INDIANAPOLIS — The odds that Indiana’s horse-racing industry will suffer a major cut to its gambling revenues may be a little smaller, following a sympathetic hearing by a legislative budget committee.
On Wednesday, the Senate Appropriations Committee heard industry representatives argue that racetrack-gambling revenues funneled into growing their industry is an investment that’s just beginning to pay off rather than a subsidy, as critics contend.
That message seemed to resonate with the committee’s chairman, Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, who supported past legislation to boost the industry’s growth.
“We just need to stay the course,” Kenley said after the hearing. “We need to keep our promise.”
That “promise” was made by state lawmakers four years ago, when they decided to set aside millions of dollars generated by the state’s two racinos — the combined horse tracks and casinos in Anderson and Shelbyville — and spend that money to help expand the state’s horse-racing industry.
Much of the money set aside goes toward prize money to lure competitors to races. The state’s horse breeders benefit because racehorses bred and born in Indiana are eligible to win a bigger piece of the purse.
But under the state’s proposed two-year budget, more than half of the money set aside for the racing industry would go to the state’s general fund instead.
The state’s budget-makers, facing a revenue shortfall, have argued they need that money — about $60 million — to pay for other things.
In the proposed budget that’s now in front of Kenley’s committee, the horse-racing industry would get $27 million in the next fiscal year, about 57 percent less than what it’s receiving this year.
“Fifty-seven percent is a lot for any line item in the budget,” said Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, who sits on the appropriations committee.
More than a dozen people involved in the industry, including owners, breeders and veterinarians, testified how they’d be affected by the cut.
Among them were Jay Holden, who relocated his family’s thoroughbred horse farm from Colorado to Indiana three years ago, after the legislature passed the law that compelled the racinos to share 15 percent of their adjusted gross revenues with the state’s horse industry.
“We moved here based on the program,” Holden said. “We’ve sold foals to people in other states who plan to bring those horses to race here in Indiana.”
Staff members from the Indiana Horse Racing Commission, the state government entity that oversees the industry, testified that the number of registered thoroughbreds, standardbreds and quarter horses in the state had increased over the last three years — an indicator the industry is growing.
Michael Brown, executive director of the Indiana Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association, testified about a study completed last fall by Purdue University Calumet, that says horse racing has a $1 billion annual economic impact in Indiana.
That includes 9,000 jobs and $69 million in state and local taxes generated by the industry, Brown said.
Brown said those numbers are directly related to the boost in funding from the racino revenues. “A 57 percent cut would be devastating,” Brown said.
The committee also heard from Sen. Jean Leising, R-Oldenburg, whose district includes the racino in Shelbyville. “I know you have a lot of tough decisions,” Leising said. “But we can’t pull the rug from under these folks.”
The tough decisions to which she alluded were why the cuts were proposed to begin with. Facing a structural deficit, the state’s budget-makers had to come up with ways to balance the biennial budget, which kicks into effect July 1.
At the start of the hearing, Kenley warned people who had come to testify against the proposed cut for the horse industry. “We have some very difficult budget issues,” Kenley said.
Several factors are making it even more difficult. The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, where the proposed budget originated, wants the 57 percent cut to stay in place.
But the proposed budget never got out of the House. That’s because 39 of the 40 House Democrats staged a walkout on Feb. 22 and have never come back, leaving the Republican-dominated House without a quorum to do business.
Fearing House Democrats wouldn’t come back anytime soon, Kenley decided to start the Senate side of the budget hearings. But if the House doesn’t pass the budget by the session’s end on April 29, Gov. Mitch Daniels will have to call a special session to get a budget passed before June 30, the end of the current fiscal year.
© 2025 Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc.