Idaho Racing Commission president Dennis Jackson appeared before the House State Affairs Committee on Monday for a routine hearing about the commission’s re-writing of its rulebook.
Before Jackson left the meeting, however, Rep. Carlos Bilbao, R-Emmett, asked him about the most pressing issue in the horse-racing community: the fate of Les Bois Park.
“The farther we go into the year, the more concern I have. We have no agreement,” Jackson said.
Ada County awarded Idaho Entertainment — a group owned by California-based Oneida Capital and Connecticut-based Plainfield Racing — a lease for the Garden City racing facility last summer. The group plans to rename the park, Idaho Downs at Idaho Expo.
But Idaho Entertainment has been unable to reach a needed agreement with the Idaho Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association.
The groups remain “very far apart,” Jackson said.
The optimistic Jackson said he believes there will be racing in 2010, though it will be a limited schedule.
“If we do it will be a conservatively shorter meet, maybe 15-20 dates,” he said. “That’s my hope.”
Jackson told the Statesman after the meeting that he expects at least two pieces of horse racing-related legislation this year. A bill to allow fewer racing dates at high-revenue parks and a bill to allow simulcasting at venues without live racing.
Delicious
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More CONCERTS then...
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Like a midair collision with a tugboat
"a bill to allow fewer racing dates?"
Who's writing that legislation? Somebody who has forgotten that the intent of simulcasting was to help racing? So do you think if fans and horse-owners have to settle for half the days of racing, that the "Idaho Downs" people will give up half a year of simulcasting? Or do you think they'll still want to stay open all year and take their profits back to California? Something that should make you go "hmm."
Hog racing. Loser is luau.
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Like a midair collision with a tugboat