Transcript from Annual Meeting of ITBOF, Saturday July 26, 2014

Transcription

1 Transcript from Annual Meeting of ITBOF, Saturday July 26, 2014 Dan Sullivan, President of the ITBOF welcomed all: I want to thank everyone who attended today. Believe it or not, we have 70 people in the house today. That is a tremendous turnout I think. A little house keeping: when you entered you were given a packet of information. In the packet, you will find preliminary information which is introductory to the ITBOF. You will find curriculum vitae on all of the speakers, a regrets only from Chairman Berry of the Illinois Racing Board. He is out of the State or he would have come. I want to really thank Allen Monet for coming and representing the Illinois Racing Board. Allen can you raise your hand. (Applause.) I interrupted your eating Allen. Then we have John Haran s nomination to the TOBA because he has conservation easements and I think he is a great representative of the Illinois Breeders and Owners. We also have all the comments on all the post cards that were sent back. So what we did this for is so we could run the meeting straight through. We took the comments, put them on the card and we will addressed some of them during the meeting with preliminary answers and the rest we will refer to the Board of Directors. Finally, we put into the packet some of the miscellaneous efforts we have taken over the past four years on the legislation in trying to get this Casino Bill through which is of primary interest to everyone. At the table over here we have the 990 tax returns. We also have the audited statement so you understand that the ITBOF is required by statute to submit audited statements each year to the Governor, the Department of Agriculture and Illinois Racing Board. I have five copies here for you to look at. If you need copies, talk to Dan Arrigo and we ll get you copies as well as the tax returns. We also have copies of the By-Laws for your review. I would have put them in the packet but they are rather lengthy and we were doing it at 5 o clock last night and I didn t want to take the time to do it. One of the things I wanted to do was present Mr. Duchossois. He would have been here, but he had an untimely death of his son. He is at a memorial in Florida. For that reason what we have done here is have Sen. Link give you a briefing. We have our lobbyist here and they have been so kind to give you their foresight into the goings on in Springfield. And I will then give you a short overview of this particular organization. Because we have been invited into this room by Arlington, I thought instead of Mr. Duchossois who gave us a welcoming speech last year I would get his super number one General Manager Tony Petrillo. You know Tony sent his CV and besides being 1

2 involved in all aspects of horse racing it was amazing to me his community service that he holds himself out to provide. He is the Chairman of the Zoning Board in Arlington Heights; Director of the Thoroughbred Racing Association; Director of the Racing Industry Charitable Foundation; Director of Printing Specialties, Inc.; Director of the Local Council Chapter of the Race Track Chaplaincy (Oh! I wouldn t qualify for that.) In any event, that is just a broad brush of what Tony lends to this community. I d like to introduce him and he ll introduce Sen. Link. (Applause) Tony. Tony Petrillo speaks: Thank you and good morning. Welcome back everyone. It is a real pleasure to be here and to see you again in the more formal atmosphere. I see most of you out on the apron and we get to talk from time to time and we are very delighted to have you here today. As Dan mentioned, Mr. Duchossois is memorializing the loss of his son and his son s life, Bruce Duchossois today. I was down there and he sends his regrets that he is not able to be here today. Believe it or not he is trying to make it back today for the Stakes race. He has a horse in it along with Ed Fortino and there is a battle inside the battle going on today in that stakes race. It was about three years ago when the impact fee money was delivered to us. Late 2011, that was supposed to help and sustain the industry until gaming comes. Well, we find ourselves here today exhausting the impact fee and still not additional gaming to help feed gaming and help feed the industry. About four months ago, we sat down with three members of the Illinois Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Foundation and we said, We have to start making plans regardless of what happens today, tomorrow if gaming does arrive, we are still three years away from having horses or our horse population sufficient to fill races out on the race track. We need to start thinking about what we can do with the resources we have available to us today to start rebuilding racing. We sat down with Dan Sullivan, Dan Arrigo and Tom Swearingen. And we said we have this little piece of this impact fee money left. How can we spend it? There is only certain ways we can do it and it is only allowed to be paid through purses. So how can we work together to feed the part of the industry that is really the nucleus of the industry? The breeders and the owners are really where it starts. If there is no breeding, the owner doesn t have a market place to purchase a horse. Well, we have to have the investment from the breeders, those folks who have the farms, who employ people, who foal, invest their money in breeding horses, the owner buys the horse, finds a trainer and then the whole economic engine starts at that aspect of racing. The owner pays the bills. The owner pays the trainer. The owner pays the groom. The owner pays the hot walker. The owner pays the feed bills, pays the veterinarian. I could 2

