THE GOVERNOR ON HORSERACING

Governor Tim Kaine does a call-in radio show on Monday on WTOP in Northern Virginia/Washington D.C. At the end of the hour, the moderator pointed out the story in today’s Washington Post about the decline of the breeding industry here in the Commonwealth.

Here is part of the edited transcript:

Moderator: During the break we were talking about how long since Virginia has had a Supreme Court member – a long time. The Washington Post points out today, it’s been a long time since Virginia has had a horse in the Kentucky Derby and that the raising Thoroughbreds used to be big industry in Virginia...

Governor Kaine: We have horseracing in Virginia. There is a track between Richmond and Williamsburg and a number of off track betting facilities. We might lose money by not having more gambling, there has been a push to have slot machines and other kinds of gambling in Virginia, my feeling about it is there are better ways to raise money and there are better ways to develop an economy than leaning on gambling.

We have a track, we have a lottery that’s enough for me, I want to develop the economy in other ways than use gambling revenue to do it. Other people might feel differently, but when I got to be governor I said “look, we aren’t going to be doing expanded gambling during the Kaine governorship…”

Moderator: And ten seconds on horse raising…

Governor Kaine: The horse track is a great track, I mean it’s had challenges…
Moderator: (Something about) the raising of horses…

Governor Kaine: Oh, raising of horses. You know we’ve got a number of good raising opportunities here. We’ve got a lot – it’s interesting – a lot of the Olympians, the medalist from the United States, train in Virginia, so we have a pretty active equine industry in some ways.
But, you’re right, we had Secretariat and a number of great Kentucky Derby horses, but we haven’t recently. I’m not an expert in the area enough to know if we have an up and comer or not, but both the track and some of the competitive equestrian events and venues in Virginia are very popular.

While the Governor’s isn’t quite on target, it wasn’t a bad “off the cuff” answer.

Last week we sent the Governor, his cabinet, his primary advisors and the members of the Virginia General Assembly a Quality Road baseball cap with “100% Virginia Bred$” embroidered on the back.

We also sent him a letter explaining that we weren’t looking to expand gambling as economic policy nor were we in hot pursuit of slot machines no matter what is happening in West Virginia, Maryland(?) and Pennsylvania.

No, we explained that 3.5 million people in Northern Virginia don’t have access to our product and by merely creating some efficiencies in the pari-mutuel regulatory process, our industry would grow and have a positive impact on agriculture and green space.

Since the Governor clearly acknowledged that we already have gambling in the lottery and pari-mutuel, maybe he will see his way clear to help us out. Sources close to the Governor tell us he hasn't yet seen the letter in question.

Now, we will send the Washington Post article and the VTA’s letter to Governor Kaine to the members of the General Assembly.