Live Racing Will Not Return to New England Next Year

There will be no live racing returning to New England next year.

In a stunning reversal on the evening of Oct. 27, the select board of the town of Hardwick, Mass., voted unanimously to deny the proposal from Commonwealth Equine and Agricultural Center to develop a new Thoroughbred racetrack and equine center in the community.

Only 48 hours before, the three-member board had decided to delay a scheduled vote on approval of the project so that the community might have a larger voice in the process. The delay was intended to allow the process to move to a ballot initiative and would have given citizens more time to gather the required number of signatures from registered voters.

The 3-0 vote against allowing a racetrack, which would have been developed at the 360-acre Meadowbrook Farm, is a crushing blow to the horsemen. They had high hopes for restoring live racing in Massachusetts and revitalizing the state's struggling breeding industry.

"We are completely deflated. We were scratched before we even got to the gate," said a dejected Paul Umbrello, the executive director of the New England HBPA, after he left the meeting. 

There has been no live racing in New England since June 30, 2019, when the final meet at Suffolk Downs, which was sold for real estate in 2017 and is being redeveloped into a massive, mixed-use project, ended. The breeding industry has struggled to the point where there was only one Massachusetts-bred foal registered last year.

"What comes next, I'm not sure. We don't have a plan B and it's too premature for one now. What I do know is that we are not going to give up. I'm not quitting. We won't give up," said Umbrello.

Since the owners of Sterling Suffolk Racecourse, the former owners of Suffolk Downs, and then-partner Mohegan Sun were denied the sole Boston area full casino license in 2014, the horsemen have labored to find a suitable place to race, to no avail. There have been at least 10 other proposals over the last eight years that have gone down in flames.

"We're going to look to see what other alternatives are out there. We'll keep looking," Umbrello said.

With no live racing planned for the immediate future, the Thoroughbred horsemen's share of the Race Horse Development Fund, which is fueled by a percentage of the revenue from the Massachusetts full casinos and slots machine parlor, is at increasing risk of being stripped by the legislature. Currently, there is more than $25 million belonging to the Thoroughbred horsemen for purses, breeders' awards, and backstretch welfare being held in an escrow account.