ROCHESTER, MN – As racetracks around the country begin to make plans for some type of summer meets, The Midwest is roiling from a series of setbacks that could alter the racing landscape for some time. Several news outlets from around the region have reported on the various stories and we’ve tried to consolidate them here for easy reference.
Two weeks ago, Arlington Park in suburban Chicago announced that it was suspending their season due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This sent horsemen that traditionally call Arlington Park home in the summer to try and look for alternative destinations, two of them being Prairie Meadows and Canterbury Park.
The prospects for a meet at Prairie Meadows appeared to dim substantially yesterday with comments from CEO Gary Palmer as reported in the Des Moines Register.
Palmer told the paper that “As long as these (positive COVID-19) numbers keep going up, it doesn’t make sense to me [to open the racetrack],” Palmer said. “My worst nightmare is reopening and then having to shut down all over again.”
A normal year would see a substantial number of horsemen moving stables from Oaklawn Park to Altoona, IA for the summer but that option is now closed off – at least for the foreseeable future. Several sources have indicated that the track – including the stable area – will not open until a time is set for the casino to reopen and there is no timetable as yet.
Meanwhile, Canterbury Park’s backside will be open to horses beginning Friday, May 8, though a date for the resumption of racing has not yet been set. There is some hope that racing will be able to resume as soon as June. Canterbury Park’s Vice-President of Racing Operations, Andrew Offerman, appeared on “At the Races with Steve Byk” on Monday to discuss the Canterbury situation. You can find that interview here. The Offerman interview begins at the 12:35 mark. There is real hope that racing could begin, without spectators, in June.
As Offerman and Byk discuss, Canterbury is unique in that much of the track’s revenue is derived from the crowds that come to Shakopee each summer. To help mitigate that loss of revenue, a bill was introduced in the Minnesota House co-authored by Representative Brad Tabke (DFL-Shakopee) and Representative Tony Albright (R-Prior Lake) which would have temporarily allowed the wagering on horse races conducted in the state of Minnesota through Advanced Deposit Wagering companies by Minnesota residents among other fiscal remedies. The bill, HF 4597, was introduced on April 28 and referred to the Commerce Committee where it will have an initial hearing this afternoon, Wednesday, May 6.
Since inception of the legislation that authorized pari-mutuel wagering in Minnesota, state residents have only been able to wager in person at Canterbury Park and, later on, Running Aces, until last year when legislation was passed enabling ADWs to take wagers from state residents on horse races conducted outside of the state. The prohibition on Minnesota residents from wagering on in-state races remained.
Unfortunately, the ADW provisions were stripped out of the bill. The Star Tribune’s Rachel Blount covers it in detail in this excellent piece. This modernization of wagering would have been good for both Canterbury Park and Running Aces. From the Blount piece, co-sponsor Tabke stated “We had to introduce the bill before everything was fully negotiated, and we could not reach full agreement between all of the different parties. So we had to pull that piece out.”
Though there have been setbacks, all the news is not bad. Horses on the backside at Canterbury is still step one in getting live racing back. There is hope that phase 2, a go-live date for racing, will be coming shortly with the track pushing for at least 50-days of live racing. While bleak, Prairie Meadows may still yet race in 2020. And though the ADW issue may be dead in Minnesota, there may be a way for local residents to “drive through” wagering through the on-track “Bet Canterbury” site, not perfect but would generate some “on track” handle for the short term.
