Relates to resources of agriculture and New York state horse breeding development fund designated to educate, promote, advertise and protect the standardbred breeding industry

1 Co-sponsor

• Tony Jordan

BILL NUMBER:A10567

Title of bill

An act to amend the racing, pari-mutuel wagering and breeding law, in relation to resources of the agriculture and New York state horse breeding development fund designated to educate, promote, advertise and protect the standardbred breeding industry

Purpose of general idea of bill

To provide a secure, stable funding stream from the Agriculture and New York State Horse Breeding Develop- ment Fund to support the education, promotion and protection of the standardbred breeding industry.

Summary of specific provisions

Section 332 Racing, Pari-mutuel Wager- ing and Breeding law is amended to provide a percentage of funding from the Agriculture and New York State Horse Breeding Development Fund to enhance the educational, administrative and promotional efforts of the Harness Horse Breeders of New York State

Justification

The New York Sire Stakes program, established in 1961, was created by the Harness Horse Breeders of New York State (HHBNY) and was the first program of its kind developed in North America and later became the model for state-bred racing programs in nearly all of the major harness racing states and provinces on the continent. HHBNY was also instrumental in establishing the Agriculture and New York State Horse Breeding Development Fund, which collects a portion of handle to redistribute to state-bred horses through the New York Sire Stakes program. Under the leadership of the Fund and in concert with HHBNY, purses for the New York Sire Stakes have grown from $300,000 in 1961 to over $13 million today.

HHBNY has a longstanding history of planning and managing the New York Sire Stakes racing program, while working to educate the public about standardbred breeding and racing in New York. For almost 50 years, the Fund has contracted with the organization to perform many of these crit- ical functions, but the annual contracting process has become time consuming, cumbersome and has led to drastically reduced funding for HHBNY. This in turn has forced the organization to lay off staff and curtail their critical duties. This bill seeks to remove HHBNY from yearly contract uncertainty and provide a steady, secure funding stream from the Fund to the organization so that they can best fulfill their longstanding and critical duties.

Prior legislative history

New bill.

Fiscal implications

None to the General Fund

Effective date

Immediately