NGA's Report to
NCLGS Committee on Par-Mutuals
Presented by Jack Cory
NGA/FGA Chief Lobbyist
Hawk's Cay, Florida
January 12, 2007
2006 will be
remembered in the annals of Greyhound racing as the year of the first
million-dollar race in the sport’s history. It happened in early March at historic Derby Lane Kennel Club in St. Petersburg, FL.
A second million-dollar race is scheduled again for early March of 2007 at the
same Florida Track.
There has been much
talk worldwide in recent years about the prospects of a million-dollar race.
Through the efforts of the Derby Lane
staff and the stake event’s creator, N.J. (Jack) Sherck of Abilene, Ks. and his
organization, known as Racing Life Challenge, the dream of a million-dollar
event became a reality in 2006. Known as the Derby Lane Million, the stake attracted the very best canine racers
in North America, as well as able challengers from England, Ireland and
Australia—making the race not only the superior stake event of the year here in
the States, but also a truly international event as well. It
would be no big surprise if at least half of the eight-dog field that will comprise
the All-America team for 2006 will be Greyhounds that competed in the Derby
Lane Million.
In
the end, the victor in the Derby Lane
Million was the lone female Greyhound in the final eight-dog race—a
speedster named Greys Calibrator,
bred and raised by Jack and Mary Butler of Greymeadow Farms in Abilene,
Ks. For their efforts, the Butlers
and the sponsors of Calibrator in the stake collected a purse of $500,000.
Thus, in the short 30 seconds that it took for Calibrator to capture the
Million, she set new records for:
·
Most
money ever won in a single stake (previously held by Boc’s Big League at
$190,871)
·
Most
money in a single year (previously held by RA Blazer at $307,612)
·
Most money for a complete career (previously
held by Be My Bubba at $365,734).
Greys
Calibrator was sold by the Butlers
immediately after her race for $50,000 to the kennel operator that raced her
(Mick D’Arcy) and an associate from Ireland.
The
million-dollar race added a much-needed spark of excitement and enthusiasm to a
sport that had been languishing in declines and often-depressing news for over
a decade. Receding attendance and
pari-mutuel wagering figures decline have been the rule ever since the early 1990s, when lotteries and casino-style gaming
gained strong footholds on the American entertainment scene.
Those
at the Derby Lane Million witnessed what the sport was like back in its
heyday—when stands were full of fans, and avid followers kept close tabs on the
champion Greyhounds of the day. Not only was it a refreshing experience (and a
nostalgic one for many), but it
proved that such glory-days could be recaptured, even if for only one
night, or, perhaps—should all go well in the 2007 edition—for one night a year.
Before dwelling
on current malaise, though, there were several other positive developments in
Greyhound racing in 2006, besides the birth of the million-dollar event that
need to be reported here.
An effort by
GREY2K USA to ban Greyhound racing, via a referendum
vote, in the state of Massachusetts looked
formidable early in the year. A similar effort in 2000 had barely gone down to
defeat (51 percent to 49 percent), and now the critics were back for another
fight. This time, however, they didn’t want to take any risks in the ballot
booth. In addition to outlawing
Greyhound racing, the proposal was set up to also further strengthen laws against dog fighting
and to increase penalties for harming
police and guide dogs—two, obviously, very popular issues that
virtually everyone would rally around, with the Greyhound issue expected to
easily pass in their coattails.
This hardly
seemed a fair approach—to attach all three issues to the same ballot question,
so that a voter had to position himself or herself either for all three, or against
all three. If a referendum is designed to draw a clear picture of the wishes of
the people, this particular scenario involving the proposed Greyhound ban
obviously failed miserably. Nevertheless, the state’s attorney general, Tom
Reilly, made the determination that the referendum questions were legal and
should go on the ballot with only one box to check.
Many Greyhound
supporters were convinced that the question, if permitted to be on the ballot
in that form, was unbeatable, regardless how much time and money was spent
campaigning against it. Fortunately, the case was appealed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and in July the court came back with a
unanimous ruling (5 to 0 vote) that the referendum, as proposed, was
unconstitutional. The referendum was tossed out.
Chief Justice
Margaret M. Marshall’s ruling succinctly summed up the reason: “The aggregation
of these two very different sets of laws into one petition that the voter must
accept or reject would operate to deprive voters their rights.”
Said the Boston
Herald in an editorial shortly after the ruling: “Indeed, advocacy groups in
recent years have tried repeatedly to manipulate the wording of ballot
questions not for clarity but to dupe unwary voters. In striking the so-called
dog-protections measure from the ballot, the Supreme
Judicial Court struck a blow for the integrity of
the initiative process.”
The Boston
Globe, in its editorial on the issue, stated: “The racing opponents had come
within a hairsbreath of outlawing dog racing at the polls in 2000. So
maybe—just MAYBE—if they combined the racing ban with tougher penalties for,
say, beating someone’s seeing-eye dog, they’d manage to carry it over the
line….Only the risky strategy came back to bite them in the backside.”
The ruling
preserved the Greyhound racing game in a state where it has been a fixture for
more than 70 years, and where thousands continue to find employment and
entertainment at the two long-standing racing venues in the state: Raynham
Greyhound Park
and Wonderland Greyhound
Park.
Other good news in racing for 2006
centered on welfare issues—in particular, regarding the
much-anticipated release of the second
edition of the “Care Of The Racing Greyhound,” written by its original authors,
Dr. Linda Blythe and Morrie Craig of Oregon State University and Dr. Jim Gannon
of Australia, with assistance this time around from Dr. Des Fagan, also
of Australia. This time around, the book (published by the American Greyhound
Council) is entitled “Care Of The
Racing & Retired Greyhound,” and was expected to be released late
in the year. More than 10,000 copies of the original textbook, published in
1995, had previously been distributed worldwide.
