraudulent signatures’. The petition was created to keep the developer from installing VLTs at Arundel Mills mall.

This issue created real controversy at the end of 2009 when the VLT license was given to the shopping center of Laurel Park, causing many Marylanders to feel duped by the recently passed law that was sold as aid to the racing industry.

Read it at the Baltimore Sun

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

At the beginning of this year, New York Governor Paterson pledged to name a company to handle the installation of VLTs at Aqueduct by the following week. We applauded his leadership and made the case he was trying to curry favor from the horse industry as he faced a severely uphill battle to win reelection in 2010. It was an opportunity to cut through the minutiae of Albany politics and actually get something done for the horse industry in the Empire State.

And yet it is now the end of the month and Paterson has still not come through on his claim. His time frame for victory is severely deteriorating. Even Penn National recently released a statement to the Governor walking a thin line, not quite accusing him of shutting them out of the process. Paterson is unfortunately proving why he has been such an ineffective leader and is hurting his chances to be taken seriously in the future.

Click here for the original January 2nd article from the Albany Times-Union

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

Kentucky State Senator Damon Thayer delays consideration of his constitutional amendment bill to build a larger consensus, reports the Blood-Horse’s Ron Mitchell.

"I am getting a lot of feedback from people in the horse industry that they are disappointed in the horse industry leadership for opposing my bill," Thayer said. However, he fails to name any names.

His bill has some troubles with the biggest one being his opposition to VLT exclusivity at racetracks. Thayer calls it ‘a debatable point.’

Click here for the full article from the Blood-Horse

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think.

- Bradford Cummings

By Bradford Cummings

As we enter into the 2010 general session of the Kentucky House and Senate, it is important for Kentuckians to take a moment and look back at where we have come from in this fight to level the playing field with other states through expanded gaming in the Bluegrass State. While I am a bit of a latecomer to the discussion, my desire to merely add onto the gaming menu we already have at Kentucky racetracks grows with each day. As a Republican, one who rose to the position of chairman for the largest county in the state, the debate against slots at racetracks confuses me.
 
The Republican Party I signed up for was one that wanted less government control and more economic expansion. Talking to some of you in the last year, I suspect there will be many shaking their heads in agreement when I say that putting the irresponsible behavior of those few who would put their mortgage on the line for a slots jackpot should not hold more weight than the economic impact of killing our signature industry. Allow me to make my own decisions and stop shielding me from the consequences. That’s a party I can fully get behind and that’s the broken promise that finds many citizen GOPers very frustrated with the current climate.
 
Yet despite the party of Reagan falling off the edge in an overly zealous attempt to stonewall this economic issue of choice, it is important that we look back at the last couple of years and see how far we have come. The horse industry lost the last special election when Republican Jimmy Higdon beat Democrat Jodie Hayden, so it is easy to lose sight of our progress. But remember that election, for an open Senate seat in the 14th district, was about the lack of support for President Obama in Kentucky, not an opposition to expanded gaming.
 
A LOOK BACK

In 2007, our sitting Governor based his entire reelection campaign on the opposition to gaming. The Speaker of the House, a Democrat, was so unsupportive that he had never taken the issue to a committee vote much less the entire House.
 
While the Senate majority for the anti-slots argument is still intact today, it was much larger then and showed little chance of the needle moving on this issue.
 
And most troubling, a statewide poll showed that about 40% of Kentuckians supported putting VLT’s at racetracks.
 
SINCE 2007
 
The industry supported a candidate in a crowded Democratic primary field who largely based his campaign on expanded gaming. Not only did he win the nomination, but he was overwhelmingly elected Governor.
 
Greg Stumbo challenged Jody Richards, the aforementioned former Speaker of the House, and the horse industry worked tirelessly and effectively behind the scenes to help elect the pro-slots Stumbo.
 
The Kentucky Equine Education Project, or KEEP, has become an integral part of the discussion, becoming a strong branding tool for the state’s signature industry. KEEP has helped launch a broad-based communications and grassroots effort to educate Kentuckians about what the horse industry means to citizens of Kentucky. The focus was properly taken off the millionaire hobbyists and placed on the tens of thousands of farmers, insurance agents, feed companies and backstretch and farm workers that make this industry so important to our future.
 
