Harrah's Ups Offer to End Dog Racing

Just last month we linked a story that Harrah's in Iowa offered the government $70M to end dog racing in the state. This month, showing just how badly they want nothing to do with a losing product, they have upped the ante, to $7M a year for as long as they hold a casino license.

"The casinos want to dump dog racing because it's expensive to maintain and draws few gamblers. The report shows consumer interest in betting on dogs has dwindled drastically, and it's expensive for the casinos to subsidize greyhound racing."

But, get this, they actually offered cash for retraining trainers, grooms and others who work with the dogs. "Harrah's on Wednesday said it also would allocate $4 million to $10 million to help professionals in the dog industry prepare for new careers."

We know slot money will not last forever but people are generally stubborn who work in this business and some believe it will last for a long while. However, when someone actually offers millions to retrain you from training (in this case) a dog to race, it should be a wake-up call.

Other tidbits:

Cangamble looks at the payoffs for Santa Anita this past weekend, here in the north.

Paceadvantage poster "Inside the Pylons" who comments here at times, is not happy with the last edition of Hoofbeats. If you are looking for sugar-coated opinion, don't look to ITP. If not, it's worth the read. He makes a strong point about running the internet wagering letter, in my opinion, and the magic mushrooms line, well that's simply too funny.

The Cheltenham Festival is starting in the UK. I don't know a thing about it, but even folks like Scott get stoked for it. What a great picture.

Lucky Jim is back tomorrow. Janne: Watch out for this horse come May in your home country. He looks to have come back fantastic.

Horses last when they stay in one barn. Winning Breed (a horse numerous super-stables wanted to get their hands on over the years) was retired after 232 starts. One owner, one trainer. Except when on vacation.

I changed the layout of my blog, because I found some neat new layouts. I keep telling racing they need to change, so hell, I figure I don't have to be married to an old blog layout. Change is good :)

Man who gathers wind and uses big words is always a good read. Great post; something so simple.

People tell me I don't have what it takes to be a successful horse owner because I like them too much. I do like animals, so there. I was quite sad when I found out that Daddy the Dog on Cesar Millan's excellent Dog Whisperer show passed on at the age of 16. I don't know if anyone that reads here watches that show, but man, what a cool dog he was. "There is nothing so good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse" is a fine proverb, but for me you can replace that with a good dog, too.