A new group formed to push the Legislature to allow more gambling opportunities at Texas racetracks puts all the ponies in one corral.
Texas HORSE — which stands Horse Organizations for Racing, Showing and Event — consolidates the American Quarter Horse Association, American Paint Horse Association, National Cutting Horse Association, Texas Arabian Breeders Association, Texas Quarter Horse Association and Texas Thoroughbred Association. They say they want to present "a unified front" next year in yet another effort to legalize casino-style games at the state's 13 licensed tracks.
The racing industry, with the sometimes on-and-off support of such state leaders as Gov. Rick Perry, then Agriculture Commissioner and now Comptroller Susan Combs, and former Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, has been trying to convince lawmakers since 2003 to open up the state to the kind of gambling that's long been legal in all the U.S. states that border Texas.
But each session, the effort sputters. And it doesn't seem to matter whether the state's facing a daunting budget crisis, like the near-$10 billion hole in '03, or the coffers are overflowing, as Combs is projecting, informally, for 2009.
"It is time to put Texas horses and Texas horsemen out in front of this legislative effort," said Jim Helzer, an Arlington quarterhorseman who was elected president of the new group at its organizational meeting in July. "Passage of (new gambling legislation) will have a tremendous positive impact on the agricultural economy and on rural development in Texas."
Under the proposal being backed by HORSE, the money generated from additional gambling would be pumped into a Performance Horse Development Fund, which would be used to promote such non-racing equine activities as cutting, reining, barrel racing, team roping, Western pleasure, rodeo and trail rides.
There would also be money for the racehorses and for such initiatives as health care for low-income Texans and for better roads and highways, they say.
State Rep. Sid Miller, the Stephenville Republican who chairs the House Agriculture and Livestock Committee, said he expects to hear pitches from HORSE and some of the other pro-gambling organization when his panel meets next week (October 1) at Tarleton State University to discuss ways to bump up purses for a variety of horse events.
But Miller remains skeptical that the 81st Legislature will have any greater appetite for gambling that the ones that came before.
"I expect we'll hear all sorts of proposals for VLTs (video lottery terminals) and everything else, but I'm just not convinced they can pass," Miller said. "I agree we need to do something for the horsemen, but I think we need to be looking at other alternatives."
One option, he said, would be to follow Kentucky's lead and levy a sales tax on horse-breeding fees.
And even as HORSE and other groups continue to explore ways to make gambling more appealing to lawmakers, forces on the other side are gearing up to go toe-to-toe with them.
Weston Ware, who over the past two decades-plus has waged battles against pari-mutuel betting, the lottery, and casinos, has reactivated his group Texans Against Gambling with online petitions and money-solicitations of $10 to $100 to counter the much better-financed pro-gambling organizations. He said 250 online signatures were gathered within the first week of his plea.
"We put lawmakers on notice that voters across the state will oppose any action that might lead to expanded gambling in Texas," Ware said.
—by John Moritz
