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Greyhound racing in New England
staggers after two big tracks shut down
PLAINFIELD, Ct., BELMONT, N.H.––The last big bet on greyhound
racing in New England may be whether it survives at all, after two of
the five top tracks in the region closed within two weeks of each other
in April and May 2005.
The Plainfield Greyhound Park in Plainfield, Connecticut, opened in 1976,
closed at least temporarily on May 14, after rushing through the 100 racing
days it had to offer in 2005 to keep a gambling license.
New England Raceway developer Gene Arganese, of Trumbull, Connecticut,
acquired an option to buy the dog track in 2004. Arganese closed the track,
he said, in order to proceed with a $343 million plan that would use the
site for a 140,000-seat auto race track, a convention center, a 700-room
hotel, and an 800,000-square-foot shopping center.
But Arganese is hedging his bets.
“We’re hoping to have dog racing back by the end of 2006,”
he said.
Susan Netboy, president of the California-based Greyhound Protection League,
touched off an Internet frenzy on April 29 when Hartford Courant staff
writer Steven Goode paraphrased her warning that as many as 1,500 greyhounds
might be homeless when the Plainfield kennels close.
“About a thousand dogs need to be moved,” amplified New York
Times writer William Yardley a week later. Yardley noted that since Plainfield
was by reputation a slow track, few of the dogs would be likely to have
even a brief future racing elsewhere.
“The track has been struggling for years,” employing just 100
people, down from 350 at peak, “and the big racers have left. If
you have more than 500 dogs in the kennel, I’d be surprised,”
said Plainfield animal control officer Terry Foss.
Responded Greyhound Pets of America executive secretary Liz Ardell, representing
the greyhound industry, “Greyhound Pets of America, the American
Greyhound Track Owners Association, the American Greyhound Council, and
the National Greyhound Association have a plan in place to contact reputable
adoption groups and get retired greyhounds transported to them.”
“They’re counting on everyone else to solve their problems,”
said Animal Rescue League of Boston spokesperson Tom Adams.
The
Lakes Region Greyhound Park in Belmont, New Hampshire, closed probably
for the last time on April 30, 2005. The owners surrendered their racing
license, avoiding a scheduled May 3 revocation hearing, Associated Press
reported, and “are negotiating to sell the track to a developer.”
Former Lakes Region Greyhound Park general manager Richard Hart and assistant
general manager Jonathan Broome were among 17 people indicted in January
2005 for allegedly running a five-state illegal betting ring. Indicted
with Hart and Broome were three alleged Gambino crime family figures.
At least six members of the Hart family, some now suing each other, were
involved in running the Lakes Region Greyhound Park. The Hart family bought
the track in 1991, three years after Richard Hart and his brother Kenneth
were convicted of illegal gambling in Massachusetts.
The Lakes Region betting handle fell from $1.4 million during the week
before the indictments to just $262,000 in the week before the track shut
down.
Along with the Lakes Region and Plainfield greyhounds, rescuers are still
seeking homes for dogs displaced by the December 2004 closing of the Multnomah
Greyhound Park in Portland, Oregon––the last greyhound track
on the west coast.
“We’re taking in as many dogs as we can, as quickly as we can,”
Greyhound Friends founder Louise Coleman told Sweet.
Two other New England greyhound tracks closed briefly while the Lakes
Region and Plainfield shutdowns were underway.
“Both Raynham-Taunton Greyhound Park and Revere’s Wonderland
dog track have been forced to close periodically over the past few weeks
as greyhounds have fallen ill,” explained Boston Herald reporter
Scott Van Voorhis on April 29. About 280 of the 1,400 dogs housed at Raynham/Taunton
fell ill, the track acknowledged.
Greyhound industry spokespersons called the outbreaks “kennel cough.”
Grey2K USA cofounder Carey Theil said it was a more serious disease that
had occurred at tracks elsewhere in the U.S.
In January 2005 the Tucson Greyhound Park was quarantined due to an outbreak
that the Arizona Department of Racing called “kennel cough.”
At least three dogs died during a 10-day outbreak in February at the Daytona
Beach Kennel Club. Racing was interrupted due to “kennel cough”
in April at the Gulf Greyhound Park in La Marque, Texas, and was suspended
on May 6 at Dairyland in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
By May 7, Van Voorhis updated, “Rhode Island’s Lincoln Park
has seen six greyhounds die in less than two weeks from what may be a
form of canine influenza.”
The disease issue heated up in New England just after the Massachusetts
Board of Registration in Veterinary Medicine declared that the treatment
of five dogs by National Greyhound Association board member Paul F. Kippenberger,
DVM, “falls below the accepted standards in the veterinary profession.”
The board revoked Kippenberger’s license to practice veterinary medicine,
including at the Raynham/Taunton and Revere tracks.
Division of Professional Licensure executive director Anne Collins told
Raphael Lewis of the Boston Globe that Kippenberger’s case was “the
worst veterinary case we have ever seen.” Kippenberger prominently
defended the greyhound industry during the unsuccessful 2000 Grey 2K effort
to ban greyhound racing in Massachusetts. The initiative lost by just
2% of the statewide vote.
