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Originally Posted by pick4
Horse racing is heavily regulated at the state level. I believe you are being too pessimistic about the HOR getting in involved with nothing that will be a dog and ponyy show hearing in front of what ever committee holds the hearings.
Horse racing generates a lot of money to the national ecomomy. Just think about all the components that going into breeding a horse, feeding them, maintaining them. That does not include the process of selling them, housing them, etc.
I share your distrust of federal government involvement over areas where they lack the means and expertise to bring a positive result to whatever they try to do.
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What I worry about really more than strictly govt intervention is that the people from within the industry that the govt chooses to listen to may be as dangerous as Congress. At least the congressmen just grandstand knowing they dont really understand the issues. If some of the prominent members of our industry get their way it may be worse.
Dont let facts confuse the issue here. The federal government does not belong in the conversation when it come to regulation of horseracing. The only reason that it has come up is an opportunistic congressman from KY that has had no previous interest in racing, then his wife suddenly gets the post as the head of the KY racing commission. All of a sudden he is an authority, wanting to help the poor jockeys and now wanting to clean up the game and breed better horses. Using his cue from the baseball mess and the other congressional debacle involving spygate, he gets his name in print and on tv. Congress has no interest on the whole in regulating the sport especially when they see how much it will cost. They dont care how much money or how many jobs the sport generates. Most of the tax money goes to the states anyway. This is strictly a grandstand move riding on the coattails of Arlen Specter and the demise of Eight Belles. The scary thing would be if they listen to some of the boneheads and got really involved, taxing the horseplayers (customers) into paying for the whole thing. And believe me if you want or dont but nothing they do will be positive enough to counteract the costs.