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Florida Judge: Horse Barrel Racing License For Poarch Creeks Violates State Law

Clarification: In this story Monday, The News Service of Florida incorrectly said, based on information from the source, that the parent company of Gretna Racing would appeal a DOAH ruling saying its license was invalid. Neither Gretna Racing, nor its parent company PCI Gaming, was actually a party to the case, and thus has no apparent standing to appeal. An intervenor in the case is the Florida Quarter Horse Track Association, which shares leadership with Gretna, and of which Gretna Racing is a member. The actual party which lost was the state Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering.

Horse barrel racing at a Poarch Band of Creek Indians facility in Gretna, Fla., shouldn’t have been approved by a state agency for wagering in Florida, an administrative law judge ruled Monday.

Since the Legislature has not approved the unique form of pari-mutuel horse racing, the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering, violated state statute when approving the license in October 2011 – renewed in March 2012 – for Gretna Racing, in Gadsden County, to run the contests, the judge ruled.

“The Division’s issuance of an operating license to Gretna Racing unmistakably implemented and unambiguously communicated a significant new policy, which is that (barrel match racing) is a licensable pari-mutuel wagering activity,” Division of Administrative Hearings Judge John Van Laningham wrote in an order signed Monday.

State law says rulemaking is not a matter of agency discretion.

Van Laningham added that since the Legislature has not clearly authorized pari-mutuel wagering on barrel match racing, the “policy behind Gretna Racing’s license, therefore, is the division’s own policy.”

“While we are disappointed with the technical issue identified by the judge in his ruling which will impede the continuation of the racing format currently being conducted in Gretna, we are pleased that the vast majority of the claims by the (Florida Quarter Horse Racing Association) were dismissed by the administrative law judge,” Creek Entertainment Gretna spokeswoman Allison North Jones said. “We intend to make the requisite modification to the racing to comply with the judge’s order while we appeal its arbitrariness.”

The administrative ruling doesn’t impact the current race schedule at Gretna, about 25 miles west of Tallahassee. But, the ruling could become an issue when the license is up in 2014.

The state department, along with the Florida Quarter Horse Track Association, an industry group tied with Gretna Racing, had defended the license during the hearings, arguing that the law doesn’t define how quarter horse races must be run.

A spokeswoman for the state department said Van Laningham’s ruling was being reviewed.

“I think our review will help us answer whatever questions we have about the ruling,” said department spokeswoman Sandi Copes Poreda.

Marc Dunbar, an attorney who represents the Florida Quarter Horse Track Association and Gretna Racing, was not immediately available to comment on what the decision means for racing in Gretna.

Wesley Cox, chairman of the North Florida Horsemen’s Association, which races horses at Gretna, said that only technical changes will be needed to acquire future licenses.

“We are pleased this ruling means that the North Florida Horsemen will be allowed to continue conducting races and reap the benefits of racing at Gretna,” Cox said in a release.

A release from Florida Quarter Horse Racing, the Florida Quarter Horse Breeders and Owners association, praised the ruling for protecting the state’s horse racing industry and for rejecting the “outright hijack of Florida’s legislative and regulatory process by a few special interests.”

“As this audacious case has dragged on, our policymakers have come to realize what we horsemen knew all along – that Gretna Racing LLC’s ‘pari-mutuel barrel racing’ was simply the pilot project to bypass state and federal laws that protect and ensure integrity in the wagering and racing product throughout America,” Florida Quarter Horse Racing Association President Steve Fisch said in the release.

The ruling comes as the state is embarking on a $388,845 two-part study on the potential future of gambling in Florida that is expected to be the basis of major legislation in 2014.

The quarter horse associations and one individual argued that state law only allows pari-mutuel facilities to offer more traditional forms of horse racing – thoroughbred, harness and quarter-horse sprints.

Those races are run with multiple horses competing side-by-side on a flat, oval racetrack from a single starting gate to a common finish line.

Gretna’s barrel racing was set up as a challenge of speed and agility, with contestants running cloverleaf patterns individually on neighboring obstacle courses. The outcome is determined by time. A five second penalty is added for hitting a barrel.

The associations feared Gretna’s brand of racing, using fewer horses and requiring less land, could drive out the traditional quarter horse racing from the state.

Also, the horse association argued that the barrel races were simply a way for Creek Entertainment Gretna, which includes the Poarch Band of Creek Indians, to operate a poker room and possibly add slot machines in the future at Gretna.

Voters in Gadsden County in January 2011 approved a measure aimed at allowing slot machine permits at Creek Entertainment Gretna. But Attorney General Pam Bondi issued an advisory opinion at the time declaring Florida law doesn’t allow slot machines at pari-mutuel facilities outside Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

Gretna Racing initially applied for a permit to operate a quarter horse track in Gretna in 2008.

In September, 2011, Gretna began communicating with the agency regarding the novel barrel racing format, something that had never before been licensed or regulated as a pari-mutuel event.

Van Laningham called the decision “the product of a deliberative process, in which Gretna Racing had been afforded opportunities to explain in detail the type of contest it proposed to stage.”

“Although this was the first time that the Division had been called upon to review BMR as a potential pari-mutuel event, the division’s decision to permit gambling on BMR was not a mistake, nor was it tentative or provisional,” Van Laningham wrote.

by The News Service of Florida