Area Horsemen Continue Fight For August Racing Dates But With Time Running Out, Chances Look Remote For Changes This Year
With time running out on their drive to lengthen the 1995 racing season, Spokane horse people say they’ll turn down the rhetoric without sacrificing their resolve.
Leaders of the Organization for the Preservation of Horse Racing in the Northwest (OPHRN) met Thursday to talk strategy and vent their frustration - privately - in the wake of a disappointing decision by the Washington Horse Racing Commission.
The commission on Tuesday reaffirmed 1995 racing dates at Playfair Race Course that restrict Inland Northwest horsemen to 50 days from Sept. 6 to Nov. 27.
Although OPHRN co-chairman Mike Odom said the Spokane group still hopes to pick up race nights in August, Tuesday’s decision brought the Draconian 50-day season in Spokane closer to reality.
Typically brutal mid-November would curtail the already abbreviated season.
Odom, who attended the commission meeting in Yakima, said commission chair Barbara Shinpoch left the door open for talks before May 1 that could lead to the addition of August racing dates in Spokane.
But racing commission executive secretary Bruce Batson said Friday that Shinpoch wants to meet with Playfair management and horsemen after May 1 to discuss the future.
“Her comments Tuesday didn’t seem to me to involve ‘95 racing dates,’ Batson said.
Leaders of OPHRN say they will continue to work for their share of the state’s wagering dollar.
The issue is the King County customer. Western Washington-based Emerald Racing Association wants the Puget Sound market to itself, even though there is no track on the West Side.
Playfair Race Course and Inland Northwest horsemen can’t run an economically feasible race meet without off-track betting in the state’s population center.
While Inland Northwest horse people decide whether to put their horses in training - or delay training because of Playfair’s later opening - two related issues surfaced.
The long-awaited hearing involving race-fixing allegations at Playfair dating to November, 1993, is scheduled to start on April 10.
Jockeys Darren Parker and Scott Bergsrud and jockey’s agent LeRoy Nelson are expected to testify in front of administrative law judge David Hansen, who will turn over a preliminary order to the racing commission.
The racing commission has retained the authority to judge.
“You’ve got a judge to rule on evidence and objections but somebody else makes the decisions,” Bergsrud’s Spokane attorney, Mark Vovos, said. “That doesn’t square with what I’m used to.”
The hearing is scheduled for the Attorney General’s office, W1116 Riverside, at 9 a.m. The hearing could go on for up to two weeks.
Also surfacing is a move to bring horse racing to Greyhound Park at Post Falls.
Adding on-site thoroughbred racing is an “inquiry by an exploratory committee,” Greyhound Park general manager Al May said.
“There has been no commitment or talk of financing,” May said. “It’s at best a long shot. It would require a major capital expenditure, additional land and a change in (state) legislation.”
It would also represent another option for embattled local horse people who have been unable to convince Washington state racing industry leaders to experiment with overlapping seasons.
The Emerald Association meet at Yakima Meadows starts April 13. It includes 100 days through Sept. 4.
Playfair goes Sept. 6-Nov. 27.
The Apple Tree Association meeting at Yakima Meadows is to begin Nov. 29 and run into next spring.
All dates include statewide off-track betting.
A compromise has been struck locally - Playfair general manager Dan Hillyard says horsemen have the authority to speak for the track in an effort to win August race dates - but so far OPHRN has struck out at the state policy level in its push for overlapping seasons.
Overlapping would allow Playfair to operate statewide on the same dates the Emerald meeting is going on in Yakima.
OPHRN co-chairman Mike Odom said,
“The whole issue is racing dates in August. We have to have them.”