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to promoting pari-mutuel betting, Mr. Oare said: “We’re really selling this thing as an aspect of an industry that is one of the state’s most important traditions and important industries that has been stagnant. It isn’t dying, but it isn’t going anywhere.”
Mr. Kohler, president of Middleburg Blood Stock Inc., thinks the Virginia horse business needs parimutuel to remain competitive with Maryland, which offers attractive incentives for horse owners to breed there.
“The Maryland Million was the big nail in the Virginia breeding coffin,” he said in referring to the eightcard race that offers $1 million in purses to horses “standing” (breeding or living) in Maryland only. “That is a very big plum to win.”
Mr. Kohler painted a much darker picture for the future of the state’s horse industry than his colleague. “We are at the crossroads for Virginia breeding,” he warned. “If we don’t get racing in Virginia I feel like the future is very, very limited.”
When asked how the groups would deal with charges that organized crime has infiltrated the racing business in other slates, Mr. Kohler said that federal investigations into such allegations have come to “overwhelming conclusions that organized crime was an insignificant factor in racing.”
Besides, he added: “Every element of human endeavor has an element of crime — churches, politics, government, industry, sports.”
Despite expected opposition to racing for that and other reasons, Mr. Kohler said: “We feel pretty confident the public will accept it. We feel we’ve got opposition, and we’re not going in with rose-colored glasses.”
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