"It’s the first step. We’re trying to be positive. It’s the first time in a long while I’m optimistic about the future of Maryland racing and the Preakness Stakes. At least this gives us a fighting chance to maintain Maryland racing’s industry and heritage."
””Lou Raffetto Jr., CEO of the Maryland Jockey Club, Nov. 24, 2007, following passage of a slot bill in Maryland.
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"Lou Raffetto leaving Maryland Jockey Club, effective immediately."
””Magna Entertainment release, Nov. 28, 2007.
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It’s a jungle out there, and
the head tiger bit Lou Raffetto’s head off in one quick bite at the end of
last month. Calling from Austria, Frank
Stronach dismissed Raffetto, one of the most popular executives in American
racing, and replaced him with Chris Dragone, who has run ill-fated Great Lakes
Downs and Portland Meadows for Magna in recent years. Stronach, displeased with the
financial performance of the Maryland Jockey Club in recent years, lowered the
boom on Raffetto and the Maryland Jockey Club’s senior vice president of
finance, Tony Cobuzzi. He said he had great respect for Raffetto and Joe
DeFrancis, the former owner of the Maryland Jockey Club, "but we felt we
paid for it and we’d like to maybe change a few things." Under the slots law as passed —
a public referendum next November will vote it in or out — Ocean Downs harness
in Ocean City and Laurel Racecourse thoroughbreds between Washington and
Baltimore, may get slots, but Rosecroft Raceway, on the Washington Beltway, and
Pimlico, home of the Preakness, cannot. Penn National Gaming, the current
giant of expansion in American racing and gaming, bought Rosecroft a few weeks
ago, or Rosecroft thought it did. Although Penn National announced publicly that
it would acquire the track regardless of the slots vote, once it became clear
that Rosecroft would not get slots Penn National nullified the sale under a
provision of the contract. It’s acquisitive leader, Peter Carlino, one of the
most successful gaming and racing executives in America, set his sights instead
on operating a casino recently legalized in Kansas, near Wichita. But back to Raffetto. His popularity and firing set off
shock waves in Maryland, and rising quickly to his defense were two powerful
figures in Free State racing. Racing Commissioner John Franzone was furious. He
attacked Magna for its policies, called their racing "in turmoil," and
said Raffetto’s dismissal jeopardizied their chances of getting a slots
license at Laurel. Alan Foreman, general counsel of
the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, called Raffetto’s firing
"the biggest mistake involving Maryland racing since I’ve been in the
industry here." Stronach, when asked about
Franzone’s comment on the move endangering Laurel’s chances for slots, said
calmly, "If we don’t get it, we don’t get it." He said Dragone
took over "with a fresh mind. He is not beholden to anybody. He will work
together with our people and try to do a great job." With the referendum a year away,
Dragone will have to work without slots until 2009 at the earliest, while
Pennsylvania and Delaware continue growing their racino operations, and West
Virginia plows ahead with table games and more. New Jersey, meanwhile, faces a
crisis that Dennis Dowd, senior vice president of racing for the New Jersey
Sports and Exposition Authority’s Meadowlands and Monmouth Park, calls
"not a pretty sight." The New Jersey commission ordered the
Meadowlands to race 141 days in 2008, without the track knowing how much or if
it will receive in subsidy monies from the Atlantic City casinos. They have
contributed more than $85 million a year for the last four years, but that
agreement expires at the end of the year and the casinos have been balking at
terms proposed by the tracks, which have a promise from New Jersey governor Jon
Corzine to help them get relief. While all of this is going on out
east, strange developments are taking place in the south, again involving Magna.
Its slots operations at luxurious Gulfstream Park are running third of three
racinos in Broward county, the only county where slots currently are legal, and
the track now is proposing to cut back from 1,200 slots, for which it fought
hard, to little more than 500, and rely on poker, which does well in Broward.
While the rest of American tracks fight for slots, Gulfstream is giving them up. It looks like Commissioner Franzone in Maryland
had the right word for current events in the east and south: turmoil.