End Racing Subsidies! Campaign Calls for Lawmakers to Reject $450M Request to Build a New Horse Racing Facility

The Campaign to End Horseracing Subsidies called on lawmakers to once again reject the $450 million in state-backed bonds to build a new racing facility in Belmont Park. The Campaign previously tried to encourage lawmakers to do this but failed earlier this year.

Source: PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals)/YouTube

The New York Racing Association gets a guaranteed $230 million payout every year from the state of New York, and the Campaign argues that this should be going to other things, like education. The Campaign’s coalition members have aggressively pushed back against the annual handout, while the New York Racing Association (NYRA) says that they are helping the economy.

Independent experts, however, have debunked the false and misleading claims from the NYRA calling them “baloney,” “simply wrong,” “inflated,” and “nowhere near the levels that the surveys authored on behalf of the industry have indicated.”

While the NYRA has claimed that there has been a $3 billion economic impact and 19,000 jobs created across the state, the numbers come from the American Horse Council, a national lobbying group for the equine industry.

Good Jobs First has identified several major deficiencies with the study from American Horse Council. They have said that the numbers are wrong.

“We may not know how many jobs (the industry) has produced, but it is certainly nowhere near the levels that the surveys authored on behalf of the industry have indicated,” Bennett Liebman, a former New York deputy racing and gaming secretary, wrote.

The New York State budget office has said that they have never confirmed these numbers, and, as track attendance has gone down, the jobs have gone with them.

“NYRA has wasted money that could be funding new computers for students or school lunches on vocal coaches for executives and expensive artwork that went missing. All the while, New York gives $23 in subsidies for every dollar racing gives to the state in taxes. Why can’t NYRA pay for luxury renovations with its own money like every other business does? The Governor and legislative leaders must continue to reject these endless attempts to collect one taxpayer-financed windfall after the next,” said Edita Birnkrant of Campaign to End Horseracing Subsidies.

Animals do not exist to entertain us or for us to bet on; they should be treated with respect. This money could and should be going to so many better things. We need to end the entire industry.

Sign this petition to ban horse racing in the U.S.

Related Content:

• Why Horse Racing is Cruel and Needs to End
• Petition: Ban Horse Racing in Australia
• The Hidden Cruelty Behind the Glamour of the Horse Racing Industry
• 5 Myths the Horse Racing Industry Spreads
• Petition: Ban Horse Racing in the U.S.

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