As the Ontario breeding industry tries to find a way out of its “state of emergency” some programs in the U.S. are thriving.
Bill Finley, for Thoroughbred Daily News, talks about the growth of the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred breeding program since slot machine revenue was returned to the industry. Of course, the decline of the Ontario breeding industry had everything to do with the Ontario government halting a slot revenue-sharing program (put in place because Ontario racetracks agreed to have slot machines put in at tracks).
Now Ontario racing receives money from the province while the province and Ontario Lottery Corporation do not have any plan in place to share revenue from the ever popular slot machine rooms throughout Ontario. The OLG’s earlier marketing plan to incorporate a marketing plan to boost horse racing’s popularity has also been slow to come to fruition.
The picture is much rosier in Pennsylvania where the movers and shakers in horse racing have made some noise.
“The growing popularity of the Pennsylvania program is a direct result of the establishment of the Racehorse Development Fund Trust in 2017. The trust guaranteed that the government could no longer raid the Horse Racing Development Fund, which funneled slot machine revenues into a fund that supported breeding and racing in the state.”
