By Bob Morgan, Jr.

I am writing this from Saratoga Springs, where the lad and I are spending a number of weekends this summer. We have been coming here for years. While Saratoga is best known for the racetrack (and world class racing meet), it's also a beautiful place, with wonderful Victorian architecture, good restaurants and quite a bit to do not involving racing, including the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

The Saratoga racing meet has been pretty successful so far, with attendance and ontrack handle up from last year. Nevertheless, the racing industry, both nationwide and in New York, faces a number of serious challenges if it is to remain viable in the 21st century.

The more global issues for racing include increasing competition for the gambling dollar, as the sport has lost its monopoly position over legal wagering, excessive takeout, an aging fan base, drug testing and heightened concern about animal welfare issues. These are all difficult problems that the industry is attempting to address, with varying degrees of success.

But there are not a few racing issues specific to New York. The New York Racing Association (NYRA), the quasi-governmental organization that has run the state's three major thoroughbred tracks (Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga), gets decent marks from many fans in presenting high quality racing and maintaining good levels of integrity. However, the organization is in a precarious financial situation and indeed recently emerged from a bankruptcy proceeding and needs to get some help in returning to good fiscal health.

First, there are the delayed slot machines. In 2001, the legislature voted to allow slot machines at racetracks, including NYRA's Aqueduct. However, through a strange mix of interminable bureaucratic delays, plus financial problems of potential vendors managing the slot project, construction of the Aqueduct casino has not yet commenced an incredible eight years after the legislature acted. Final approval of a vendor by the state (required under the law) supposedly will happen shortly, but no one really knows.

While slots are a mixed bag as social policy and only a short term solution to NYRA's ills (eventually, politicians will want casinos to fund projects other than the racing industry), they will help the New York tracks refurbish their facilities and compete with other nearby states that already have combined racetracks and casinos.

Second, and more fundamentally, NYRA must rationalize its relationship with the offtrack betting corporations (OTB's). In 1970, when Saturday crowds at NYRA tracks routinely exceeded 30,000, NYRA made the signal mistake of ceding control of betting away from the track to local officials and six different OTB corporations were created. NYRA gets a much smaller percentage of amounts bet through the OTB's than it does for wagers on track. As time went on, however, live race track attendance (except at Saratoga and on big days like the Belmont Stakes) dwindled sharply as most bettors wagered offtrack, especially after the races were broadcast on home television in the mid '90's. The OTB corporations generally are regarded as inefficient political patronage machines, and have no responsibility for actually putting on the racing show (except on television). However, their large share of the instate betting handle is mostly lost to NYRA. Something definitely needs to be done about this, with the most promising solution an eventual merger of some or all of the OTB's with NYRA.

Thoroughbred racing has a long and storied history in New York State. The sport as a whole will have to work through some issues, but its continued success in this state will also require some farsighted thinking by state officials.