3 go on and on with the list of expenses, but I don t have enough hands and toes to count those. But I do have the number of hands and toes to count the number of wins most people get in a year. It is probably one. Today we have 11 races. We have 90 horses in those races and only 11 people will be able to stand in the winners circle. But there is that huge investment that has been brought here today in the horse flesh to make this all happen for us. We have the owners and the breeders and we have the customers. We have the general public who is interested in racing and in the middle we have the race tracks. The race tracks are the market place for the owners and breeders to put on the show and to introduce the public to wagering and make a bet. That is the one thing we all share in. When a bet is made, the state gets a cut, the tracks get a cut and the horsemen get a cut in the form of purses. So that s our responsibility to put on the best show and bring those two groups together and create the best environment and best experience to make this cogs in the wheel work. What we don t see on the race track is the investment that you all make in this industry. We don t see the amount of money that you spend on your farm. That you spend on hay, straw, feed, the number of expenses that you have on the farms and the number of people you employ, the number of payroll taxes that you pay for those people. Those are things we don t see here and I just wanted to take time here to acknowledge two people here because I have had the same conversation with them and they are here today and I d like to acknowledge them. Rep. Dave Harris and Rep. Tom Morrison. (Applause) We have had this conversation and both Tom and Dave have said, You know I want to come out. I want to learn more about the breeding industry because we have not been exposed to that yet. So thank you Rep. Morrison and Rep. Harris for coming out. We very much appreciate you being here. At Arlington, we feel it is our moral obligation to continue racing at its very best and to work and to take the leadership of re-building racing. And with the help of the ITBOF, we were able to take a very small step and find ways to get money to the owner/breeder and create a bonus program, create a stallion program, to insure that we have some oversight on the number of Illinois registered foaled and conceived races that we run, and to do our best to card as many of those races. And to also start to talk about plans in how we can create a mare program so that mares can go to quality stallions, come back in the state and foal and create the horse population that is needed to conduct racing. Why is that important? Because we don t have a gaming bill yet. It has not been delivered yet. But, let s say that it is. From the time that it is delivered, it may be a year or so before we get a license to be able to even conduct or start to build a facility. To build a facility is about a year and a half. So that is about two and a half years that we have before we start to see a first nickel drop in slots and start to feed purses and put money back into the industry. So what do we do in the mean time? Do we wait for that day to come? Or 3

4 do we take time and look at the problems we have before us and find some solutions. Well, we have started to take a very small step in doing that this past year and I think this has created some energy with the breeders. We have received s and comments from breeders saying thank you for thinking of us. In the 30 years we have been in the breeding industry, nothing like this has happened. It has been far too long and the acknowledgement has been long overdue. So we are going to continue to work with the ITBOF to create a program that starts rebuilding racing. And we hope that you join us in that effort. Again, Dan s leadership, Dan Arrigo, and Tom Swearingen did a fantastic job in helping us get to that first step. Talking about the legislation, today we have with us State Senator Terry Link. I am also a registered lobbyist for Arlington International and I am not down in Springfield for every legislative session, but when I do get down there I do get to talk to Rep. Harris, Rep. Morrison and others and have had the opportunity over the last three or four years to meet Sen. Terry Link and one of the things I was most impressed with Sen. Link was his candor and his directness and I took that as being very honest. He operates with a lot of integrity. Knowing where you stand in a position with someone before you go on to the floor for a vote and you continue to lobby on, it is very important in a person, and I appreciate that honesty and integrity that he conveyed to me in our conversations and watching him work over the last number of years. Sen. Link was first elected into the State Senate in November of He currently serves as the Illinois Senates Assistance Majority Leader and is Chair of several key committees. Before entering the Senate, Terry was a partner in a major industrial trucking company in Lake County; a Governmental Affairs Staffer with Johnson Controls and an Administor of Controls for the State Secretary s office. His affiliations with organizations go on and on, but among them awards he has received from the Henry Fellowship, the build Fellowship, the Distinguish Service Award for the Committee of Honest Government, The Lake County AFLCIO Person of the Year, the JC s Mitsfa Award, the Chicago Horticultural Society, Verret, College Presidential Award, and the list goes on and on. Sen. Link s legislative career is described as a common sense approach to helping people. Of the 30 th Senate District During his tenure in the Senate he has been a champion for legislation for the environment, economic development, tax fairness, health care and human services, and gaming. Sen. Link is a Board member of the College of Lake County, and the Waukegan Chamber of Commerce. He is also a long time Board member of the Alcoholism and Substance Abuse. He is the Chair of the Board of Friends of the Genase Theater. He was born in Waukegan; he is a life long resident of Lake County; as a graduate of North Chicago High School and Stout University. He is married to his wife Susan and has four children and four grand children. And if you ever go in his office you will see pictures of all of them. I am privileged and honored to introduce State Sen. Terry Link who represents this state with honesty, integrity and the utmost respect for the citizens of Illinois. Ladies and gentlemen, Sen. Terry Link. (Applause) 4

