Oversight Board Backs NYRA's Handling of Kay

A New York state panel with jurisdiction over the New York Racing Association is praising the not-for-profit corporation for the way it handled the recent controversy that led to the resignation of Chris Kay as NYRA president.

Kay abruptly resigned last week after the NYRA board learned he had been using NYRA employees to perform work—the extent of which is still unclear—on a house he owns in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. The allegation that Kay had used NYRA employees to perform work at his house was first reported by Daily Racing Form and has since been confirmed by multiple sources. 

The New York State Franchise Oversight Board, empowered to monitor NYRA's finances, signaled late Jan. 29 that NYRA appropriately handled the matter.

"NYRA's process played out the way it should: There was a complaint, they took it seriously and investigated, the NYRA board took definitive action when the concerns were deemed founded, and there was a quick resolution,'' said Morris Peters, a spokesman for the oversight board. 

The panel is chaired by Robert Williams, an adviser to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the executive director of the state Gaming Commission.

The oversight panel, as well as the New York State Gaming Commission, previously declined to comment on the Kay affair or to say whether the state was in any way investigating the circumstances of his departure after nearly six years as the head of the racing corporation that runs Aqueduct Racetrack, Belmont Park, and Saratoga Race Course.

NYRA has declined to answer questions about whether the board's decision to demand Kay's resignation was the end of the matter or if it was pursuing any other course of action.

The response from the Franchise Oversight Board, known as FOB, is significant in that New York state has been sharply critical of NYRA and various problems it has encountered over the years. It has launched investigations of NYRA as a rash of scandals—large and small—hit the racing giant.

Following a series of problems, NYRA's operations were taken over by the state in 2012 in an oversight period that lasted into 2017. NYRA's board presently is chaired by Michael Del Giudice, a longtime private sector adviser to Cuomo.

The state oversight board was created in 2007 when NYRA was granted another extension of its exclusive rights to operate Aqueduct, Belmont, and Saratoga. 

The five-member panel is charged with representing the state's interests in everything from real estate development at Belmont to "oversee, monitor, and review all significant transactions and operations" at NYRA, according to state law.