More than 300 supporters of harness racing at the Meadowlands were heard loud and clear at Friday's Atlantic City Gaming Summit

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Ten Democratic lawmakers held a day-long gaming summit at the Atlantic City Convention Center, with hopes of creating legislation that would chart the future of gaming and horse racing in New Jersey.

State Senators Paul Sarlo, D-Wood-Ridge, and James Whelan, D-Atlantic, were at odds during the summit as Sarlo - a proponent of keeping harness racing at the Meadowlands - drew applause from the horse racing backers and others from North Jersey for supporting the Meadowlands-based New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, as well as for his call for a “high-class Meadowlands casino.”

“I guarantee I can bring in 300 construction workers, and they can hoot and holler, too,” Whelan said sharply after earlier saying he would only need to make one phone call to draw in countless backers of new construction in the casino district.

A report on NorthJersey.com stated that Sarlo criticized casino operator Harrah’s for opening new casinos in eastern Pennsylvania while being part of an Atlantic City casino coalition that opposes a Meadowlands casino more than 100 miles away.

“Are you afraid of competition or not?” Sarlo asked rhetorically.

The following was handed to the legislators and members of the media in Atlantic City at the Summit on Gaming hearing by the SBOANJ.

STATEMENT FROM SBOANJ PRESIDENT TOM LUCHENTO FOR THE SUMMIT ON GAMING
AUGUST 6, 2010 AT THE ATLANTIC CITY CONVENTION CENTER

I am Thomas Luchento, president of the Standardbred Breeders & Owners Association of New Jersey. In that capacity I represent the thousands of drivers, trainers, breeders and caretakers who because of their passion and skill are engaged in the sport of harness racing.

I say passion because if you do not love this job, you cannot last very long. These living, breathing animals require our care 24/7. And if you race in New Jersey at the Meadowlands, you have to be the most skilled horsemen in the country. The Meadowlands is the destination for the very best horses and the people who race them.

When racing fans and horsemen from around the world visit the Meadowlands for the first time, they are a little bit like a kid walking into Yankees Stadium or Citizens Bank Park. This is the major leagues.

Much like those ballparks, those edifices, the game or the races are the show – the end product. Behind the scenes there are all these hardworking people, many of them here today to lend their support to our industry, who have spent years preparing their horses for competition. It literally takes at least three years – from the time the breeders match a stallion and a mare to the time that foal competes for the first time. Not all of these foals will make it to the races, not many will earn enough to cover the cost it took to breed them and prepare them until they were old enough, age two, to race.

This is a major investment in time, money and hopes. And it is the reason that thousands of acres – more than 174,000 acres – of the Garden State are still green. For those of you who stray off the Turnpike and Parkway and travel our county highways in Central and South Jersey, you know and love that sight – of mares and the foals grazing in white fenced pastures.

All of this is in jeopardy. The financial engine that makes this possible is racing at the Meadowlands. If the home to harness racing’s most prestigious race, the Hambletonian, is gone, so too will the farms. Even now our breeders are considering offers from developers. Those who entered Farmland Preservation with the intentions of being in agri-business for generations to come, are exploring their options to buy back their rights and sell the land for houses, malls and parking lots.

Allowing this to happen flies in the face of nearly every indicator of public preference to preserve open space in this state. Consider this when you weigh the future of horse racing in this state. Those few minutes of entertainment and excitement on the track are only a small fraction of what we mean to the state economy.

If our industry is diminished or destroyed, all of this will move to the surrounding states which have the resources to support them.

I know some of you think, well here is another industry that wants welfare, that if it cannot sustain itself it should fade away.

But to apply free market rhetoric to horse racing is to ignore the fact that we have always been a highly regulated and restricted industry. When we thrived, we were the only legal form of gambling in the state. We had nothing to say about decisions that were made to add lotteries and casinos. Both of those competing forms of gambling were allowed to expand well beyond anyone’s expectations.

Even with the decline in revenues, we were still able to thrive and offer the highest purses in our industry. You may ask why that is important. Horsemen are businessmen. They go where the best money is and the best horses as well as large fields of horses draw the gamblers whose wagering supports the purses as well as the operation of the track.

What has inflicted the greatest damage on us in this decade was the arrival of racinos in surrounding states. The presence of slots or video lottery terminals at competing racetracks in our region has fueled a battle for the best horses and all that means to the quality of the product.

Who built these racinos? Well, in some instances the very same casino companies that protest when we ask for slots at the Meadowlands which is twice the distance from their holdings in Pennsylvania. We are still waiting for someone to explain to us why slots in the Meadowlands would be more impactful on the Atlantic City casinos than the slots in Chester, PA.

We are thinking of New Jersey’s benefit as well. Why should New Jersey’s leadership let these gambling dollars leave the state? Rutgers University’s researchers counted license plates at Yonkers Raceway, Harrah’s at Chester, Philadelphia Park and the Sands in Bethlehem. You have seen that report and you know that these “convenience” gamblers are not going back to Atlantic City when they can travel shorter distances. Let’s bring those bettors back to the Meadowlands where it will benefit New Jersey.

The other day one of my members asked me why don’t you offer the Atlantic City casinos the right to operate the slots at the Meadowlands. How could that not be a winner for them, a winner for racing which would get a small share and a winner for the state’s treasury?

We ask you the same question. We have made that offer over and over again. We see the casinos are struggling and we are offering them a way to “grow” their business.

We do not want to see the parties involved draw a line in the sand and make this a battle between South Jersey interests and legislators against the rest of the state. That isn’t necessary or productive.

We know that we need to adapt to the changes in the gaming marketplace and the demands of the 21st century. Our product is still quite wonderful and horse racing fans are still out there. They may not be filling our grandstands as they once did because they’re betting by phone or online. And we need to take steps to make our presentation more appealing to the I-Pad generation. But that takes funding and we pledge that if we have a reliable source of income that we will dedicate a significant amount of dollars to technological upgrades as well as advertising and marketing. These have all suffered in recent years.

The horsemen of New Jersey were never the decision makers at the racetracks. All we did was work hard, show up and put on the show – the races. Now we are being asked to take on the responsibility of saving our industry. We need time.

All we are asking is that you not act quickly to close the New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority. We need time to explore various plans, engage in the due diligence that anyone would do and come up with a proper business plan.

We would very much like to thank Senators Sweeney and Whelan for understanding our situation and coming out in favor of keeping the racetracks open. We look forward to working with all the members of this commission to secure the future of a healthy racing industry.

We thank you for reviewing this testimony.