Horse prices jump on possible slot legalization

George Strawley

Monday, Nov. 11, 2002 | 9:24 a.m.

HARRISBURG, Pa. -- The average price for a horse at Harrisburg's annual sale of trotters and pacers is expected to rise 15 percent over last year, and a sale organizer cites excitement over the possible legalization of slot machines at racetracks.

Projected revenues of more than $48 million are expected from the 63rd Standardbred Horse Sales Company auction at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex, where about 1,800 horses were on sale over a six-day period that ended Friday.

The revenue figure is the same as last year, but the auction is selling 100 fewer horses, said Jim Simpson, vice president of the sale and president of Hanover Shoe Farm, a Standardbred horse farm near Hanover.

The average horse was selling for $28,773 as of Friday afternoon, with several more hours of auction to go. The top-selling horse of the auction, a 9-year-old brood mare named Continentalvictory, went for $450,000, Simpson said.

The sale, touted as the biggest horse event of its kind in the world, involves horses bred to pull the sulkies of harness racing.

Backing for the slot machines from both candidates for governor in Tuesday's election has raised hopes in the horse-racing field and the agricultural businesses that it supports.

Both Democratic Gov.-elect Edward G. Rendell and losing candidate Mike Fisher, the Republican attorney general, supported placing slot machines at racetracks to boost state revenues and help the state's flagging horse-racing industry, which says it is being hurt by slot machines legalized at racetracks in neighboring states. Rendell wants state revenues from the slot machines to go toward education.

"If they get the slot machines, you get a shot to make money because (horses) will race for more money," said Norton Shoemaker of Wilkes-Barre, who was shopping for horses to add to the six he owns already. "Everybody around us is getting slots. You need the slots to compete."

However, a spokesman for a group of gambling opponents quoted former Gov. Tom Ridge's farewell address to the Legislature in reaction to the announcement: "In gambling there are winners, but there are many, many losers."

"They would be among the winners," said Michael Geer, a leader of Pennsylvanians Against Gambling Expansion, said of the racing industry. "Our concern is the many, many losers. We don't think it's right for the state to raise revenue on the backs of those who can least afford it. We don't think it's right for the state to raise revenue by encouraging compulsive and addictive behavior. And there's no one who can credibly say that won't happen."