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New York breeders fight funding change

By Bloodstock World Staff 5:48PM 8 JAN 2010

NEW York's foremost breeding association has warned that farms risk closure if New York City Off-Track Betting Corp's (NYCOTB) attempts to alter its statutory funding relationship with the racing industry are successful.

New York Thoroughbred Breeders (NYTB) has joined the New York Racing Association to call for courts to reject NYCOTB's Chapter 9 reorganisation petition - a part of the United States Bankruptcy Code that applies exclusively to municipalities and allows them to restructure their debts.

Documents filed with the federal court in Manhattan show that NYCOTB provides $3.8 million to the state's breeding fund, which accounts for 36 per cent of its total revenue. NYTB is its 11th largest unsecured creditor.

Stating the case against NYCOTB changing its contributions to the breeding industry, NYTB filed papers saying that "The past two years have been the most devastating ever suffered by the state's breeders," and that "the economic slowdown has hit New York's equine industry hard and the national industry has begun a contraction phase that has further hurt New York breeders."

NYTB documents also cited the fact that three of the state's largest commercial studs had closed in the last year, and that New York was losing breeders and breeding stock to neighbouring Pennsylvania where racing receives better funding from 'racinos' - combined racecourses and casinos.