NEW YORK, (Reuters) – The connections of the horse that wins today’s $1 million Belmont Stakes may not be the only ones struggling to contain their emotions when the final leg of the Triple Crown is over.
Officials at the New York Racing Association (NYRA) might also be tempted to spontaneously join in the celebrations after enduring a tumultuous month in which they faced the prospect of shutting down for the rest of the season and sacking more than 1,000 people because of financial problems.
The Belmont Stakes is one of the world’s great races and Saturday’s event should be an epic event, with a massive crowd expected to roll into the picturesque track on a perfect summer’s day.
But the roar of the crowd and the colorful sights of a packed course will only mask the problems NYRA has faced and could encounter in these turbulent times for the equine industry.
Just a few weeks ago, NYRA, which runs tracks at Belmont, Saratoga and Aqueduct, announced that the rest of the 2010 season might have to be cancelled after Saturday’s 142nd Belmont Stakes and there was no guarantee there would be a 143rd edition next year.
NYRA posted the grim notices to 1,400 employees that layoffs would start a few days after their showcase race before the New York state government intervened.
The government, which had been slow out of the gates in their promise of approving video lottery machines, hurriedly passed a bill giving NYRA a loan to keep it afloat.
“If we didn’t get the money from the state we were going to have to close down because we wouldn’t have had the money potentially to make payroll,” NYRA President Charlie Hayward told Reuters. “That was all real, people thought we were bluffing or there was some sort of brinkmanship going on, but the state came to realise that they didn’t want to shut down racing.” John Sabini, chairman of the New York State’s Racing and Wagering Board, also conceded the club was in a dire position because of circumstances outside its control, including the bankruptcy of Off-Track Betting (OTB), which provides about 10 percent of the NYRA’s revenues.
“It was at a point where something had to be done,” Sabini told Reuters. “There was some significant danger.”
While the financial bailout has ensured the short-term survival of racing in New York and plenty of smiling faces when Saturday’s winner is presented with the traditional garland of white carnations, both NYRA and the state agree that much has to be done to safeguard the long-term future of horse racing, not only in New York but in the rest of the United States.
ATTENDANCE DECLINES
Attendance and betting turnover across the country have been steadily declining for years with tracks from coast to coast battling financial difficulties.
Some of the biggest meetings, including the Breeders’ Cup, face uncertain futures, while administrators are struggling to find ways of drawing a new generation of racegoers to the track.
