Animal rights group protests racino plans

Members of Falmouth-based Maine Friends for Animals
picketing in front of Scarborough Downs Saturday to
support of a no vote on Questions 2 and 3 included, from
 left, Gabriela Rodriguez of Kennebunk, Sussanna Riche
of Portland, Sandra Baldry of Acton, Karen Coker ofCape
 Elizabeth and Robert Fisk Jr. of Portland.

SCARBOROUGH — There have been a lot of reasons floated for opposing Question 2 on the November ballot. Many vilify gambling as an unacceptable vice. Others claim the economic boost from racino construction falls somewhere between transitory and illusionary.

But on Saturday, a small group of protestors braved the advancing cold front of the season’s first storm to picket at the Route 1 entrance to Scarborough Downs, in hopes of alerting passers-by to another argument. Though supporters of racino proposals in Washington County and Biddeford say they would help shore up Maine’s struggling harness-racing industry, the protestors argue that is exactly the reason to vote against the gaming sites.

According to Maine Friends for Animals, a 15-year-old advocacy group based in Falmouth that claims 1,500 members stateside, harness racing is nothing more than legalized cruelty.

“The public should be aware of the horses and what they go through,” said group leader Robert Fisk Jr. of Portland. “Harness racing is an industry that’s outdated and inhumane. It should be allowed to die out, just like the greyhound industry was, after it was exposed.”

Although one of the six protestors opposes gambling in all forms – Sandra Baldry of Acton says her sister tried to commit suicide after falling in debt to the allure of Las Vegas – Fisk said the organization is not opposed to casino gambling per se. That’s why the group is not taking a stand on Question 3, which asks voters if they’ll let Lewiston host a casino with table games and slot machines. Lewiston Mayor Larry Gilbert has said the casino would be built downtown, in the sprawling building No. 5 of the old Bates Mill complex.

Instead, Fish said the Maine Friends for Animals is urging voters to turn out against Question 2, which seeks a voter nod for two slot machine facilities, one to be located at a harness racing track in Washington County – which seems largely theoretical at this point, as no specific proposal has been advance – and the other “at a harness racing track in Biddeford or another community within 25 miles of Scarborough Downs, subject to local approval.” Despite the “within 25 miles” language, the owners of Scarborough Downs have said repeatedly that they only have eyes for Biddeford, which already has passed a welcoming vote.

"The industry likes to paint this bucolic scene of horses frolicking in the fields,” said Fisk, “but the reality is much different. While we don’t want to paint all standardbred owners with the same brush, it’s not uncommon for race horses to be kept in stalls for 22 hours a day, standing in their own urine and feces.”

Fisk ticks off a litany of claims: That race horses are “forced into training” before they are fully matured, leading to injury; that they are beaten and whipped; that they are “overbred in a quest to produce winners;” and that the slow and old are sent to slaughterhouses in Canada.

“Horses are only raced three or four years, but can live to 30,” said Fisk, painting an image of animals cut down before their time, whose only crime has been to lack a purse-winning pace.

Fisk also said the State Harness Racing Commission marches in lockstep with industry interest, often failing to actively enforce doping rules.

“Drugging has a documented long and shady history in the industry,” he said, claiming a least two unnamed “industry insiders” who came clean with Maine Friends for Animals during it’s “two-year study” into Maine’s harness racing industry.

“We don’t know who their supposed sources are,” said Scarborough Downs spokesperson Dr. Densie McNitt. “We don’t know anyone who’s spoken to them, ever. It’s just a completely nameless, faceless accusation.”

McNitt, a veterinarian from Cumberland Center who has owned her own horse, racing it until the horse hit age 15, dismisses the organization’s claims.

“Fifty percent of the horses racing here today are over the age of 7,” she said, pointing out three animals circling the track purported to be 13 years old. “And the purpose of the training they get as yearlings is just to get them used to the harness. We start out by walking them and they do that until the horse is comfortable. They really don’t do any real work until the next year, and that’s just to condition the horse to physical exercise. They really brought very slowly into their work.”

McNitt said whips are used “as aids,” not punishment, and claims fines are levied in Maine for any application of the rod that raises welts, or other visible injury.

She is especially disdainful of Fisk’s doping claims.

“There is more money spent testing racehorses in the United States alone than there is testing humans in the entire international Olympic community,” she said, citing a September study conducted by the Association of Racing Commissioners International.

As to the allegation that standardbred horses are overbred, with the surplus shipped for slaughter, McNitt said the claim is “completely baseless.”

“There is an unwanted horse problem,” she acknowledged, “but the No. 1 breed of unwanted horses are quarterhorses – more than 70 percent – mostly from people who just can’t afford the horses anymore.

“We work very hard to find good pleasure riding horse homes for older standardbred horses in Maine,” said McNitt. “They make great trail horses for 50-year-old women like me who are timid riders, because they are completely bombproof.”