Horse Racing Feeling The Effective Of Recession

One of the age old arguments that anti-gambling advocates use to campaign against existing, planned or rumoring gambling in any form is to say that when the economy is weak, the industry of gambling booms.

A few months ago we told you this in not the case in casino gaming as Atlantic City, New Jersey is suffering through one of its worst downturns in the 120 some years of gambling in the city.

One outlet that many cite as being the most accessible way of turning a buck into more is the local racetrack and with fans decked out in giant feather hats and other racing garb at the Kentucky Derby and other publicized horse racing events, many figured that horse racing was still going strong.

But numbers just released Sunday by Equibase would seem to defy this.

Numbers from June are in and it shows a marked decrease from June 2008, when Equibase reported that $1,195,562,620 was waged in June of last year while this past June the number was down by a resounding 16.9 percent to $993,578,873.

Purses also took a hit, by 10.3 percent over the same time frame, going from $101,126,923 to $112,735,233.

In addition the number of race days was dropped from 657 in June 2008 to 620 in June 2009, marking a 5.63 percent.

Even iconic tracks such as Churchill Downs and Hollywood Park had to cut racing days in the month.

It seems like the downturn will be around for awhile. The economy in the United States does not show much of a chance at a turnaround anytime soon. Additionally the casual racing fan has left the sport only to return next May with the Kentucky Derby and the beginning of the Triple Crown races.

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