Maine horses get own races under new rule

After three revisions and five months in the making, the Maine State Harness Racing Commission’s rules change to allow Maine-owned or Maine-bred harness races will become official.

Monday morning marks the official realization of the Maine Harness Horsemen’s Association’s goal to have exclusive races for pacers and/or trotters which are products of Maine breeding or are owned by Mainers.

“I’m very happy to see it finally happen,” said MHHA president Butch MacKenzie Jr. “We wanted to make sure the Maine people who did all the work, especially when things weren’t going so well in the harness racing business, were rewarded for their effort now that we have higher purses.”

The proposed rules change was made in Section 18-A of the conditioned races section of the commission rules and reads as follows: “Persons licensed to conduct harness horse racing meets under title 8, chapter 11, may offer non-stakes races limited to horses wholly owned by Maine residents or sired by Maine stallions.”

Henry Jackson, executive director of the MSHRC, said the reasons for the slow adoption of the rules change had to do with the language of the proposed change and how it could be interpreted.

“The holdup is basically because the attorney general’s office was concerned whether or not the rule will interfere with the interstate commerce clause and because some people are worried that it would prevent out-of-state horses from competing.”

Jackson and the MSHRC allayed those fears by explaining the intent and meaning of the rules change as well as adding a sentence to the change that eliminates any gray area.

“What I told them was, number one, nothing prevents you from owning a Maine-bred horse, so even if you’re not a resident, you can get one,” Jackson explained. “Second, I explained there’s language there that explains what ‘or’ means and their interpretation of the rule is that Maine-owned or Maine-bred is one condition, not two separate ones.

“Diann Perkins was concerned that you could write two conditions and make one Maine-owned and another Maine-bred.”

So to eliminate any further confusion and eliminate any wiggle room in the rules change, the following sentence was added to its language: “The conditioned race shall be written as Maine-owned or Maine-bred, the race being open to both Maine-owned horses and Maine-bred horses.”

Jackson also pointed out the fact that conditions are already written into races that already exclude horses from races based on winnings, success, ability, and other factors.

“For example, if you have a race open to nonwinners of $650 [or less] the last five starts, that means any horse that has won a race or won more than $650 in purse money can’t enter that race,” Jackson explained.

After explaining the language and intent of the rules change, and adding the second sentence to it, the change passed muster.

“This isn’t new. It’s been done in other states. In fact, we kind of copied Delaware rules for this,” MacKenzie said.

MacKenzie said he doesn’t expect to see the change pay off immediately for local horsemen but expects it will pay off big for them this fall and next spring.

“It won’t have a big effect now because there are so many races with fairs going seven days a week, but when they go back to racing two or three days a week in the fall with Bangor and Scarborough, it’ll mean quite a bit,” MacKenzie said. “About 70 percent of our racing is in a four-month period each year, so when the racing opportunities become leaner and there are a lot more horses to use, that’s when this will mean more for us.”

MacKenzie hopes the addition of Maine-only races – the number of which will be determined by each track, but roughly equivalent to three for every 10-12 per race date – will mean his horses spend more time on the track and less in the paddock.

“This spring, I had horses standing in the barn and not getting an opportunity to race and earn any money, and this change probably means that they’ll get a chance to race more often,” he explained. “This past spring, there were a limited amount of opportunities for some of us.”

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600 or at aneff@bangordailynews.net