CRETE | Live harness racing returns to Balmoral Park Tuesday after a six-week hiatus, but some of its best drivers and frequent gamblers have left and probably won't be back.
"Three of our best drivers have been lost in last two years," said Doug Clements, general manager of the track that was founded as Lincoln Fields in 1926.
"The competition from other states that have other sources of gaming purses (such as slot machines) is up substantially. Tim Tetrick, the leading driver in the country, and Andy Miller and Tony Morgan, have all left for bigger purses."
In lllinois, the amount of the purse -- the amount of money paid to those winning each race -- is adjusted from month to month according to how much is bet on the live race, plus a percentage of wagers at off-track betting parlors and through simulcasts.
Tracks owners receive 8 percent of the total amount bet, called the handle, on the live races, and 9 percent of the handle for bets placed on their races from their OTBs. They also receive a percentage of the bets placed on simulcasting, with the percentage negotiated individually between the tracks.
Since 1995, Illinois race tracks have had (purse) recapture rights to offset losses in their handle. Recapture means tracks get a share of the money that normally would have been allotted to the purse. Illinois is the only state with recapture.
The state funded recapture for the four years from 1998 through 2001 when it put $47 million into the fund. Since then recpature has been paid from the purse accounts, said Bob Lang of the Illinois Racing Board.
Smaller purses irk horsemen
Recapture isn't popular with horsemen who claim it along with the lottery and casino gaming, is to blame for smaller purses.
"With the introduction of sophisticated statewide lotteries and glamorized riverboat games there is little doubt the gambling dollar in Illinois has been diluted," said Bruce Krause, a third-generation horseman from Chicago Heights, who is senior director of the Illinois Harness Horsemen's Association. "... The first step in solving the problem? That's easy, the dissolution of recapture."
Recapture is "a law that takes monies out of the horsemen's purse account and funnels it back to track ownership," Krause said.
"Without getting rid of it, any solution is in jeopardy of working the way we need it to work," he said.
A 2006 report to the Illinois Racing Board appears to support Krause's claim. It says Illinois purses "have steadily declined to the point where total purses paid in 2005 are actually lower than what they were in 1991."
Purses at Balmoral can range from a minimum of $3,000 to more than $100,000 for a stake's race. In fact, Balmoral, located between Ill. 394 and Ill. 1, two miles south of the Crete village limits, will host the American National on Aug. 25, with purses of $189,000 and $200,000 for fillies and colts, respectively. And during the club's Sept. 15 Super Night, more than $1 million in purses will be at stake.
However, those racing dates are the exceptions. Balmoral will race on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays during the remainder of the year. On most of weekdays, purses are as low as $3,250.
A first-place winner's owner receives 50 percent of the purse; second place, 25 percent; third place, 12 percent; fourth place, 8 percent, and fifth, 5 percent. Of those amounts, 5 percent goes to the trainer and another 5 percent to the driver, with each driver receiving a minimum of $25 for each race he enters.
Thus, for a race with a $5,000 purse, the driver winning a first place purse would receive $125; second place, $62.50; third place, $30 and fourth place, $20, which kicks in the track minimum of $25. Trainers receive the same amount of the purse as drivers, but also contract with horse owners for their services.
"As purses diminish, it gets mathematically impossible for horsemen to make a living," Krause said.
Killer competition
Clements contends Balmoral's purse structure began disintegrating with the advent of other local and Web based gaming opportunities. But Clements said Balmoral's remains better than at other Midwest tracks, whose purses are suffering from competition from tracks -- especially those in the East -- which have slot machines on site.
"In the past 10 years, things have gotten harder with all the competition in our sport and competition for the total gaming dollar as well," Clements said. "The fan of the sport still love coming out for the whole experience of live racing and its atmosphere. We still get those crowds, but we have lost some of the bigger gamblers. There are other ways to make a wager these days, even offshore businesses that offer rebates to customers."
To offset smaller handles, Indiana takes 65 cents of every $3 casino admission fee and applies it directly to support horse racing at Hoosier Park, the state's only pari-mutuel horse track. In 2005, the additional casino money added $10.4 million to the Indiana track's purses, according to a 2006 report on the state of the industry for the Illinois Racing Board.
