Playfair Receives New Life December Racing Plan Brings More Questions Than Answers

The Washington State Horse Racing Commission looked beyond the interests of one single racing association Friday and outlined a startling plan whereby the state’s thoroughbred industry might get through the winter.

With a visionary and complicated order, the commission laid out a temporary plan under which racing would be conducted at Emerald Downs and Playfair Race Course in Spokane starting Dec. 6.

No sooner had the order come down than officials at both associations - and horsemen throughout the Inland Northwest - huddled and came out with some of the same questions:

Is it too little, too late to save Playfair?

Will the long-awaited advent of dual-carding in Washington work in winter?

Playfair general manager Kim Rich said she was impressed with the commission’s action, which caught the industry by surprise.

Its sudden concern for Playfair brought immediate response. Efforts were under way at the Spokane track Friday to meet the deadline of a Friday, Dec. 6, 1 p.m. opening day in Spokane, Rich said.

Under the plan, Playfair will carry races every 15 minutes, from 12 to 20 races a day. That total would include up to eight live racing events here combined with the entire card at Emerald Downs plus as many as two out-of-state simulcasts.

Of concern locally is the potential negative effect of separate parimutuel wagering pools at the two tracks. The state’s satellite wagering law prohibits co-mingling, or combining, wagering dollars.

So Playfair is to receive 3-3/4 percent of the wagering on its races shown at the state’s key King County outlet, Emerald Downs. Playfair made its profit previously with exclusive simulcasting rights statewide in the fall.

The absence of exclusivity in King County could be offset should simulcast wagering be revived at the Muckleshoot casino in Auburn.

The commission set the season in Spokane from Dec. 6 through March 23. Emerald will operate Dec. 6 through March 2. That gives Playfair three weeks of exclusive statewide simulcasting.

Should weather complications force cancellation of a race program in Spokane - which has never operated this late in the year - the warmer weather at the Auburn track is a safety net.

Commissioners Barbara Shinpoch of Renton, Robert Plut of Seattle and Jim Seabeck of Spokane issued a summary of the order. It reads, “The commission somewhat reluctantly found that it is in the best interests of racing to attempt to structure an innovative and experimental award of racing dates that will be of maximum benefit to the industry.

“This is experimental and not intended to be precedent-setting.”

The commission “continues to view Yakima Meadows as the state’s winter racing facility.” When dates that had been awarded to the operator at Yakima Meadows were turned back on Oct. 18, officials at what has become known as Old Playfair were the only licensed applicants to apply for winter dates.

That group, headed by Stan Horton, is back in the saddle. The order stipulates that no money come from the Muckleshoot Tribe, which has been denied a license to operate the Spokane track.

Playfair lost its traditional fall simulcasting dates this year to Emerald Downs but now has a clear shot at opening for a 59th season.

The general manager at Emerald Downs, Marie Connelly, expressed “preliminary concerns.”

“We question the soundness of operating two competing meets in light of the local and nationwide thoroughbred population issues,” she said. “We are very concerned that the surplus of tax funds that would be generated by our meet will be utilized by the commission to regulate a competing meet. In effect, we would be subsidizing the cost of Playfair’s meet.”

Connelly also pointed to duplication of costs from overlapping meets.

“This order breaks new ground at a time when the industry is still at a very fragile state,” she said.

Breaking new ground is a first, at least to Spokane horse people who have criticized the commission for ignoring its concerns.

The executive board and steering committee of the Spokane horsemen’s group will meet Monday at Playfair. Jay Healy, a founder of the Organization to Preserve Horse Racing in the Northwest, said he will run horses at Playfair in the winter.

“This (dual-carding) is something we’ve always wanted to try, but with separate pooling and winter racing are we being set up to fail?” he said. “We have mixed emotions.”

Dividing fresh horses from Yakima and elsewhere - will they come to Spokane or go to Emerald? - and spreading the jockey colony too thinly between the two tracks were among Healy’s concerns.

, DataTimes