COl. Matt Wynn Is Weeping!

“As a member of the HBPA during the lead-up to the casino industries consumption of the horse racing industry, Ed Flint, our President at the time, myself and others during the 1980s went toe-to-toe with Churchill Downs in the effort to protect the interest of the racing industry from the whores and crooks who built Las Vegas. These were hard-fought rights in the continuation of a live racing card which was the battleground built into the legislation. Now forty years later...money has won and the lethargy of the working industry has fumbled the ball and signed the "death certificate" of live racing! Can you even imagine a court that cannot see through the illegal possibilities of utilizing old films for gambling on the HHR machines instead of live racing but on by hard-working real people on the backside and the honest-to-god-horses which we have foaled and trained to race.? Are the courts blind or has the long arm of the lobby gotten to them with political contributions? Why are the horseman sitting on their hands...we should be out in mass protesting at every track and casino...even if we must pay the protesters which is being done by other efforts for justice and getting away with crazy doings like the "cancel culture" movement!” Welby Thomas Cox, Jr., author

State Representative Bob Heleringer (Louisville) who was there for the battles in the 80's is still there and he shares the following:

“Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.”

That isn’t a famous quote from one of the nation’s Founding Fathers, it’s a generic drill once used by millions of students in typing classes, ostensibly because it completely fills one, 70-space line on a piece of paper. The expression now has a meaning beyond a mere classroom, at least in Kentucky, for NOW is the time for all good men and women in this state to come to the aid of their beloved horse racing industry.

If the pandemic and the onslaught of PETA (People for the Elimination of [All] Thoroughbred Action) were not enough to nearly destroy the sport of horse racing in the United States, last September Kentucky’s own Supreme Court dealt the commonwealth’s signature industry a blow that, if not rectified, may prove to be fatal. The high court unanimously held that so-called Historical Horse Racing (HHR) or instant racing was not "pari-mutuel” wagering, the only kind of gambling permitted by state law and thus is “illegal.”

 This decision was a complete reversal from the court’s ruling in 2014 that, at least temporarily, authorized HHR to continue but sent the case back to the lower court to allow the anti-gambling Family Foundation that had intervened in the case to take “discovery.” (Discovery is the pre-trial process of obtaining discoverable evidence from an opponent in a lawsuit.)

This process took four years culminating in another lower-court decision that upheld the legality of HHR as pari-mutuel — defined as patrons betting against each other with the racetrack only serving as a “stakeholder” of the wagered money and, after its share is deducted from the “pool,” the balance is returned to the bettors with winning tickets. Back to the Supreme Court it went, only this time, after seeing the evidence the discovery process produced, ruled the opposite way holding that betting on “historical” (previously run) races through a device that looks like a slot machine was NOT pari-mutuel wagering and so this form of betting used at nearly all of Kentucky’s racetracks was declared illegal.

It wasn’t lost on anyone in horse racing circles that this devastating opinion was written by Justice Laurance VanMeter, whose Supreme Court district is centered in Lexington and the surrounding counties that comprise the heart of the state’s thoroughbred breeding industry. No matter how correct the decision was about the law, Justice VanMeter took pains to add, “We [the Court] acknowledge the importance and significance of this industry to the Commonwealth. We appreciate the numerable economic pressures that impact it... [I]f a change in the... definition of pari-mutuel wagering is to be made, the change must be made by... duly-elected legislators.”

The dominoes have begun to fall. Ellis Park in Henderson recently announced it has no future without HHR. Churchill Downs abruptly “paused” its $100 million renovation of Turfway Park in Florence, after it had paid $46 million to buy the place and spent $5.6 million on a new, safer synthetic racing surface. It will probably discontinue plans to invest $38 million in a new HHR facility in Newport. Because of the substantial revenue derived from this new form of betting over the last 15 years, Kentucky’s racetracks, both thoroughbred and harness, have experienced explosive growth in purse money. This has sustained an industry that is struggling everywhere else outside of Oaklawn Park and Saratoga. Kentucky’s horse industry represents 60,000 jobs and a $5.2 billion economic impact on the state’s economy. The horse industry pays more than $100 million annually in state and local taxes.

These numbers impact real lives and livelihoods throughout the commonwealth. Someone you know may be an owner, trainer, jockey, groom, hotwalker, exercise rider, stable foreman, van driver, mutuel clerk, racing official, valet, bloodstock agent, stall superintendent, outrider, blacksmith, veterinarian, feed man, assistant starter, tractor driver; sells programs, tip sheets, hot dogs and beer to the fans or works in the track kitchen serving meals to the backside workers. Away from the racetrack, they could be among thousands of people who sustain our beautiful horse farms or work as a bid spotter at horse auctions. Some dedicated souls teach backstretch workers’ kids at Churchill’s Backside Learning Center (hello, Sherry Stanley!). It once included your humble columnist who got through college and law school working in a variety of jobs at all of Kentucky’s racetracks.

 Racing’s champions in Frankfort — Gov. Andy Beshear, Sens. Damon Thayer and John Schickel, House Speaker David Osborne, and committee chairman Adam Koenig — are ready with a bill to address the crisis. But they can’t succeed in this rescue mission unless a bluegrass roots effort is undertaken to convince legislators of the importance of saving not just Kentucky’s signature industry, but a way of life that has been this state’s trademark since 1793 when they raced thoroughbreds through the streets of Lexington.

And to the zealots who would destroy this heritage because they believe gambling is “immoral,” let me repeat a line I didn’t learn in my typing class but in an American history class: “We have not yet begun to fight.”

• This session of the Kentucky General Assembly may well use the recent ruling to begin the slide into horse racing oblivion and it is amazing to me how any Kentucky legislator can't see through this greedy power move by the casino industry? Has anyone forgotten from whence that industry came? It was born of mob money! Welby Thomas Cox, Jr, author
• Opinion: Historical Horse Racing boosts Kentucky's economy, and legislature must protect it

Bob Heleringer is a Louisville attorney and Republican who served in Kentucky's House from the 33rd District from 1980 to 2002. He can be reached at [email protected].