from the Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Assn.

Editor’s Note: The following release, from Dave McCaffrey, president of the Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association, was posted on the IHHA website.

A new gaming bill has been released (SB 747). It gives the racing industry an impact fee instead of slots at tracks.

The most glaring problem with this bill from the horsemen’s standpoint is that it remarkably gives the tracks around 85 percent of the impact fee money and only around 15 percent go to horsemen (purses). It also weakens our racing guarantee language and removes other horsemen benefits contained in SB 744.

Additionally, this is an impact fee that would have to somehow be transferred to the horse industry. As we know all too well, transfers to the horse industry are fraught with problems/delays (3% money) or they simply don’t happen at all (recapture reimbursement and 10th riverboat money).

Obviously, we want to consider any gaming bill that gets proposed. However, we’re skeptical of any impact fee bill in general because of our bad track record with them. Additionally, this new bill does very little to protect the future of live racing, incredibly splits the impact fee money about 85 percent-15 percent in favor of the tracks and removes other horsemen benefits contained in SB 744.

As a result, we will oppose the passage of this bill.

Our Thoroughbred friends are also opposed to this bill.