Subsidizing a Dead Industry

For inexplicable reasons, taxpayer subsidies of the Dead Horse Racing Industry are repeated globally as justification for government sponsored addiction.

A way of life on the final home stretch?
THE DRUMMOND REPORT: Horse racing
By CHIP MARTIN, The London Free Press

Wall, winner of more than 7,200 races whose purses helped him develop an operation that has about 50 horses and once employed as many as 32 people, has been in the business since the 1970s.

His take of purses that support the industry and to which the slots contribute has been in the hundreds of thousands over the years.

"It would cramp our style," he said of killing off slots revenue. "We've been survivors all these years. I wouldn't say it would put us out of business, but it's sure going to hinder it a lot."

Like other horse people, he angrily dismisses Duncan's assertion the $345 million that goes to racetracks and the horse community is a "subsidy." The money, he said, is needed in an industry whose costs have risen significantly.