HEADING INTO 2010
 
And where do we stand today? We have a Governor in Steve Beshear who is solidly committed to helping our industry by pushing for VLT legislation.
 
We have a Speaker of the House who drafted the legislation, helped push it through committee, brought it to the floor of the House and passed it. All firsts.
 
We have staged two extremely successful rallies – one in Frankfort and one at Keeneland – that had over 1,000 industry participants in attendance. While this industry is relatively new to political activism, we are certainly up for the fight!
 
And most importantly, we have significantly moved the needle on public opinion as a statewide survey taken before the Special Session this summer demonstrated support for racetrack VLT’s at 69%. This is a dramatic and unprecedented change in mood on what has been portrayed as a divisive issue. Can you imagine gay marriage shifting nearly 30 points over three years in Kentucky?
 
GETTING OVER THE FINISH LINE
 
Moving over the finish line and securing the victory that a clear majority of Kentuckians want to see will, just like in other endeavors, be the most challenging and rewarding part of this journey.
 
We must continue to support the efforts of KEEP, who under the leadership of former Democratic Gov. Brereton Jones and executive director Patrick Neely (a fellow Republican of mine) have helped push the needle in the right direction. Both have been instrumental in the progress described above.
 
We must not let up on our leaders in Frankfort. Continue to call your legislators and let them know how you feel. Ask your friends, family and associates to do the same. (Pick up the phone, dial it and hand it to them if you have to for God’s sake!)
 
Continue to support candidates that support the industry, both financially and through volunteer hours. And make sure to not only look to Democrats but also to pro-slot Republicans. I promise they’re out there.
 
Take heart in Attorney General Jack Conway’s opinion this last week that Instant Racing is constitutional with a few tweaks from the Governor’s office. This greatly hurts the rationale from those who claim passing slots legislation would get tied up in our court system for any extended period of time. Is Instant Racing that much different than a slot machine when opponents cite the major concern over slots as the speed in which a person can lose their money? Don’t ignore this development as insignificant.
 
Finally, despite what you feel about Damon Thayer’s amendment proposal, at least understand that this coming from a Republican in David Williams’ Senate means we are having an effect on the process. Can anyone imagine Williams allowing a member of his caucus to propose this type of legislation even last year? Indeed, this may be the strongest sign that the pendulum is shifting in our direction.
 
We are by no means out of the woods in this fight to save our industry. But there is also no doubt that it is a fight that can be won. Whether we find ourselves victorious in this year’s general session or if we have to fight it out at the polls in November, we must always remember just how far we’ve come in such a short period of time.
 
This is the year we take control of the conversation.
 
This is the year we have all been working so hard to be a part of.
 
This is the year of victory for the horse industry.
 
We have too much at stake for it to be any other year.

Copyright © 2010, The Paulick Report

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Press Release

(LEXINGTON, Ky.)— In a meeting held this morning, the Kentucky Equine Education Project Board of Directors unanimously voted to redouble their efforts to protect Kentucky jobs and put our signature horse industry on a level competitive playing field.
 
“As we all know, our competitor states are using revenue from expanded gaming to enhance their purses and breeders incentive funds, which is causing a severe loss of Kentucky racing and breeding stock to those other states,” commented KEEP Chairman Brereton Jones. “When horses leave our state, jobs go with them, from the farmer who grows the hay, to the veterinarian, feed supply salesperson, equipment manufacturer, groom, equine insurance agent and on and on.”
 
“One-hundred thousand Kentuckians depend on the horse industry for their livelihoods. We have a duty to make our industry as healthy as possible, to bring back the jobs that have already left the state, and to protect and create new jobs right here in Kentucky. We have no choice but to keep fighting for our industry.”
 
“The KEEP Board voted unanimously to pursue a legislative strategy that would save jobs and provide immediate relief by putting our industry on a level competitive playing field,” continued Jones. “The Board also voted unanimously to further engage our 15,000 members statewide in the political and fundraising process, and to continue the trend of growing our membership across the state. Our industry is committed to recruiting and supporting candidates that will support the horse industry.”
 