Greyhound welfare continued to be one of
the main focuses of Greyhound racing in 2006, with the efforts of the American
Greyhound Council, Inc. (AGC) leading the way. Besides the publication
of “Care Of The Racing & Retired Greyhound,” the AGC reinforced its support of Greyhound adoption
programs throughout the country, pledging a record amount of grants money to
qualifying adoption agencies and to the Greyhound adoption effort in general. Accelerated efforts to assist adoption
programs in recent year (more than $130,000 spent annually through the AGC and
another million dollars-plus spent each year by racetracks and kennels in local
adoption programs), coupled with declines in breedings (see item below) have
resulted in well more than 90 percent
of Greyhounds retiring from racing either being placed into adoption programs
or being retired back to the farms for breeding careers. Some who
follow industry developments from the outside have called it one of the most incredible
animal-welfare success stories of the last 20 years. Industry and
adoption representatives continue to strive for eventual 100 percent placement
of all adoptable retirees. Efforts and trends in 2006 nudged the industry that
much closer to its eventual goal.
Other projects of the AGC in 2006 include continuation of the farm
inspections program (through the National Greyhound Association) and funding
for the Greyhound Health Research & Information Network (GHRIN) through
Virginia Tech, which monitors the day-to-day health status of racing Greyhounds
at all tracks across the country. GHRIN went on-line midway through
2005 and can be viewed at www.ghrin.org.
Still another AGC project is
continued funding for research and development of a vaccine to combat the
outbreaks of kennel cough and secondary infections caused by Bordetella
Bronchiseptica. Greyhound racing endured through at least another
major outbreak in the late spring, early summer of 2006, in what seems to have
become an annual or semi-annual event that cripples the industry for lengthy
stretches of time. These outbreaks result in hundreds of infected Greyhounds
(including occasional deaths), reduction and suspension of racing programs,
quarantines and a virtual paralysis of the sport itself. It’s desperately hoped that the vaccine
being developed will bring significant relief from this on-going problem.
Despite
legislatures in several Greyhound racing states continuing to deny their
racetracks the opportunity to offer casino-style gaming (Kansas and Texas
foremost among them this past year), there was much anticipation in 2006 about
the projected opening of electronic games in two tracks: Hollywood Greyhound
Park (now called Mardi Gras Racetrack & Gaming Center) in Hallandale Beach,
FL, and Southland Greyhound Park in W. Memphis, AR.
You will recall
that the voters in Broward County gave their approval in early 2005 to add slot
machines into the four pari-mutuel facilities in the county “that had conducted
live par-mutual’s foe the last 2 years”. In December the Track unveiled 1,147
slot machines in a New Orleans themed
building.
Meanwhile, the
Arkansas Legislature passed a measure permitting electronic “games of skill” to
be installed at the state’s two pari-mutuel facilities—one of those being
Southland—subject to city or county voters’ approval. The thumbs-up vote for
that came in November 2005. Southland
was projected to have the additional gaming operations up and running by late
2006.
While business continues to thrive at
tracks in those states that do offer additional types of gaming—Iowa (two
tracks), Rhode Island (one track), West Virginia (two tracks) and now one track
in Florida and Arkansas— Barring the eventual introduction of
additional forms of gaming (and tracks continue their legislative pursuit of
such games), closure appears to be a real possibility with respect to several
of the smaller or weaker facilities.
At least one
racetrack closed its gates permanently in 2005: Shoreline Star, in Bridgeport,
Ct., which first converted from a jai-alai fronton
to Greyhound racing in 1995. The track was purchased by a company that was
permitted to operate simulcast racing from the venue without a requirement for
live racing. With an excellent pet adoption program at the track itself, and
with numerous adoption agencies in the area, the adoption of all Greyhounds
that might have been displaced as a result of the closing was handled
successfully and efficiently. Shoreline’s closing brought to an end a 30-year
run of live Greyhound racing in the state of Connecticut—the only other track,
Plainfield (which opened in 1976),
closed its doors in 2005.
The decline in
business over the years has factored strongly into the decline on the breeding
side of the industry. The National Greyhound Association, the sport’s official
registry in Abilene, Ks., reports that breeding registrations have taken
another big dip the last three years (pursuant to a 35 percent drop from 1992
to 1999, followed by a leveling off period early on in the 2000s).
Registrations in 2004 were down 10 percent, followed by a 14 percent decline in
2005. Records halfway through the year in 2006 showed still another drop of 13
percent projected for 2006. The most recent three-year decline actually
surpasses the downsizing that the industry experienced in the 1990s.
One other
concern facing the industry was the possible passage of a bill in 2006 that
would forbid online gamblers from using credit cards and other payment forms
for settling Internet wagers. While horse racing, with its Interstate Horse
Racing Act from the 1970s, which permits simulcast wagering on horse races
across state lines under certain conditions, is likely exempt from the bill (at
least in its current form, which passed the House in July 2006), other types of
gaming (including that on Greyhound racing) might not be as fortunate. The jury
is still out on this issue, and on the fate of this bill.
Greyhound racing’s “wish list” for 2007 would certainly
include the following:
·
A
vaccine that would significantly curtail the ravages of kennel cough
that have been so prevalent in recent years
·
Legislative
approval to conduct slots and/or other types of games of chance in a couple of
new states (Kansas foremost among them) and expand VLT’s statewide in Florida
·
Pet placements that would further close the gap on the goal of 100 percent adoption
·
Renewed
interest in the Sport of Greyhound racing perhaps spawned by the Derby
Lane Million and other interest-generating stake events.