Playfair Opening A Long Shot In ‘96 Citing $1 Million Losses, Management Won’t Seek Race Dates This Year.

Citing losses of more than $1 million during the last four years, the general manager of Playfair Race Course will not seek a 1996 season when the Washington State Horse Racing Commission meets today.

The decision all but assures Spokane of no on-site horse racing for the first time since the sport was suspended for the duration of World War II.

General manager Dan Hillyard of Playfair Racing Inc., said Tuesday that if the track is dark in ‘96, more than 1,000 jobs in the Inland Northwest - mostly seasonal - will be lost.

Hillyard included in his estimate employment at the track - management, racing officials, clerks and food and beverage workers. He also cites jockeys, horsemen, their employees and support businesses, such as feed and grain suppliers.

Playfair Racing President Stan Horton, a Spokane businessman and thoroughbred owner, terminated the lease Tuesday after concluding that the track faces a $400,000 loss if it were to operate with available race dates.

“And that’s the best-case scenario,” Hillyard said. “With the new track in Auburn starting on June 20, there just isn’t enough calendar left. Winter racing in Spokane is no solution. We’re kidding ourselves to think we can run in December.”

Hillyard said he will ask the commission to reserve 58 days of racing, from mid-August through December, in case another operator should emerge this year.

Those dates include only 27 days of statewide off-track betting. Growing competition from Native American casinos, state lotteries and bingo has made horse racing no longer financially feasible with strictly local audiences.

“The horsemen feel we’ve let them down,” Hillyard said.

Trainer Mike Odom agreed.

“They were leading us to believe they were going to be able to make it,” he said. “I’m shocked, is what I am. I don’t know what avenue is left now.”

Odom said he will attend today’s racing commission meeting hoping that Spokane horsemen can spur the process of transition to another operator.

Playfair is owned by Spokane businessman Jack Pring, who bought the facility in 1981.

“We met with Jack and although I can’t speak for him, he understands our plight and is empathetic to it,” Hillyard said.

Attempts to reach Pring, who was out of town Tuesday, were not successful. The lease with Horton’s group had another year to run.

“We’ve lost over $1 million in the last four years,” Hillyard said. “That’s sad because everyone has tried to make it work. The horsemen here have stood up. It’s just not there in ‘96.

“Stan is crushed right now,” Hillyard added. “His commitment went into live racing. He didn’t want to be the man to shut it down.”

That decision now reverts to Pring, who declined to operate his track after the 1989 season. It was leased to a horsemen’s group headed by Joe Rizzuto for two seasons before Horton came in with the resources to remodel parts of the facility.

Although Horton tried a number of promotional approaches in four years, and ultimately failed, the future isn’t hopeless.

The Legislature is considering a measure that would subsidize the Spokane track with a portion of the parimutuel wagering handle from Emerald Downs, the new track in Auburn. The subsidy would run for five years and be capped at $350,000 a year, Hillyard said.

The bill has the support of Emerald Downs president Ron Crockett, Hillyard said.

The money would be divided between Playfair horsemen and the track operator, should an operator emerge.

The bill wasn’t enough of a carrot to keep the Horton group running.

The loss of 21 statewide simulcasting days in ‘96 represents a projected $700,000 decline in parimutuel wagering at Playfair, Hillyard said.

“Crockett has helped in developing this legislation that would pull together $300,000 to $350,000 in subsidies from his track,” Hillyard said, “but even if that passes, about the best that can happen is that we lose $400,000.”

Long a critic of Crockett and other Western Washington-based leaders of the thoroughbred industry opposed to overlapping seasons and full-card simulcasting, Hillyard said Crockett’s support of the subsidy is a potential key to a future at Playfair.

“In 1997, tracks in this state will drop back to their traditional dates,” Hillyard said, citing the West Side season in a usual year as April through early September.

The June 20 opening of Emerald Downs means the new track will stay open into November.

Next year, Playfair would regain the September-through-November dates of the financially acceptable 1995 season, Hillyard said.

All 48 days at Playfair that year were shown at off-track betting sites throughout the state. That led to a 1995 daily wagering average of $456,677. A total of 132,468 fans in the state wagered $22,352,496.

Those numbers were significantly better than in 1994, when the track had only 34 days of statewide wagering and 42 days without satellite wagering.

The 1996 projection - 27 days of satellite wagering, weather permitting, and 31 days without satellite wagering - was too bleak to pursue.

Parts of the grandstand on the Spokane racing site went up in 1901. Although the state prohibited wagering on horse racing in the early part of the century, annual fall racing continued at the site through the Depression. In 1935, the facility was updated and named Playfair.

It has been in operation for 59 seasons.

“We’re the only track in America our size that is trying to go without full-card simulcasting,” Hillyard said. “There comes a point when you have to say, under the circumstances, enough.”

Full-carding is offering horse players the opportunity to wager on daily racing programs at tracks nationwide.

Trainer Odom said, “This is a sad deal, but if you believe in miracles there’s still time to put something together. It’s feasible (for the Spokane track) to run in April, May and June. That may be brought up (today, at the commission meeting).”

The commission last month awarded those dates - effectively extending an ongoing season - to Yakima Meadows.

, DataTimes