5 Sen. Link speaks: I was just talking to Courtney Knottage and I said after Tony described me, I said I don t even know who that person is. First of all, good morning. I still think of this as morning and it is a privilege to be here. I honestly, really deep down in my heart, am glad I had this opportunity. I gotta tell you as a kid, I didn t come from much of anything. So I got the exciting thrill of my life when somebody in my town owned a box at Arlington Park and I got to drive down on Saturdays to his box, in his Cadillac. And you know my first car was one that had 130,000 miles on it, and four hundred pounds of Bondo in it, you really appreciate something of driving this Cadillac and I thought I was an important kid. I d drive up there and occasionally I could afford to put a $2 bet on some of the races. I guarantee I helped everybody in this room because I never went to the collection part afterwards. So you know I got into knowing a little bit about racing and it was a case where I probably should learn a lot more before I start betting again. So I went to one of my former colleagues not too long ago and he gave me some advice on some betting. He said first of all you can t bet just $2 dollars if you want to make some money. You gotta bet a lot more. So I said ok. And then I said I don t know anything about horses. He said well, I ll tell you whose gonna win. I said OK. So I took his advice and started betting a lot more money on these horses. And I want to tell you from the bottom of my heart, I helped everyone in this room a lot more because I didn t go to the collection one on that either. So it s an education in itself. Seriously speaking, when I started this gaming bill, I think Adelaide Stevenson was the Governor at the time. It was quite a while ago and I passed it out of the Senate numerous amounts of times. And a lot of times it went past the house and eventually we got the House to pass it two times and then it ended up being vetoed and on and on. But you got an education through this whole period of time. I got to tell you truthfully, I didn t realize what you did in this room, I knew this was a race track. There are a number of race tracks in the State of Illinois. I just figured you showed up, you saw these horses, you bet on them, you win on them you loose on them. What ever. That is the understanding of what horse racing was to me. Then I started getting the education of breeders, the people at the feed stores, the other individuals that would work in the industry and the effect of the trickle down effect that this has in horse racing was amazing to me. And I said I should have know that because of every other manufacturing industry that we take care of in this state and that we are always willing to give these huge taxes breaks to large companies because they generate 100 new jobs. And I sitting here thinking, after awhile I look at this industry and if we were to let this industry fail in the State of Illinois, how many thousands of jobs would fail with it? And 5

