THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, September 25, 1994 TAG: 9409230034
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
The Virginia Racing Commission intended to designate one pari-mutuel horse-racing track for the Old Dominion this month. Now it promises to anoint a winner by mid-October. We hope the prize comes to Hampton Roads.
Two of five contenders - there had been six - are here: Kentucky-based Churchill Downs, which proposes to race horses in Virginia Beach, and Virginia Racing Associates, which views Portsmouth as the choice setting for a track.
We noted a year ago that the competition among track investors is also a contest among regions. Northern Virginia appeared then to offer the most formidable competition to Hampton Roads.
No longer. New Kent County - between Richmond and Williamsburg - seems to have edged out Northern Virginia.
Hampton Roads could yet triumph. The region's expanding population base (currently 1.5 million) and increasingly busy tourist sector are potent arguments to placing racing here.
So is the excellent road network and the availability of farriers (blacksmiths), feed and hay, hotels, restaurants.
Complementing these strengths is the Sports Authority of Hampton Roads, which is poised to issue bonds to underwrite construction of a track in either Portsmouth or Virginia Beach, where the electorates have approved pari-mutuel racing. The authority would own and lease the track to the operator who gains the nod from the racing commission.
Hampton Roads' stake in the outcome of the racing commission's deliberations is substantial. Cutbacks in shipbuilding and ship-repair spending by the Navy have injured the regional economy. Hampton Roads has emerged with comparatively modest damage from the first two rounds of defense-installation closures in the 1990s. That we will fare as well in the next round is uncertain.
A pari-mutuel race track in Hampton Roads would have the horse-racing field to itself - the nearest tracks are in Maryland and West Virginia.
It would strengthen the region's appeal to tourists and add dollars and jobs, which is the goal of Norfolk's still-fresh ``Virginia Waterfront'' pitch to the Eastern U.S. travel market and millions of other dollars spent annual to boost tourism. It would draw patrons from north and south.
It could be comfortably accommodated and would be warmly welcomed, not by the populace and by the regional business, civic and governmental leadership that has endorsed it.
We are biased, of course. But demographic and other date says that Hampton Roads - South Hampton Roads, specifically - is the winning ticket for Virginia racing. by CNB