Grants Move Downs, Oregon’s final surviving business thoroughbred racetrack, has canceled its race meet for 2022.
Racing at Grants Move Downs has been canceled for 2022 after Oregon’s governor pressurized regulators to torpedo its utility for HHR machines. (Picture: New York Occasions)
The observe cited a current choice by the state racing regulator to disclaim its utility for 225 historic horse racing (HHR) machines at its new leisure heart, the Flying Lark.
Dutch Bros Espresso magnate and native boy Travis Boersma acquired Grants Move Downs in 2019. He hoped to fund the maintenance of the observe and finance race purses with earnings from the adjoining Flying Lark, envisaged as a eating, ingesting, and playing institution.
However it wasn’t to be. The Oregon Racing Fee (ORC) reluctantly nixed the applying in February, leaving itself with valuable little racing to control.
Gov. Brown Strain
HHR machines let gamblers guess on replays of previous races with the identities of these races obscured. They’ve been authorized at Oregon racetracks since 2012. That’s as a result of they broadly use the pari-mutuel betting system.
However earlier this yr, the Oregon DOJ issued an opinion that HHR machines had been extra like slots and lottery video games than the pari-mutuel horse race betting permitted at racetracks.
The company stated than no extra 75 HHRs needs to be allowed at anybody venue. In any other case, it could violate the state ban on casinos. Presently, solely Native American tribes are permitted to supply on line casino gaming in Oregon underneath the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.
In a letter dated February 16, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) advised the ORC board it could be greater than their jobs had been value to vote towards “any motion inconsistent with the legislation, as interpreted by the Oregon Division of Justice.”
“Because of the Oregon Racing Fee’s vote to disclaim an working license to The Flying Lark, Grants Move Downs has misplaced its financial engine,” stated Travis Boersma in an announcement this week.
“Whereas we remained hopeful we’d be capable to host a viable race meet, the uncertainty right here and throughout the business has resulted in a drastic discount of race horses at Grants Move Downs,” he added. “At this level, it’s clear operating the meet isn’t possible.”
Job Losses
It is a far cry from Boersma’s said ambition of reworking his hometown right into a nationwide epicenter of racing. The cancellation of the 2022 calendar will result in the lack of round 50 jobs. He has already stated he should let greater than 200 employees go on the Flying Lark.
Boersma blamed the “state and its management’s lack of know-how of, and appreciation for, the equine business and the wants of rural Oregon” for the observe’s predicament. He has hinted that he might pursue the matter via the courts.
Gov. Brown’s hand might have been pressured by a coalition of native tribes that demanded she rigorously study Boersma’s plans, arguing they’d “essentially alter playing within the state to the detriment of tribal casinos.”
