NYRA CFO resigns after 2 months

Mike Kravchenko, the chief financial officer of the New York Racing Association, resigned on Monday after only two months on the job, NYRA chief executive Charlie Hayward said Wednesday.

Kravchenko's resignation is the latest in a series of top management departures at NYRA, and comes when NYRA is pushing for approval from state regulators to sell 80 parcels of land adjacent to its Aqueduct racetrack in order to address cash-flow problems.

Kravchenko, 45, replaced William Byrne in the CFO position on Aug. 1. Since that time, NYRA has moved out from under a federal monitorship and escaped charges on a deferred-prosecution indictment, but the association is still under the scrutiny of a state oversight panel.

In addition, on Tuesday, Hayward told the oversight panel that NYRA could run out of cash by the end of this year and that the association may need to cut pensions and race dates if the land sale does not go through.

Hayward hired Kravchenko at NYRA after the two worked together at Daily Racing Form, where Hayward was president and Kravchenko was CFO.