THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 6, 1997 TAG: 9701040010
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 55 lines
At its December meeting two weeks ago, the Virginia Racing Commission revealed that it would ask the General Assembly not to re-enact legislation passed last year requiring the Colonial Downs horse track to be open for business by July 1.
It seems curious that the commission - established by the state to oversee and enforce the laws regarding pari-mutuel and off-track betting - is now in the business of lobbying on behalf of the business it is supposed to watch. Some watchdog.
State legislators should resist pressure from the gaming industry - and apparently from its own Racing Commission - to kowtow to the needs of languid horse-track developers who have put all of their energies into off-track betting parlors rather than the horse track itself. Colonial Downs is not being rushed into opening a track; plans for the facility have been on the board for several years.
The truth is, the track will never be profitable and the developers know that. So do potential investors. That is why track developers scaled back the number of live thoroughbred racing days from 102 to 30 since obtaining their license to operate the first Virginia racetrack. The Colonial Downs officials are betting that their wallets will grow fat from off-track betting proceeds and not from the meager race meets it may someday host.
As long as the Colonial Downs group can operate off-track parlors without the expense of maintaining a horse track, they're in the money. And Virginia's thoroughbred-horse breeders - for whom pari-mutuel betting was supposed to be a windfall - are the big losers.
If the track isn't open on July 1, the off-track parlors ought to be shut down until horses are running on the track. That's the law, thanks to the foresight of state Sen. Ken Stolle, who helped draft the legislation. Without that law, there certainly would have been no groundbreaking for a track in New Kent County last month.
Last year Stolle declared that the Colonial Downs project was ``The biggest sham ever perpetrated on Virginia. The Racing Commission made a terrible, terrible mistake in giving these people a license and (the commission has) been bending over backward ever since to accommodate them.''
The Racing Commission was never intended to be an appendage of the racing industry.
Stolle has vowed to fight to keep the July 1 deadline on the Virginia lawbooks during the upcoming session. He charges that the Virginia Racing Commission has ``never put the interests of Virginia ahead of the interests of Colonial Downs.''
It's high time the commission did.
We hope Stolle's colleagues in the General Assembly will not cave in to the well-financed lobbying efforts of the gaming industry - and pressure from the Racing Commission.
The law the state passed to regulate racing last year was a good one. Now it ought to be re-enacted and enforced.