6 how much of an effect it would have on the economy of the State of Illinois if the local people, like a diner closed down because the person who was supply the feed closed down and couldn t come to that diner anymore. And on and on the effects it would have. So I took it in another serious manor when I was forming this gaming bill. And I realized the effect of why we had to save this industry. I was out in Delaware and went to Delaware Downs. It has this huge casino within the race track. And I started asking questions while I was there. I was out there for a conference. I asked a question from the owners of the place, what effect did this casino have on you? They told me they were literally going to be closing the front door. Because we didn t have enough coming in to the racing industry. Now they are giving a lot bigger races, a lot bigger named horses are coming into this racetrack. So it more enlightened me on what we were doing. So we pass the bill a few times and it didn t pass out of the house. So then President Cullerton came in and he knew nothing, less then me when he started on gaming. He know nothing about horse racing even though said he voted for a bill in 1980 something for horse racing. And he said today, he called me up and told me who to bet on in the third race. So he has become very articulate on horse racing and the gaming industry. But what he did, when he worked with me on this, is we knew the necessity of what jobs are in this state. Because if you hear every politician, and let me clarify something. Anybody who runs for office is a politician. So don t believe it when they say I m not a politician, but I am running for office. You are a politician when you run for office. Every politician, I don t care what party you belong to, what part of the state you belong to, every politician, always talks about jobs and the necessity of more jobs and keeping the jobs in the State of Illinois. This gaming bill is a jobs bill. No other way to look at it then it s a jobs bill. And I said, as Tony elaborated, I got elected in And I said I was for gaming. So I am running for my seventh term so it is obvious it did not effect the feelings of my constituents in the 30th District if I said I was for gaming. I, as long as I am in the Senate will keep on pursuing and make sure this gaming bill passes. Because it s the life blood of what is going on in this industry and there are a lot of people who are affected by this industry. I feel very good about the veto session, because the bill passed the Senate and was held up in the House. And I firmly believe that when we come back in veto session, and I know a lot depends on who the Governor is, that we will pass this gaming bill and have it on the Governor s desk. When we sat down with the Governor he had some concerns about the bill, some of it ethical, some of it other little things. I think we have corrected everything that the Governor wanted and saw that needed to be done. He is now very strongly, telling me and the President of the Senate, that if this bill hits his desk he will sign it. That s the first time since we have introduced this gaming bill that a statement like that has been 6

7 said. The times we have passed it before we had to really work to try and persuade him to sign it. This is the first time I have got a full commitment if this bill comes in a form that we send it over to the House, it will be signed. I have to say, I never like to correct Tony, but I gotta say one thing. I saw in Vegas when they want to build a casino, it s six months later the Ballageo was up and operating. So I think if we give this in the veto session and I will hope that we have a Gaming Board that is very concerned about the necessity of this getting done. Expedite the work on these licensing to where it doesn t take a year to where it takes a year to get the license because first example; if Arlington Racetrack is going to have a casino every person that has been involved in Arlington Racetrack has been vetted already. So why would it take a year to get this license? I would hope and like I said I don t control the Gaming Board and I don t control what they do, but I would hope that it gets done a lot quicker. And I hope that we can get building and something. And if we get past the veto session we have it on the Governor s desk and he signs it. Because if we do it in veto session, we have to do it before January 7 or 8 th when a new general assembly would come in. So if he were to sign it, I would hope that by the fall of next year, we can have and actually see construction going on in these places. So I am dedicated to this. I hope everyone in this room is dedicated to this because it is a necessity. Now I am going to do something that every political adviser tells me not to do. I am going to open it up for questions and any type of question you have concerning this. I will not answer what my shoe size is of my favorite color because that is what the fourth graders ask me, but you can ask me any question on the gaming bill you want. So what ever questions you got lets hear em. And I know you have questions. Question answer: It is already a Senate Bill. The Bill that they have in the House is the Senate Bill I passed in the spring of 2013 because it is a two year legislative session so its sitting over there and that s the bill they have been working off of. I firmly believe in this veto session, and like I say I want to make it very clear. It depends on who the Governor is. Or who is elected Governor in November of this year and I firmly believe that if everything is the way I hope it is in my opinion, and I don t want to get into politics. The point is if it passes and I think you will see the legislation pass in the veto session. What they will do is they will pass it. It comes back to me to concur with it. I have the votes in the Senate to concur with it and it would then sit on the Governor s desk. So we will be in for three weeks. Two weeks in November and the first week January. Question answer: He has to sign it before January 8 th of next year because then the clock starts all over again. It is a new general assembly. We are in the 98 General Assembly now. He would get it right away and he would have to sign it before that day. The deadline for him to sign it is the second Wednesday of the new year. 7