“This will continue to be an industry wide effort,” concluded Jones. “Seventy percent of Kentuckians agree that our industry should be put on a level competitive playing field, and a bill passed the House of Representatives for the first time ever this past June. We are so close to reaching our goal, and our resolve has only strengthened. We will not quit until the fight is won.”

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By Ray Paulick
Oh, the irony. Damon Thayer, the Republican state senator in Kentucky who opposes legislation permitting slot machines that would benefit the state’s horse industry, is a former racetrack and Breeders’ Cup executive who, for now, makes his living as a Thoroughbred industry consultant.

One of Thayer’s clients is the Millennium Farms owned by former Dell Computer executive Ro Parra. On Thursday, Millennium Farms announced it was forming a partnership with Louisiana-based Moon Lake Farm and would be sending 30 of its Kentucky-based mares to Louisiana. It previously announced that two of its Kentucky stallions would move to Louisiana.

“We will likely move more mares over time,” said Parra. “We feel that the Kentucky program is not as competitive as other regional programs like the one in Louisiana.”

(Click here to see the complete press release, published by Thayer Communications and Consulting LLC.)

Louisiana’s racing and breeding programs are supported by revenue from slot machines. Kentucky’s breeders’ incentive program, developed by Thayer, is funded by the sales tax on stud fees, which are sinking almost as fast as the senator from Scott County’s approval ratings among Kentucky owners and breeders.

Thayer has opposed slot machine legislation in Kentucky though he recently announced he would be sponsoring a constitutional amendment to permit Kentuckians to vote on whether VLTs should be permitted. If that legislation is approved by the Kentucky House and Senate (a longshot at best), and the referendum is passed by Kentucky voters, the proposed constitutional amendment would then require local referendums in the counties where the VLTs would be authorized. If the measures are approved in those locales, there would then be a lengthy licensing and bidding process.

Some have estimated that, if all these measures are approved, Kentucky might not get VLTs installed until late 2013 or early 2014.

By then, you have to wonder how many stallions and mares will be left in Kentucky and how many horse industry clients Thayer Communications and Consulting will have in the Blue Grass State.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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While Ray Paulick is dipping his toes into the Pacific Ocean and enjoying summer racing at Del Mar, another big race meeting is set to begin in Upstate New York. In fact, Saratoga is more than a race meeting; for many people it’s a tonic to cure, at least temporarily, what ails the racing industry. The Paulick Report has asked Brendan O’Meara to provide his impressions of Saratoga as the Spa meeting is set to begin. O’Meara covers horse racing in the Upstate New York region and blogs at The Carryover at www.brendanomeara.blogspot.com. He is currently working on a book of narrative nonfiction chronicling the 2009 Saratoga meet through various threads capitulating at the 140th running of the Travers Stakes.

By Brendan O’Meara
There’s a scene in the 1994 movie “Beautiful Girls” where Willy C, played by Timothy Hutton, and Paul, played by Michael Rapaport, are sitting in Paul’s room. Both are in their late 20s and Willy becomes both disturbed and vocal with Paul’s obsession with the super model pinups he has tiled all over his wall. Paul then goes into a rant, as if he has had to defend himself on this canon more than just this time.

“The super models are beautiful girls, Will. A beautiful girl can make you feel dizzy, like you’ve been drinkin’ Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high, full of the single greatest commodity known to man. Promise. Promise of a better day, promise of a greater hope, promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl; in her smile, in her soul, and the way she makes every little rotten thing about life seem like it’s going to be okay. The super models, Will, that’s all they are, bottled promise, scenes from a brand new day, hope dancing in stiletto heels.”

Soon Willy gets up to leave, saying he plans to check the freezer for human heads. To which Paul belches out one last line, “A beautiful girl is all powerful and that’s as good as love. That’s as good as love.”

And isn’t Paul, in a manner of speaking, the estranged horse racing fan, not knowing quite where to turn, but choosing to hang his or her pinups on the wall, images of racing’s past an escape of necessity, of something that could, maybe, be claimed yet again?

