“About a third of the fairs actually have horse racing used as a training ground for the horses to go on to the big tracks,” Moore says. “So the racing industry needs county fairs.” He adds that rural communities need the business county fairs bring to them each year.

Though no estimates are available, some of the increased revenue realized by expanded gambling would go toward infrastructure improvements at the fairgrounds.

Whether the expanded gambling package goes into effect as it was approved by the General Assembly is still up in the air. Quinn has called the legislation “top heavy” and “excessive,” and has specifically called out the state fairgrounds portion of the measure as an item of concern, according to the State Journal-Register. Quinn’s spokesperson says he’s still weighing all sides of the matter, and he continues to meet with lawmakers, lobbyists and the general public.

The hurting horse industry

The proposed gambling expansion would bring in to the state treasury about $1.5 billion in one-time fees plus about $500 million annually to help pay the state’s bills, says the measure’s sponsor, Skokie Democrat Rep. Lou Lang. Some of the increased state revenues would go to various agricultural causes, including FFA and county fairs, while some of it would go toward depressed community grant funds, foreclosure prevention and paying the state’s backlog of bills. But the primary factor behind bringing slot machines to racetracks, Lang says, is boosting the horse-racing industry to save an estimated 40,000 jobs. “At its core it’s about purses,” Lang says. “As you build purses, it filters down to everybody in the industry.”

A purse is the prize money divvied up among horse-race winners. The total horse-racing purse distributed in Illinois in 2010 amounted to less than $54.4 million, the lowest in decades, and less than half of a 2002 peak of $119 million, according to the Illinois Racing Board. By comparison, Pennsylvania in 2009 had a total purse of $230.5 million, up from $56 million in 2006, when that state first authorized racinos, according to a report by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.

The sharp decrease in Illinois has translated into fewer and fewer jobs, racino proponents say. “Horsemen follow the money. Breeders fol low the money. Many of our better trainers, drivers, many of our owners, are beginning to invest in these other states,” says Tony Somone, executive director of the Illinois Harness Horsemen’s Association. “What really hurt in the last five, six, seven years, is other states have allowed their racetracks to get slot machines. The new word today is ‘racinos.’” Springfield Republican Rep. Raymond Poe introduced legislation in 2008 that would not have necessarily included slot machines but would have lengthened the horse-racing season at the state fairgrounds to extend beyond its current six days during the State Fair. The measure was unsuccessful then, but is getting another shot as part of Lang’s bill, Senate Bill 744, this time with slot machines.

Could Springfield support expanded racing without the slots? “No,” Poe says. “There’s just not enough money in the horse racing, in drawing enough people out.”

It’s a sentiment reluctantly shared by the owners of a local horse-breeding farm, Walker Standardbreds, in Sherman. Pat and Ken Walker remember the days when race horses had the kind of fame athletes on Wheaties boxes have today. Back then, kids treasured posters of their favorite equine and flocked to see a winning horse as its train stopped through town. Harness racing started, Pat Walker says, when neighbors challenged each other on rides home from church.

“Sadly enough, we’ve gone from trying to figure out how to entertain ourselves, to having entertainment shoved down your throat in any which direction that you go. When you had the time, and wanted to find something to do, it was fun to go to the races,” Pat Walker says. “Now, people want to be entertained every moment of their lives. We just have to have everything going fast and furious.”

As examples of younger generations’ style of entertainment, she points to slot machines – a major component of casinos, which the Illinois horse-racing industry blames in part for its near – and perhaps pending – demise. But it’s on that very style of entertainment agricultural interests including the Walkers are placing their bets for the future of the horse-racing industry, as they push Quinn to sign the gambling expansion proposal.

In recent years, the health of the Walkers’  business, like that of others in their industry, has declined dramatically. They now breed about 250 mares each year, down from a onetime high of about 500 in the mid-1980s.

continued on page 14