Virginia Race Track Faces Hearing
.c The Associated Press
By BILL BASKERVILL
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- The Virginia Racing Commission put Colonial Downs on notice Wednesday that it could lose its license to operate the state's only parimutuel horse racing track.
Commission chair Robin Traywick Williams said the hearing will proceed even if Colonial Downs posts a $3.125 million bond for race prizes and reaches a contract agreement with thoroughbred horsemen.
In failing to meet an April 16 deadline to pay the bond, Colonial Downs ''flouted our order and flouted our authority, and we are going to look into that,'' Williams said. Last week a judge upheld a commission decision requiring Colonial Downs to post the bond.
The hearing could result in revocation, suspension or a fine up to $100,000. No date for the hearing has been set but Williams said the commission could be ready to vote on Colonial Downs' license by its May 19 meeting.
Jeffrey P. Jacobs, chairman of the New Kent County track, said Colonial Downs will post the $3.125 million bond on Thursday and has agreed to non-binding arbitration with the horse owners.
Jacobs said Williams was being ''extremely hostile to Colonial Downs'' and suggested the commission appears to be moving toward closing down the track.
Asked if the end is near for the track that opened less than two years ago, Williams said, ''The ball is in Jeff Jacobs' court.''
Jacobs said the commission was using the hearing as ''a big stick to maximize dollars the horsemen will receive from Colonial Downs. If anything, they're interfering with our legal right'' to negotiate with the horsemen.
''The commission needs to understand that Colonial Downs only has so many dollars,'' Jacobs said.
The commission gave Colonial Downs a week to reach a new contract with the Horsemen's Protective and Benevolent Association. The old contract expired at the end of 1998, ''and 3 1/2 months is long enough to go'' without a new one, Williams said.
Woodberry Payne, president of the Virginia affiliate of the HPBA, was pessimistic an agreement could be reached. ''There has been no real movement in the negotiations since the beginning of the year,'' he told the commission. |