There seems hardly a moment of cheer left in the “Sport of Kings,” what with Ernie Paragallo’s utter contempt for the equine species. How is it that Pete Rose gets banned from baseball for gambling on his own team, yet Paragallo is still allowed to own and breed horses

Slot machines were squashed in Kentucky and VLTs seem to hang like the proverbial carrot in front of the mule in New York. Those same slots baited the Kentucky Derby winner, Mine That Bird, to run in the West Virginia Derby for $750,000 as a prep for the Travers.

In a story in the Charleston Gazette, it was said that Mine That Bird trainer Chip Woolley owes slot revenue as the reason for having trained the little Birdstone gelding. After the purchase of Mine That Bird for $400,000, the owners had their eye set on an $800,000 purse in New Mexico, of all places. “Without slots, I wouldn’t have a horse like this,” Woolley told the Gazette.

And, Dios mios, the economy. Bloodstock prices are plunging, new owners can be seen playing bocce instead of the races, stocks are skimming murky waters with catfish, and mortgages are worth more than houses, but that doesn’t mean that all is lost.

Sure, for 46 weeks, this type of pessimism and negativity is both expected and welcomed. But for six weeks, those feelings will undoubtedly be kept in check because the Spa is open, Saratoga Race Course, a month-plus morphine drip. Without slurping the Spa too, too much, it is worth noting that the energy is ramped up. Entries for Opening Day at Saratoga are at 134 horses — 107 running, 27 also-entered. Del Mar had 92 racing on its opening day card on July 22.

Rachel Alexandra is stabled next to Steve Asmussen’s office with a little souvenir New York license plate nailed above her stall door that says RACHEL. She is under constant surveillance since Stonestreet Stable’s Jess Jackson bought a majority interest in the filly.

Rachel is even on Twitter. At long last this is how horses can use toe grabs, for typing. Within 24 hours, she went from following five people and having just a few followers to following 763 people with 186 followers. Talk about networking. Every Monday, much to the chagrin of her handlers, there are throngs of media arriving as early as 5 a.m. to watch her groom, Javier, brush her down and tack her up. As hot walker Juan Gonzalez circles the trees at Barn 65, letting the Medaglia d’Oro filly gulp water five chugs at a time, people gape and awe as if her walking stride were somehow more magisterial than the next horse.  They may be right. She is taking on the boys again in the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational this Sunday.  More appropriately, the boys are taking on her.

She has a stablemate, Kensei, winner of the Dwyer, who is pointing to the Jim Dandy. Should Kensei win and Rachel win, does that put two Stonestreet horses at odds with one another? Do they both run in the Travers? Who has preference? Is this a subtle cue that Kensei has a Travers edge? If Stonestreet wants Horse of the Year, the Travers will be a nice scratch on the bedpost.  So too could a win in, say, the Woodward.

Mine That Bird, should he come out of the West Virginia Derby sound and victorious, is going to the Travers. Summer Bird, the Belmont winner, should he come out of the Haskell in good order, is going to the Travers. Which leaves Rachel. This could be the first time in 27 years that all three winners of a Triple Crown race could square off in the Mid-Summer Derby. Not to mention the Florida Derby winner, Quality Road, and whoever should so happen to win the Curlin Stakes and Jim Dandy.  There could be as many five or six Grade 1 winners come Travers Day.

There’s also the claiming races with $30,000 purses.  Walk up to one of these claimers and borrow a line from The Boss, “You ain’t a beauty, but, hey, you’re all right.”

The best of the best are here in Saratoga Springs for 36 days of racing to bury the thoughts of poor sales and animal neglect.  Think of it is an escape. Money can be had at the windows and what sport offers its fans the option of bringing in their own beer and the opportunity to take cash home? And don’t say jai alai. It is a venue where, for a blink of an eye, the sport’s elite are on the grounds, where history is made every day, where known stars come and new stars emerge. Where society’s elite brush shoulders with the $2 bettor, and where the manure … still smells like manure, but that’s all right!

If nothing else, it offers hope, 36 individual pinups, and that, one might say, is as good as love.