"Economic Climate of the Horse Industry in Kentucky"

[Riot]

Attended an interesting seminar at UK today, presented by two UK extension agricultural economics gurus. It was recorded and will be available (probably tomorrow) as a free "webinar" at The Horse.com website (search their video offerings by the above title). Doesn't involve only the TB industry (the major agricultural product in Kentucky), but all horses in KY.

Basically the take home was "no good news in the short term future" (like we all didn't know that already) - but about 15 minutes into the presentation, there is a terrific concise graph shown, outlining recent TB purse allotment in each individual state that has TB racing - and prediction of what purse structures will be in 2013. The difference between the non-slots states, and the slots states, is unbelievable. If your state doesn't have slots - probably won't be much to offer to any professional horsemen. All people interested in preserving horse racing should take a look at this.

Anyway, it was a good seminar as far as the detail and trends, if you guys get a chance, very worth it to watch the replay.

[TropicalStorm]

The Kentucky situation is not that complicated. They are allowing large amounts of Kentucky gambling money to leave the state because they refuse to allow slots. It really is that simple.

In poor states like Kentucky they simply can't compete with states with slots supplementing purses. The people of Kentucky are just not very clever and they are allowing one corrupt legislator and some religious groups that are likely also getting money from Indiana casinos under the table to hurt the KY horse industry.

Arguably the two biggest horse racing states in the country, KY and NY have very corrupt legislatures that simply do not do what is in the best interest of the people of the state.

CA is just a mess, but it has less to do with corruption and more to do with incompetence. It is full of self-righteous people that think a synthetic surface makes a huge difference in horse health and is essentially a state that gives away billions and billions to people that are not even citizens of the country and then wonders why they are bankrupt.