Racing Industry

With voter approval of slot machines in Tuesday's election, Maryland's horse racing industry knows it has gotten a clean break from the starting gate in chasing what promises to be a substantial increase in revenue. But breeders, owners, trainers, track operators and everyone else involved also know they have a long way to go in realizing the promise of what slots money might mean to their flagging industry. "This is a first step," said Mike Pons, who owns a breeding farm in Bel Air and a training facility in Baltimore County.

It's always difficult to separate the issues of whether we need slots in Maryland and whether those slots might save the horse racing industry. But it's an important distinction. After years of mulling it over, I've come to the conclusion that we do need slots, especially now that we're facing such an enormous budget crisis in Maryland. But if we get them, we can't pretend slots are going to save the Sport of Kings. Because they won't. They might keep the industry from circling the drain and might give pause to some of the top jockeys, owners and trainers who are migrating to Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, but without some major changes, it isn't going to be the long-term savior it's made out to be. The small-time operations and horse farms are still going to be holding on by hooves and teeth.

The horse-racing industry and gambling companies have pumped $3.8 million into a campaign to convince voters to approve slot machine gambling in Maryland, according to campaign finance documents released yesterday. Slots supporters have out-raised opponents by a margin of 9-to-1, figures show, spending their proceeds on a wave of television advertising and aggressive door-to-door campaigning. Advocates said the donations reflect a strong desire among horse breeders, owners and trainers to save historic industry devastated by competition from neighboring states that offer slots.

In horse racing, the term "abandoned" refers to a race that's canceled and all bets returned. Many in Maryland's horse racing industry will be disappointed to find out their abandonment by Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. involves no return on investment. The former governor's recent decision to oppose his successor's plan for legalized slots hit his former allies at the tracks like a thoroughbred owner whose jockey just got called for interference of his own horse. One local racing lobbyist, a man who served time in prison for fraud, told a Washington Post reporter that Mr. Ehrlich's performance marked "a new low in Maryland politics."

A November slots referendum designed to keep millions in gambling dollars from going to nearby states would, if approved, likely end up sending millions in tax revenue to out-of-state racehorse owners, according to a new analysis by a taxpayer advocacy group. In 2007, 58 percent of Maryland thoroughbred race winnings went to out-of-state owners, according to the report to be released today by the Maryland Tax Education Foundation. If that trend continues, much of the $80 million in annual thoroughbred purse subsidies under the proposed legislation will continue to flow to non-Maryland horse owners and a small number of in-state breeders, said Jeffrey C. Hooke, a gambling analyst and president of the Bethesda-based nonprofit.

Halsey Minor, a technology entrepreneur who grew up in Virginia horse country near Charlottesville, said he believes the horse racing industry has been its own worst enemy and he has an idea about how to fix it. Minor wants nothing to do with slot machines, shopping malls, movie theaters or anything else that doesn't relate directly to the horse and its entourage - trainer, owner and jockey. And Minor thinks horse racing should feel the same way. "I have been appalled at the lack of fan support and the industry's failure to bring fans back into live racing," he said.

No mere horse has been able to challenge Big Brown's speed, but today at Belmont Park, the handsome, personable colt will attempt to outrun something bigger - history. If he succeeds, he'll become the 12th thoroughbred since 1919, and the first since Affirmed in 1978, to win the Triple Crown. The 30-year drought is the longest ever in the series. Many observers think Big Brown is the horse to overcome the turns of fate and the grueling 1 1/2-mile course that have stymied previous contenders.

Kent Desormeaux had his own Howard Dean moment after Big Brown's dominating Preakness victory yesterday. Voicing over a replay of the race while being interviewed by NBC, Desormeaux described the moment when he eased off the brakes so Big Brown could pull away: "I just let him go. Bye-bye! Woooooo!" The jockey's high spirits permeated NBC's telecast, even before the race. Interviewed back in the jockeys' room by Bob Costas, Desormeaux was articulate, good-humored and obviously excited.

Big Brown's come-from-behind victory in yesterday's Preakness Stakes, setting up a potential Triple Crown for the first time in three decades, sent fans at Pimlico Race Course into fits of joy - and pushed aside, if only for the moment, unease over the safety of horse racing. "There's your Triple Crown! There's your Triple Crown!" screamed Suzanne DePaula of Baltimore as Big Brown pulled ahead down the stretch. In the grandstand, ecstatic fans who had made Big Brown the far-and-away favorite stood on their seats and cheered the horse toward home.

At yesterday's Alibi Breakfast, there was much of the latter but remarkably little of the former. Usually, this pre-Preakness event is an opportunity for big talk. Owners and trainers would make boastful predictions about how their horses would do in the race - or perhaps start dropping excuses should they perform badly - and politicians would use the event to promote the need to support the grand tradition of thoroughbred racing. Translation: Slots. Slots! SLOTS. But this year, with Kentucky Derby winner Big Brown far and away the favorite in Saturday's Preakness, most of the breakfast-goers speaking on behalf of the other horses in the race were not so much bragging as nearly conceding.