8 Question answer: I believe you will see the bill presented in the House after the November election. That is my feeling and it is pretty strong feelings. I want to tell you the worst case scenario is January 9 th the new gaming bill will be introduced by me. So I mean I don t want to go through the whole process again. I would rather get it done in the veto session. Have it on the Governor s desk and have the governor sign it and we can start the process of getting these applications in, getting these licenses okayed and getting construction because I agree with Tony. We don t want to wait two and a half years. Pain and suffering is bad enough. You don t need to extend the pain and suffering for another two and half years. Even though you know the pot at the end of the rainbow is there you want to start getting to it a little sooner. Question answer: Why was money swept from the 10 th Gaming License? Ah. We re broke! Your want the truthful answer that is why. We re broke and trying to figure out ways to patchwork a budget and that was one of them. Had we passed the gaming bill when I first introduced it, today you would be saying that you have to go down to the casino for awhile before the races start. That s what I wish we would have done a while back. As I said from the beginning, this is a jobs, jobs, jobs, bill. I don t care if you dislike gaming, you got a lot of people out there that do it and it is a user fee. It is not a tax on everybody in the room, it is a user fee. My wife and I go away three day weekends a lot. We go up to Union Peer in Michigan. We were at Blue Chip casino last week. And I am sitting there and over the PA system they said, The bus to Waukegan will be leaving very soon. The bus to Waukegan It s a two hour ride and people are going to a casino in Indiana! Do you think that if there was a casino at Arlington Park or a casino in Lake County they would be taking a bus ride all the way to Michigan City, Indiana? No! That revenue would be staying in the State of Illinois and would be helping the people in the State of Illinois. It would be moving a product ahead. Not behind. And you wouldn t have to worry about sweeping anything because that would be the positive endeavor. My point is I don t want anybody in this room to get discouraged about this. Trust me, I had brown hair an a lot longer when I started, but a former football coach saw me and said to me, Terry the one thing I give you credit for over anything else is your perseverance. You will not let up when you want to see something done. And I am not letting up until we pass this gaming bill and signed by the Governor. Question answer: The Governor wanted more authority for the Gaming Board. Wanted more rules and regulations for the Chicago casino. We adjusted that and clarified it. No one in the gaming industry could then after this is passed donate to any political people. No political contributions coming from industries, so we put all those in there. They were the main things that clarified what the Governor really wanted. So that there 8

9 would be no questions of impropriety by any legislator or any other elected officials pertaining to this type of legislation. Question answer: What you have to do everyone of you. Everyone lives in Illinois. Everyone has a Senator and two Representatives in their area. You have got to tell them what needs to be done. You have to tell them that the jobs that this will loose if this bill is not passed. I use and example. I had the privilege of being the chief sponsor for the smoking ban in the State of Illinois and my co-sponsor was then Sen. Cullerton, before he was President of the Senate. They had people wavering if they were going to vote for it or not. Their fax machines, and computers were literality burned up because people got a hold of them and told them the necessity of why they wanted that done. There is no reason that you can t do the same type of lobbying to those people. And explain to those legislators that it is not going to effect me personally its going to effect my neighbors, my local community, its going to effect my restaurant, and people who own feed stores. Tell them to notify their legislators and tell them the importance of getting this bill done. That s what you can do. That s the best lobbying anyone can do on any legislation. Let the constituents tell their representatives and senators how they feel. You got two great lobbyists working for you, but they do different kinds of lobbying. They talk directly on a lot of things, but I got to tell you, when you hear from the citizens of your district, those are your bosses; those are the people that put you in office. You better listen to them on how they feel about something. I always tell people we have thousands of bills that we go through. When I don t hear from anybody I figure the citizens are saying Terry do what you think is right on this bill. When I hear from hundreds of people on a particular bill one way or the other, I know how they feel and how they want me to vote on that issue. Question answer: Will there be stronger opposition from the casinos this time around? Let s put it this way. We passed the bill twice out of the Senate and the House with that opposition against us. The point is we can do it. No body take this personally, but my client is the State of Illinois. That is my client. The bottom line is I want to make sure that when we look at this at the end that the State of Illinois is getting more money in gaming overall, and I am talking horse racing and everything encompass. That we have more money coming in then we did prior to the legislation. Somebody said something about the Rivers Casino somebody said the Rivers is siphoning from this casino and that casino and asked me what am I going to do about it and I said nothing. He said why and I said because the State is making about 30 or 40 million dollars more then they were before. So the State was the winner. I said I can t worry about this casino or that casino loosing money. If the State is making money there are more people gaming 9

