Scarborough Downs narrowly escapes cut

SCARBOROUGH — Scarborough Downs was granted a license for 2012 for 111 race dates and 1,268 individual races starting March 31, but narrowly escaped a call from the highest levels of the harness racing hierarchy to cut its schedule.

Concerns about “a depleting horse supply” prompted Henry Jackson, executive director of the Maine Harness Racing Commission, to ask commissioners at a meeting Nov. 17 to allow no more than 10 dashes per race day between May 1 and Oct. 10, with no more than 12 dashes per day on weekends and holidays during that time frame.

The proposed change would have cost Scarborough Downs 27 races, while also robbing Bangor Raceway of 88, the Oxford Fair of six and the Windsor Fair of three. The loss of those races in Scarborough could have been costly to a track already reeling from voter denial of the slot machine proposals that would have brought revenue claimed to be critical to its long-term survival, given declining fan attendance.

“I agonize over making this recommendation,” Jackson said. “But every year I sit at this table and outline to the commission my concerns about a depleting horse supply.”

As proof that his concern was justified, Jackson presented data showing that through Nov. 5, Scarborough Downs had staged just 952 of the 1,065 races it was permitted to run. Even in the races that were run, Jackson said, 155 had been “short fields” of less than seven horses, while 88 featured horses running for the second time in a single week.

“Are we going to ruin these horses, so that, come August, there is a depletion?” Jackson asked rhetorically.

“We’re pretty near the point of not having enough race-worthy horses to run all of the races you may award this year,” agreed Ralph Canney, the commission’s liaison in the state Department of Agriculture, described as its “eyes and ears” and Maine’s two commercial and nine fairground race tracks.

Mike Sweeney, track announces and director of publicity at Scarborough Downs, said Jackson’s numbers “don’t tell the story of why races are put together.”

Sweeney said that certain races are limited to classes of horses, for example those that have won between six and eight races, “in hopes that we can develop a good, young horse population in Maine.” This necessarily leads to short fields, said Sweeney. Noting that 24 such races ran with fewer than seven horses in 2011.

“That would indicate that this was the price of trying to develop a better class of races,” said Edward MacColl, attorney for Scarborough Downs.

“Exactly,” Sweeney said. “It’s part of the business of being stewards of the industry, of trying to develop a horse population, rather than just utilize the horse population.”

Both men also noted that the Scarborough track pays a price for state rules on how races may be classed. Sweeney deemed it “irresponsible” to create long, complicated conditions just to cast a wide enough blanket to cover eight horses. MacColl also noted that state law prevents tracks from running more than three races of a single class on any given day. On many days, that means Scarborough cannot run all of the horses it has at the track. For example, of 1,137 entries in July, only 918 actually ran.

Sweeney also pointed out that some dates were canceled – for heat, snow, rain and concerts – while adding that, as the track that runs the most races, the track has an obligation to run as often as it can early in the season, before the fair circuit opens up.

“There is a significant downtime in the state of Maine,” he said. “Horsemen need to race when we’re ready to open in March after having nothing coming in for three months.”

However, Jackson countered that running short fields discourages betting, and is partly why fan attendance at the track has dwindled over the years. It’s been reported wagering in person at Maine tracks dropped 43 percent from 2003 to 2010, causing a resultant plunge in revenue from $7.8 million to $4.4 million. On Friday, Jackson declined to confirm those numbers.

Scarborough Downs officials blame the seeming disinterest in attending live races on the proliferation of off-track betting, Internet gambling and state lottery options. Thus the need for slot machines to lure gamblers back to the track.

Still, Jackson’s claim that wagering has suffered thanks to short fields and seemed to gain at least some traction with the commission’s chairman, George McHale, who called the handle (the amount of money bet at the track) “pathetic.”

According to numbers collected by Canney, Scarborough Downs had 21 days through Nov. 5 in which it took in less than $10,000 in live bets. Total purses often average more than $30,000, demonstrating the tracks reliance on the money – nearly $3 million – it gets in subsidy payments as its part of the take at Hollywood Slots, in Bangor, to boost purse payments.

To that date, Scarborough Downs collected $1.44 million in bets placed in person at the track for races staged there. Off-track betting boosted the take another $1.9 million, but that seemed of little consequence to McHale.

“The handles at some of our race tracks are what we used to do in the [daily] double,” he said. “I know I’m getting older, but it’s pathetic. We’re being carried by slot machine revenue at this point, and we’re not bringing fans back into the race day.

“My observation also is that when you race short fields, the handle suffers,” he said. “People don’t like to betting five- and six-horse fields.”

In the end, the commission split 2-2 on following Jackson’s recommendation. McHale and Commissioner James Tracy voted for the cut in dashes, in hopes of boosting the number of horses entered in each race, while Barbara Dresser and Gary Reed were against it. Reed, the newest commissioner, was less opposed that Dresser to the cut, but said he felt the 88-dash loss for Bangor was “too Draconian.”

The fifth commission member, Stan Kukilnski, was absent from the meeting, and at the prospect of a second tie vote, when Dresser moved to honor the number of races from all tracks, as requested, first Tracy, then McHale, relented.

Still, the prospect of a full slate of dates, if not always a full race card, did little to alleviate the concerns some have for the future of the sport.

“Harness racing is really going by the wayside,” said Canney. “We have failed the industry somewhat.”