The Racing Industry in New Jersey

Written by Dr. Michael P. Riccards

Dr. Michael P. Riccards is Executive Director of the Hall Institute of Public Policy – New Jersey. Riccards is a former college president and a presidential scholar who has authored 15 books.

Once when I was on leave from Fort Knox, Kentucky, a fellow serviceman took me to his family’s place in the Lexington area.  As we drove around, we went by the most graceful houses with white rail fences and rolling acres of lush green pasture land.  The breeding of horses was a big business in that state, but it is a very important endeavor in New Jersey as well.

It used to be New Jersey was considered “recession-proof”, owing to the telecommunications centers and the pharmaceutical industries.  But Bell Labs has been dismembered and parts of it even abolished.  The pharmaceuticals have flowed into a variety of sites, taking jobs and product lines with them.  In this recession, the state must hold on to its jobs, promote industries and move to create more opportunities.  With nearly 10% unemployed, the state needs to get people back to work, and taxpayers back to paying taxes.

Horse breeding and activities produce jobs, revenue, and secondary benefits for that one industry.  We cannot afford to drop off that section of the economy.  The recent studies done by  Dean Karen Malinowski of Rutgers University have laid out the economic impact of a healthy, vibrant horse industry.  She concludes that the New Jersey equine industry is valued at $4 billion and generates $1.1 billion ($780 million due to racing) annually, and that it is responsible for 13,000 jobs, more that half of them generated by racing–related interests.  The industry pays an estimated $160 million in federal, state, and local taxes.  A total  of 176,000 acres support these faculties in New Jersey. Over 78,000 acres are devoted to pasture and hay productions with another 46,000 additional acres producing hay and forage on non-equine related operations.  The State has 42,500 horses at 7, 200 faculties.

The horse industry thus provides an important rationale for protecting open spaces and land.  New Jersey is one of the most urbanized states in the nation.  With dense urban and suburban areas and with a suffocating ribbon of roads and turnpikes, New Jersey needs to protect it green acres.  Parks and more farmland is really a small price to pay for countering the urban sprawl in this state.

Horse acreage isn’t simply useful for aesthetics.  The lands, its crops, and tributaries of streams create a nexus of economic activity without the highly expensive public infrastructure used for large corporations and the plateaus of strip malls that are one of the major traffic hazards spread across the state.

The maintenance of horse racing has suffered a major blow in the report given to the governor on upgrading public services in Atlantic City.  Obviously, the casino industry has been trying to get rid of the subsidies it pays the horse industry to stop slot machines at the tracks.  But the problems the casinos had are due to their own making, and the dilapidating state of the City with its dysfunctional government.  But to the casino owners everything is a zero sum game.  The changes of gaming in Charles Town, WV, and Yonkers, for example, show the importance of having a mixed battery of activities which includes betting, horse racing and off site gaming brought together into a unified strategy. If the state is putting more money into the casino infrastructure, then it is time to re-think slots at the horse tracks so as to get them back in shape, and to hold on to the backbone of the racing way of life.

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