10 and there is more money coming out of their pockets into ours. That is what I am going to look for. I am that advocate and I will say that President Cullerton has been a supreme advocate for this legislation. We have got to make sure the bill passes the house. We have got to make sure it s on the Governor s desk because the next time I speak before you I want to hear complaints about the number of machines. I want to see industry moving, I want to see this industry moving, I want to see us all happy and I want us to be happy we live in Illinois. God bless you all and thank you. (Applause) Dan Sullivan talks: Thank you Senator Link. I am amazed that you took the time and I really appreciate you taking the questions. To follow on to Senator Link, when we put this program together, I thought is was important for you to understand what the ITBOF has done with regard to the gaming bill and the representation of all of the membership down in Springfield. And for that reason, we acquired with our limited funds the services of two main lobbyists. And they are good lobbyists. Lynn Chapman can you stand up and introduce yourself. She is available today and will answer any questions. Now we also have Scott Marquardt. He has the distinct pleasure of being a lawyer so he gets to talk. He will give you a little briefing on what we have done. He will also stand for questions. Scott Marquardt talks: Senator Link is a very tough act to follow. I can t understate his commitment to passing gaming. Lynn was able to get him to come today and I think it is vitally important for everybody to hear what he says. What we read in the paper is a little bit devastating because I have been lobbying for 18 years and it seems like this issue has been going on for 18 years, literally. He is committed to it. I ll address the comment about the casinos first. It is a vital concern because the casinos put a lot of money into the opposition of continued gaming, but in my opinion it is localized because if you have a casino in your district the legislator is pretty much hard pressed to vote for the bill, but the flip side is also true that what Sen. Link had mentioned is that the vast improvement that the state is going to see for jobs, and he hits it on the head, is much more then the little locations that a casino has. But in large part, and I ll be brief because I know you are all busy today. I have been doing this with your group for a couple of years now and it is an honor. My job is to really bring clearness to legislators as to the vital part the breeders bring to the industry. You can look around here and we 10

11 wouldn t be here if it wasn t for breeders and owners. It sounds simplistic to say but the legislators don t know that. So what I have been trying to do on a bipartisan effort is really, really inform legislators of the size of our group and more important how the numbers have gone down from 2,000 to 400 in the horses that are in Illinois now. It is just shocking that people didn t realize that Illinois was, if not the leader, one of the top breeding states in the nation and we are not anymore. It is a direct link to the purses and then it goes down the line. We spend every day doing that. The addition of Lynn to the team has been an expediential. It brings a lot more relationships to the team. I hate to tell her, but I have known her for 18 years now. The point is we are really working with the Board and Mr. Sullivan to try and constantly improve that knowledge. Over the course of the last year, we have had individual meetings with the Senate President and Mr. Sullivan. Dozens of staff meetings, dozens of legislator meetings, and we continue on the same message. I realize we have individual issues in that bill and I believe we have accomplished most of that, but the fact is that there is no bill if it doesn t get passed. A comment was made about whether or not the Governor will sit on it. In the veto session this is a political issue. We were not going to see movement until veto session and I am very confident that Sen. Link is correct. If we can push it over the line the Governor will sign it immediately. He is committed to that. I believe that is true and I believe it will be law even if this Governor doesn t win the election. And again we don t know what is going to happen with that. Sen. Link took the bulk of my speech because of a great question in the back. Lynn and I are only as good as our ability to hit 59 senators and 118 legislators and it is difficult to do that because we see them on a daily basis and they look at us and our message can only be brief. Functionally, each member of our organization has a constituency that is a senator and representative that maybe a business that has a senator and representative. Lynn and I are going to work with Mr. Sullivan and Gail and the whole Board to try to allow you to understand who your legislators are. It is as simple as knocking on their door. It sounds difficult, but I think they welcome that when you come in there and tell them who you are. They are very open and love talking to their own constituency and learning about the issues. We are lucky in this room, we have legislators that understand that, but in a large part, they all don t understand it. So anything we can do to help with that, we are going to institute over the rest of this summer those type of phone tree things that are simplistic in sound, but at the end of the day it works. I can t echo enough what Sen. Link says even stronger. That s the help that we need to try to walk in that door. That information of your local legislator needs to get back to the Board and then it will get back to Lynn and I. So when we knock on the legislator s door we say hey, you had breeder X here in your district, and he will say Oh! Yea, I remember that. Here is what s going on. He or she is lost this revenue. He or she is thinking about moving to Iowa, or Michigan or wherever the racing maybe going. And it is right around us. We are loosing those race horses and those jobs and everything that goes around it, to other states. I think it is vital that we continue on that. Now we have come a long way from when I started to where 11

