The Silence is Deafening

The reaction from New Jersey horse racing regarding Christie's conditional veto (or acceptance) of Internet gaming has been deafening.  Oops, make that non-existent.  Thoroughbred, standardbred interests, not a peep has been heard in response to the conditional veto which will result in the bill being modified to accept the Governor's changes with the revised bill then being signed by Christie.

Quite honestly, I am unsure why there is no response from industry leaders in New Jersey.  Am I wrong and there will be no impact on gambling on horses once casino games are played online?  Does the industry know of people who will be challenging the legislation in court delaying it for some time?  Maybe the industry has developed a Woody Allen moment and said "What's the Use"?

Maybe it has more to do with not wanting to upset legislators and the Governor who despite passing this law has been somewhat friendly towards racing, passing some legislation  that has benefited the sport.  After all, you don't want to tick off those you need.

While I don't know the reason why the response has been muted, I hope New Jersey's racing leaders know what they are doing because right now, other than Gural's one remark about the pending legislation, racing has been quite, muted.  You can say the silence has been deafening.


Kentucky has recognized reality and a bill has been proposed to open the KYSS to horses sired by non-Kentucky based stallions.  Of course, there will be residency standards to allow the off-spring of non-Kentucky sired horses to participate.  This makes sense.  If you can't get stallions to your state, you may as well attract broodmares to your state so the standardbred farms can become nurseries for foals  New Jersey, with a total of five stallions in state would be wise to adopt a similar policy.


Since Balmoral/Maywood is in the middle of their two week vacation and the expected blizzard is closing tracks up and down the Eastern Seaboard you may be wondering where racing will be today and tonight.  Tracks which have not cancelled as of now are: Buffalo Raceway, Cal Expo, Freehold Raceway, Northfield Park, Northville Downs, and The Meadows.  Of course, the Canadian tracks are likely racing as well.