Friday, Nov. 16, 2007
ANNAPOLIS — Passage of slots legislation this year is critical to averting a collapse of the time-honored horse breeding industry in the state, warns the president of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association.
At the Maryland Horse Council meeting of about 40 industry leaders in Annapolis on Tuesday, James Steele said breeders are leaving the state for bigger racetrack purses in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, states where slots money has added big money to a ‘‘breed” fund, a bonus in addition to purses that rewards breeders.
Maryland’s breed fund is about $4 million per year, said Steele, who owns Shamrock Farm in Woodbine. Only one year after Pennsylvania passed legislation to put slots at its Hollywood Casino at Penn National Race Course near Harrisburg, the state’s breed fund is at $20 million. In West Virginia, breeders are eligible for a $10 million fund.
Thoroughbred breeding has been a tradition in Maryland since colonial days, according to the state Department of Agriculture, and has produced such champions as Barbaro, Man O’ War and Native Dancer.
Breeders have been extremely frustrated for several years because polls say people prefer slots, but politicians in Annapolis have preferred to play personal politics on the issue, Steele said.
The horse council, with its 30 associations and 30,000 members, is lobbying the General Assembly to legalize slot machines.
‘‘We are very, very worried,” said Cricket Goodall, the breeders association executive director. ‘‘This is a huge issue and the anti-gambling component doesn’t see the whole picture.”
Breeding has diminished steadily, Goodall said, as indicated by the fact that only 800 thoroughbred foals were born in the state last year. In 1996, there were 1,200 foals.
Anti-slots groups argue that slots would bring low-end development to jurisdictions where the machines would be placed, increase crime and poverty rates and lead to gambling addiction and suicide.
Breeders are not the only sector of the state’s $5.2 billion horse industry that favors slots.
Royce A. Herman, director of the Tuckahoe Equestrian Center in Queenstown, said, ‘‘If we want to keep horse racing in the state of Maryland altogether, we need a level playing field.”
Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) has proposed a referendum vote for next year, allowing up to 15,000 slot machines at five locations. The Senate has approved the governor’s plan with modifications, but the House Ways and Means Committee has proposed changing the sites. A House vote on the referendum was scheduled for Thursday afternoon. But a second bill on how to implement slots is not expected pass during the special session.
Del. Kirill Reznik (D-Dist. 39) of Germantown, who supports the referendum, said at Tuesday’s meeting that much of northern Montgomery County is dotted with horse farms, and that horse farms in the state occupy more land than the state has purchased through its Green Space programs.
Although legalizing slot machines ‘‘is something that will help preserve the horse industry in the state, it is all about land preservation,” said Del. John F. Wood Jr. (D-Dist. 29A) of Mechanicsville.
Wood said he once bought land in St. Mary’s County for $100 an acre, but now land nearby is going for $150,000 an acre.
‘‘If we don’t have something to subsidize the industry, the land is going to end up in development,” he said.
According to the council, ‘‘horse people” hold nearly 700,000 acres or 10 percent of the land in the state; they own $3.9 billion worth of land, fencing and facilities; and there are 87,000 horses in the state. Attorney and council member Jean Seigler estimated that Maryland has more horses per square mile than any other state.
