Kentucky commission posts notice on racetrack licenses

The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission on Wednesday posted a notice on its website stating that it was accepting applications for “new and renewal association licenses” in the state, at a time when some gambling interests are eyeing the two available racetrack licenses allowed under law.

The notice, which was framed as a “reminder,” was posted two weeks after Churchill Downs and Keeneland said that they had submitted an application for 10 days of harness racing at Churchill’s Trackside training track in Louisville in 2019. The partners have asked that the application be approved as a harness-racing license, which would then be moved “permanently” to a new harness track and casino in the south of the state near the Fort Campbell military base and Tennessee border, in a community called Oak Grove.

Marc Guilfoil, the executive director of the commission, declined to comment on Wednesday about the impetus for the notice, which has not been posted in previous years. The commission is set to meet on Oct. 27 to approve racing dates for 2019.

“It is just what it is,” Guilfoil said.

The notice says that the applications are due on Oct. 1. Two licenses remain available for racetracks in Kentucky, and those licenses allow the operators to also accept wagers on historical horse racing machines, which are devices similar to slot machines.

Last year, Keeneland and Churchill submitted license applications for the Oak Grove harness track and casino and a separate Quarter Horse track and casino in Corbin. Both tracks would run perhaps a dozen live racing days each while offering year-round gambling on historical horse racing machines. Just after the applications were field, the commission pointedly declined to consider both requests.

But since then, gambling interests have begun expressing renewed interest in Kentucky following the ruling in May by the Supreme Court allowing states to authorize sports wagering, and by the steady decline in popularity of the state’s current governor, Matt Bevin, a Tea Party Republican who told legislators when he took office late in 2015 that he would never sign a bill expanding casino gambling.

Likely opponents of Bevin in next year’s gubernatorial election, including current state Attorney General Andy Beshear, have said they support the legalization of casino gambling to raise funds for the state. In the past, racetrack licensees have been favored by many legislators as state-sanctioned sites for casinos.