Racing Fraternity Rallies Around Playfair Owners, Trainers, Breeders Organize, Discuss Ways To Save Racing In Spokane

Horse racing in Spokane isn’t dead just yet.

Thoroughbred owners, trainers and breeders turned out in force Saturday to seek relief from the harsh racing dates handed down last month by the state racing commission.

“We targeted the commission last month and were ignored,” said Jay Healy, a member of a steering committee that organized a 2-hour meeting at Playfair Race Course. “Now we have to analyze just where the hell we go from here.”

Where they go is to the phones, the fax machines and the mailbox to raise awareness of horse racing’s precarious situation here. They say they will appeal to the governor, petition the Washington state legislature and try to convince Inland Northwest businesses that the loss of the racing industry represents trouble for the local economy.

About 400 horse people from as far away as Great Falls, Mont., crowded into the Paddock Lounge at Playfair Race Course to hear a sixman steering committee urge them to unite in a common cause.

Their objective is to extend the racing season at Playfair. The Spokane track is to open Sept. 6 and close Nov. 27. Typical late-November weather would eliminate 10 days from the assigned 50-day season.

The committee’s goal is to get the state to soften its policy on statewide off-track betting.

The Spokane track needs the Western Washington market to survive. On-site betting in Spokane is no longer enough to pay the bills.

So what the committee hopes to achieve is some form of dual-card simulcasting with an overlap of racing seasons - basically doubling up, with racing from Yakima by day in the summer with Playfair under the lights at betting locations throughout the state.

Although dual-card satellite wagering programs work in other states, the Washington state racing commission has turned thumbs down on it.

Emerald Racing Association, a West Side group that has conducted the summer meet at Yakima since the 1992 closure of Longacres in Renton, opposes it in part because they see it as an intrusion into their traditional market.

HBPA president Carl Baze was asked to forward a letter of explanation and a ballot with a single issue to horsemen statewide.

The ballot, committeeman Don Strate said, asks, “Do you or do you not favor dual-card satelliting?”

The committee put forth a proposal that it hopes the state HBPA will support. It urges that dual-card simulcasting be allowed at all facilities statewide on a trial basis for one year.

Baze said he would let the HBPA board decide whether to distribute the ballot or turn it down.

“Some of our board members tell me there’s only a half-dozen professional people (horsemen) over here,” Baze said. “And it’s not going to make a whole lot of difference if Spokane goes by the wayside.

“But we do need Playfair. If we don’t have a minor track, the horses that can’t run at the Emerald meet (in Yakima) aren’t worth any more than saddle horses, or $500 apiece.

“That’s the role Playfair has always played in the state.”

Committeeman Curt Golden, a veterinarian at Playfair, said he has been advised that the governor’s policy advisor in Olympia, Don Wolgamott, “will request a meeting with (racing commission chairperson) Barbara Shinpoch to review the decision (on race dates).”

The announcement was greeted with applause.

Judith Gilmore of Governor Mike Lowry’s Spokane office said she was impressed with the presentation.

“I don’t think Playfair is something that this governor - an Eastern Washington resident himself - wants to do in,” she said. “It’s a matter of keeping it fair. I can see why there is some question why Emerald has the impact it has (with the racing commission).”

Healy said management at Playfair “has to rethink the dates they proposed (to the commission). The request can be withdrawn. A massive mistake was made. A crumb has been thrown to us and, like minorities of the past, we’re supposed to take it and say thank you.”