(CHICAGO, IL – April 12, 2010) The State of New York has been slow in following through on gambling legislation that was passed almost nine years ago. Surprised? Well, you shouldn’t be. Actions requiring the involvement of people in politics rarely live up to their promises. People in politics rarely live up to the image that we have of them.

In any case, under the terms of this legislation, a slots machine casino was to be built at Aqueduct Racetrack. From the gambling revenues produced at the casino, the New York Racing Association was to derive funding to keep horse racing in the State at a high level. None of this happened. After more fits and starts than a baby’s first steps, now the proposition’s at square one as the State itself has lapsed deep into crimson - $9.2 billion short of meeting its obligations.

Without the casino, New York racetracks have entered a meltdown mode. Their fans have been subjected to non-stop reminders of how insufficient the sport is to maintain itself. NYRA, in turn, is approaching its second bankruptcy. Despite dozens of poisoned public notices; bagsful of cash to candidates; committees, town hall meetings and marches to the Capital, and enough stress to stop hundreds of hearts, nothing to change things has happened. Something’s wrong, very wrong, and it’s not only wrong in Albany.

Do horse racing’s top-level managers have a responsibility to achieve the impossible - in other words, to move the State into fulfilling its obligations under the law on a timely basis for the sake of the franchise, the fans and all the people affected by the consequences? Or are current politics so fractured that racetrack executives are owed a pass on failures to convince the State to deliver? This is the kind of discussion that nobody’s having. Looking ahead to when horse racing is socialized sport or no sport at all, will the racecourses require people with different talents than the people who are leading them?

“The most important skill for an executive operating in a quasi-public entity is political instinct,” said Peter Meder, founder of Peter Meder and Company, Inc., a Chicago-based management consulting firm specializing in executive search for such companies as Tenneco, Abbott Labs and McDonald’s. “It’s the job of an executive to identify the revenue stream, and if much of your revenue is coming from the State, you have to know how to operate there. Someone from a utilities business might be a good hire,” he conjectured.

That aside, Meder believes that there are few excuses that relieve managers, even those lacking political clout, from operating within a budget. When it appears that a plan doesn’t shape up as it’s supposed to, “you can’t bail on that,” he argued. “Every business has revenues, a bottom line and a lot of things in between,” Meder proffered. “As long as there are customers, companies can survive," he added. Yet, the customers for horse racing are falling away faster than many people notice.

Although big races (a record crowd of 33,727 for the Blue Grass Stakes), special events (44,973 for Zenyatta’s return) and festivals (61,531 for Oaklawn Park’s Arkansas Derby Day) are able to still draw huge crowds, on days when the wind whistles through an abandoned grandstand and the card is a hodge-podge of drugged-up animals, only die-hard gamblers are interested. And the lack of attention given the sport at the racecourses hasn’t been lost on elected officials who are holding the purse strings.

In recent weeks, NYRA began to address the gap between revenues and the bottom line. But the racecourse operator faces reduced payments from NYC OTB as that entity reinvents itself and, unfortunately, the trimming seems to have come a day late and is a dollar short. In addition, the cuts were initiated after the franchise ran through a one-time infusion of money the State paid to NYRA in return for the racecourse properties, causing many, especially the State comptroller, to wonder just how much taxpayer money is really needed to keep horse racing viable. Alas, what, in the past, was mere brinksmanship is leading to real panic now. It needn’t be that.

When votes are at risk, nothing happens until time to raise money for future campaigns evaporates and the tide begins turning against you. The game’s problems are minute in comparison to issues affecting schools, roads and parks – all areas of concern that are more broadly-realized and removed from the taint of gambling. Propping the pari-mutuels business with public money is a tough sell where money's needed for other crises. Regardless, those who know how politics operate...well, they believe that State funding for horse racing will develop eventually. Book your hotel rooms in Saratoga Springs.

That being the case, the solution that New York State will produce is borrowed time, not long term fixes to the sport’s core irritations. In turn, having benefited from something done hastily on a temporary basis will give license to horse racing’s leaders to return to their business as usual. And if that occurs, a few years from now, once the cosmetic effect of whatever’s been done is done, prepare for more of the unacceptable policies of “who struck John” and “woe is me.”

What the math portends is that NYRA, with its costs at the level they are, can’t sustain purses to the level it has without subsidies. Yet, Susan Bagyura, author of the The Visionary Leader, a self-help book for executives operating in a time of adversity, advises the industry to escape its reliance on outside forces, no matter the effect of self-realization. Controlling OTB might help matters, but savvy observers doubt NYRA’s will to bring about true change.

“What has happened in the past is in the past. The future can be different,” Bagyura said, hopeful that the horse racing industry is able to see beyond the take on today’s fifth race at Aqueduct. “I understand people will say, ‘No, I am not a victim, this is just reality,’” Bagyura observed. The professional life coach - a cheerleader of sorts - expressed little admiration for leaders who refuse to accept responsibility. “That’s a victim’s game,” she said.

Vic Zast posts something new each day on Facebook.com and Twitter.com.