| ||
|
Horse racing
unlikely to return to Missoula in August Missoula, MT - Jan. 1, 2012 - Horse racing went dark again at the Western Montana Fair in 2011, and the sky looks partly cloudy at best for 2012. No state race track can expect financial help from the Montana Board of Horse Racing, which is said to be more than half a million dollars in arrears and will suspend simulcast operations at least temporarily this week. Steve Earle, director of the Missoula County Fairgrounds, saw the considerable impact racing had on fair attendance in 2010 after a three-year hiatus. Earle said he’d love to see a two-day card return, but he’s planning and budgeting for next August’s fair as if it won’t. “All the pieces of the puzzle just aren’t there,” he said recently. Racing’s unstable statewide status is one reason. Another is that no one has stepped forward with what Earle called a “contractual proposal” to conduct racing in Missoula. “And I won’t wait until May to tell people that it isn’t going to happen,” he said, referring to the uncertainty the fair planning process went through last year before Earle, the Western Montana Turf Club and the county agreed to pull the plug on racing for the summer. Read more at the Missoulian | ||
|
|
