January 5, 2003 - Group Fights Track Revival

POWNAL - A group that helped ban dog racing in Vermont intends to fight efforts to revive the Green Mountain Racetrack.

Save The Greyhound Dogs Inc. argues that if thoroughbred racing is reintroduced at the idle track, history proves it will only be a matter of time before the dogs are running again.

"We feel compelled and driven and forced to make sure that track doesn?t open. Once that track is open it?s too easy for greyhound racing to be brought back," Scotti Devens, the group?s director, said from Essex Junction last week. "We don?t want any of that in the southern part of Vermont or any part of Vermont."

Republican Gov.-elect James Douglas has placed the track at the forefront of his campaign to create jobs in Bennington County. The track once employed hundreds and Douglas has expressed support for expanded simulcasting there. State law now limits betting on televised races to days when there are live races at the track.

Racing proponents are eager to see that restriction lifted. And they said they were bewildered by Devens? vow to block that and any other effort to reopen the track.

"This is a little bit of a shock to me to hear the dog people want to stop it. It?s like cutting off your nose to spite your face," former jockey John Donahue said last week. "I guess they don?t want jobs there."

Green Mountain opened to high hopes as a thoroughbred track in 1963, yet its owners lost money in the first year. The track introduced harness racing in a bid for success and then, in 1977, greyhound racing.

The Legislature approved a series of tax breaks over the years to keep the track operating. But in 1992, with revenues steadily declining, the track?s owners decided to close the gates.

Just weeks before the Rooney family of Pittsburgh made the announcement, the state Racing Commission threatened to pull the track?s license if steps were not taken to halt the mistreatment of diseased, malnourished and injured dogs.

Devens and her group cited those conditions when lobbying the Legislature to prohibit greyhound racing. Gov. Howard Dean signed a bill into law in 1995, making Vermont the first state where greyhound racing had taken place to ban it altogether.

"It was a glorious day," Devens said.

But Devens said she feared that hard-won victory could slip away if Green Mountain reopened. Devens predicted that the greyhound racing industry would try to overturn the 1995 law. If the Legislature balked at loosening the simulcast regulations, then live dog races could be used to justify betting on televised horse races piped in to Green Mountain, she said.

But Donahue, who rode at Green Mountain for 13 years, dismissed Devens as uninformed, saying no one would be so foolish as to repeat the mistakes of the past.

"The Rooneys owned all the dogs. They had a monopoly on the whole thing and they couldn?t make it," he said. "The dogs aren?t going to bring as much revenue (as the thoroughbreds). Why would anyone try to bring it back? I don?t understand that one."

Donahue also said there was no incentive for the Legislature to allow greyhound racing when thoroughbreds are sure to be more profitable for the state.

Donahue, who lives in Hallandale, Fla., has been searching for investors to help him buy the track from John Tietgens of Clarksburg, Mass. Tietgens bought the track at auction for $250,000 in 1993.

Donahue said he was confident he could clear a profit with 100 live race days and year-round simulcasting.

"It?s not a gold mine, but an investor can make some money off that place," Donahue said. "I think I could have over 100 or 200 people going to work there in short order. And I know this governor is going to want to put people to work."

But Devens reeled off a list of social ills connected to gambling and, in a rhetorical flourish, suggested Vermont look elsewhere for jobs.

"Bring in prostitution. That will bring in money. What about kiddie porn? There?s lots of money in that. Gambling is not the solution," she said.

Devens said she and others were gearing up to send 1,000 letters to state officials voicing their displeasure at the idea of reviving the track.

"We are poised for a battle, if necessary," Devens said. "We hope Gov.-elect Douglas will listen carefully to what people are saying."

Source: Rutland Herald Online Edition:
By PETER CRABTREE Herald Staff
Rutland Herald Online Edition