THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 12, 1994 TAG: 9410120446
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHANIE STOUGHTON AND ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: LAUREL, MD. LENGTH: Long : 155 lines
The Maryland Million recently packed the Laurel Race Course here, but you couldn't spot a fan in Patrick Sullivan's bar and restaurant next door. It was empty, except for the owner in the back and the bartender behind the counter.
After the races, same story. Track visitors no longer seem to stop by the place.
``This bar used to be four deep after they left the track for dinner,'' Sullivan said.
Today, one of five Virginia applicants is expected to get permission to build the state's only horse track. Anxious supporters are preparing celebrations in Portsmouth and Virginia Beach and in New Kent and Prince William counties.
Each locale looks to the track as a bonanza. But an examination of what's happening elsewhere could be sobering.
In Maryland, and across the nation, race tracks have felt the sting of dropping attendance and, more important, declining bets.
The slump has hammered everyone dependent on the industry, from nearby hotels and restaurants to the farms that supply the horses.
At Maryland's Timonium Race Course, which now runs only 10 days a year, the manager of the adjacent Turf Inn can't remember when the track brought in crowds.
Even Pimlico, home of TripleCrown's Preakness, hasn't gone unscathed.
The five-star Pimlico Hotel moved a few miles up the road, and the Holiday Inn also bolted, mostly because of crime in the track's neighborhood.
``Personally, as a business, it doesn't improve or take anything away from me,'' said Sister Lee Faye, a psychic who spoke from her couch while waiting for the next customer to walk into her home across the street from the Pimlico track.
When the Virginia Racing Commission announces which of five applicants gets to build the state's track, it will end several years of heated and expensive competition among communities.
The big question, though, is whether a Virginia track, and the businesses hoping to profit from it, will be any more successful than their neighbors to the north.
In Berlin, a small community on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Nancy Mears has watched the slow decline of the Delmarva Downs Race Course.
``It was big business in the '80s,'' said Mears, who runs a pumpkin and produce stand near the track. ``Man o' War raced down here. People used to come down from all over the place.''
But the race course that once drew hordes of tourists from Ocean City now is mostly an attraction for locals, said Mears, who grew up in a farming and horse-breeding family. The track's owners have tried to attract beach visitors, but those efforts haven't been a resounding success, Mears said.
The track's decline has affected Mears' family and many others in this agricultural community who raise, train and race horses to supplement their farming income. But losing it would be their worst nightmare.
``I could give you a list of people who are connected to the track - people who work there, people who raise and race horses, people who depend on the track for extra income,'' she said. ``If it closed, the farmers in their 50s and 60s, where would they go?''
Analysts say a track's impact on the local economy and its chances of success depend on the general health of the industry and specific choices made by the track's management.
What's certain is that a Virginia track must draw crowds and money at a time when the average racing fan is getting older or moving to lotteries and casinos.
Take Ed and Richard Day, two fans who drove from Northern Virginia to Laurel to take in the Maryland Million. Their money went straight to the track and nowhere else - except maybe a gas station on the way. They brought sandwiches so they didn't have to spend cash on food.
They are middle-class, ``salt-of-the-earth kind of guys,'' said Richard Day, of Culpeper County.
The brothers, in their 40s, were among the youngest at the track.
``One of the misleading things being said is that when gaming comes into a neighborhood, it's going to save or help the businesses around it,'' said Stephen Grogan, editor and publisher of The Grogan Report, a casino and gaming trade publication. ``You should not look at a race track as a shot in the arm for surrounding businesses.''
The most prosperous tracks these days, analysts say, are often those that operate for shorter seasons and draw fans from a region or state. Those are also the ones that tend to attract restaurants and hotels.
``Saratoga only races for 10 weeks, and there is a ton of businesses that would die if the track weren't there,'' said Raymond S. Paulick, editor-in-chief of The Blood-Horse, a leading racing magazine based in Lexington, Ky.
Joseph A. DeFrancis, owner of the Laurel and Pimlico race courses, noted that Maryland is trying to sustain a mature network of tracks while Virginia would be starting from scratch.
``The difference between Maryland and another state is that we've had racing here for 250 years,'' DeFrancis said.
If the track comes to Virginia Beach, Churchill Downs President Thomas H. Meeker, whose company would operate it, predicts larger than normal spinoff benefits.
``The race track alone will not be the tourist magnet, but if you already have a tourist magnet, the race track becomes more important as part of the overall product,'' Meeker said.
Even if a horse track doesn't have restaurants and hotels around it, it still can boost the economy, say track owners. A track buys specialized equipment, hay for horses, and hamburger patties for its restaurant. It employs veterinarians, trainers and manual laborers.
But much of this money does not go into the local economy, said Robert Lawrence, chairman of the department of equine administration at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
``Tracks need very specialized equipment and people,'' Lawrence said. ``You might not have people growing a lot of hay right around the track, but horses sure consume a lot of it every day, along with special medications.
``Tracks don't buy from the neighborhood, and they often don't employ from the neighborhood, but that doesn't mean they don't employ from the state.''
Tracks can still affect a local economy, even if it isn't obvious, Lawrence said. Around the Laurel track, residents started complaining about traffic from track visitors. To prove its economic impact, the track began paying off bets with $2 bills, which are seldom circulated.
``There was a flood of $2 bills in gas stations, restaurants and 7-Elevens,'' Lawrence said.
The racing industry as a whole is in decline. Most tracks that opened in the last decade have failed or done poorly. The latest is the Houston track, which opened in April and has not attracted as many fans or bets as expected.
``The track in Houston was fraught with management errors, and lack of marketing and planning,'' said Paulick, editor-in-chief of the Blood-Horse.
But there are others that have failed. The Prairie Meadow race track in Des Moines, Iowa, the Birmingham Race Course in Alabama, and Canterbury Downs near St. Paul, Minn. - all opened in the last decade, and all are either closed or in trouble.
Churchill Downs is preparing for what it believes is an intensely competitive race-track environment. A study by the company, best known for its Kentucky Derby, predicts that the number of U.S. tracks will drop from about 90 to 45 by the end of the century. The remaining tracks will produce the top races and sell the off-track betting telecasts, the study shows.
But DeFrancis, owner of the Laurel and Pimlico race courses, said the industry is rebounding.
``It has been deteriorating for the last 15 years,'' he said. ``But actually, it has bottomed out and is making a comeback.''
Paulick points out that by one indicator - the sale of horses - the industry is doing better than ever. This year in Lexington, breeders sold 2,800 yearlings for a total of $104 million. Both the average price and the total sales were the highest ever.
Racers would not be paying top dollars for horses, Paulick said, if they didn't expect people to keep going to the track and placing bets. But Paulick admits this hopeful statistic flies in the face of otherwise gloomy news about the industry.
If Virginians are smart, Paulick said, they will keep out riverboats and other forms of casino gambling that detract from horse racing.
Said Paulick, ``The best chance for success in Virginia is to create a chance for something that is unique, for people who love horses.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
TODD DUDEK
Nancy Mears, who runs a produce stand near the Delmarva Downs Race
Course in Berlin, Md., says the track drew crowds of tourists in the
1980s but now attracts mostly locals.
KEYWORDS: RACE TRACKS HORSE RACING by CNB