Playfair Extension Appears Stalled Spokane Horse Racing Course Stuck With Same 50-Day Season

An intense, five-month campaign to add warm-weather racing dates in Spokane appears stalled.

Inland Northwest horsemen remain stuck with the same 50-day racing season that was outlined last December.

Playfair Race Course will open Sept. 6 and operate through Nov. 27, weather permitting, Washington Horse Racing Commission executive secretary Bruce Batson said Tuesday.

All races will go to state-wide off-track betting locations.

The Spokane-based Organization to Preserve Horse Racing in the Northwest is working for an August start to a season it says will not last through November because of typically poor weather.

The group had hoped that a provision attached to the state budget would require the commission to grant Playfair a minimum of 60 days of on-site racing with state-wide simulcasting.

The clause as it turned out does not tie funding of the racing commission to a 60-day season, Batson said.

“The result of that was a statement that says the commission shall conduct a complete examination of Playfair’s problems and offer solutions,” Batson said. “The commission will conduct the examination but I don’t know when or what form it will take.”

In another matter, the commission is waiting for recommendations by Spokane administrative law judge David Hanson in the appeal of jockey agent LeRoy Nelson.

Nelson was the only one of six men named in a race-fixing scheme at Playfair in September 1993 to appeal the suspension of his license to work at Washington state tracks.

Elsewhere, the track in Auburn is expected to be complete by April.

, DataTimes