Byrne Seeks Safeguard for IL Horses, Workers
Description:
In an effort to provide a measure of protection for horses and racetrack workers in Illinois, an Illinois Racing Board commissioner wants to require tracks to consider their welfare in the event of track shutdowns.
The state's racing industry is in turmoil, with revenue and purses dwindling and the state legislature deadlocked and unable to take action on hoped-for aid.
The harness tracks are operating under bankruptcy protection, and the IRB last month approved the shutdown of one of them, Maywood Park, for at least a year.
IRB Commissioner Kathy Byrne said Tuesday, Sept. 15 she will ask the board at its Sept. 29 meeting to require tracks closing "prior to the end of a licensed meet" to give backstretch workers 60 days notice of eviction and to provide bilingual social workers to help in relocation.
The tracks also would be required to notify horse adoption and rescue organizations "of the potential of abandoned or slaughter-bound horses." Shipment of horses directly or indirectly from tracks to slaughterhouses would be prohibited.
The Chicago-area Thoroughbred tracks, Arlington International Racecourse and Hawthorne Race Course, have forged an alliance that would concentrate all harness racing at Hawthorne starting next year, split all simulcasting revenue between them, and freeze out Maywood and its sister track, Balmoral Park.
If approved, that would be a stopgap measure. Without legislation to authorize casino gaming at the tracks, the continued survival of any Illinois racing is very much in doubt.
In a separate statement earlier this month urging national regulation of racing, Byrne said Illinois and other states have tried and failed to provide the needed level of oversight.
She said the Racing Board, by approving the change in the harness schedule at its August meeting, "quietly entered a death sentence for 150 healthy, working racehorses. Euphemisms like 'sold to the Amish or otherwise removed' were used to describe what would happen, but the reality is that when Maywood Park shutters next month, without a placement plan or any regulatory supervision, the majority of horses racing there will not survive."
Byrne said she is not sure whether the board will consider her proposal Sept. 29. It would have to be considered an emergency motion to receive consideration. And the September meeting is the annual dates hearing, which this year will have to decide whether to deny 2016 dates to the tracks most likely to be impacted by Byrne's proposal.