12 we are now. We are known, we are consulted, in large part due to Lynn s relationships and unfortunately for her on a weekly basis as to where we need to be in the bill. In addition to that there is a lot of in fighting with the trainers and we have not mentioned that. There are a lot of things going on. We now rose to their level being able to have influence on the bill and I think we are in a good place. A lot of the questions that were asked on the election. It is a political issue we are dealing with unfortunately and some people just don t want to deal with gaming because some of the polls say gaming isn t positive. Functionally, the political issue goes away as soon as the election happens. Whether Bruce Rauner wins or Governor Quinn wins, I believe we are going to have a gaming bill in November which would then allow us to be moving forward in December. If Governor Quinn wins there is not as much pressure on it, but as Sen. Link says we are in a unique period of time where a new general assembly starts in the beginning of January. So this initiative, I would hate to have to start over again. Too much weight on it, too much going on and I think we are right there to get it done. I can t give you a prediction as to who is going to win. I think it is going to come down to the wire. I don t think it matters necessarily at this point in time. Our hope is that the bill will be done and put to bed at the end of the year. The other issue with regards to the casinos, I addressed. I do think our opposition is formidable, but I do think it tends to be more localized. If you live in Elgin and you are a legislator you will be hard pressed to vote for a gaming bill. But the flip side is also true. An example would be Sen. Stephenson from Rockford. He may not necessarily be for gaming, but he is trying to get a facility in Rockford to stop that flow into Wisconsin. So he is going to be for gaming. So we pick up legislators, as many as we lose, we pick them up because of local issues and local initiatives. Sen. Link s corner stone started with trying to get a boat or facility in the Waukegan or Lake County area. Now he has become an expert on horse racing, breeders and our issues and we can t have anybody better then him. The House is an issue. It is only an issue because it was a political issues and wasn t the time to do it. I think the Speaker is now committed to moving things. I think it will get done. That is what I had to say and I just can t echo enough that we enjoy working with the industry. We have learned more an more about the industry and how vital you guys are to the State of Illinois. I think we will have Illinois back to its leadership position hopefully within the next 18 months and two years. At least starting that process of getting breeders and owners back in Illinois. We are available to answer any questions, pretty much 24/7 if anybody needs us. Thank you guys very much. (Applause) 12

13 Dan Sullivan speaks: I think we have covered the most salient topics that everyone is interested in. I need to make a report to the membership, because this is the second sequential membership meeting. I am hoping I future years that the Board of Directors will have these membership meetings so that the members can learn a little bit about the organization. I have seen lately that there are some stated misperceptions of what ITBOF is so I thought I d, as a report to the membership this year, kinda give a brief summary of our organization as it stands. One of the points I want to make to everybody this morning is that you have got most of the Board of Directors here. I want to tell you, you have a strong Board of Directors. I also want to emphasize that the Board of Directors runs this organization. Every decision is made by the Board of Directors. Now I can say this is a strong Board of Directors because I was General Counsel on a not for profit Board that had over $200 million dollars in revenue. I was General Counsel for about 30 years. This Board is as or more competent then that Board. I am on the Board of Directors of two public held companies, one of which has a billion, three hundred million dollars in revenue each year. This Board is as competent as the Board of Directors of those for profit companies. You have strong people that are running the organization. Each Board member is active and John Haran has got us meeting on a monthly basis. So they keep aware. One of the points I d like to commend to you is that each member is a volunteer. These are charitable deductions. That these Board members are making on your behalf. They do it for the love and they don t do it for the pay. So I think what we are trying to get across is we are trying to watch the dollars of the participants of this particular industry because the ITBOF is very thinly capitalized. We work on one percent of the breeders awards and that amounts to about $120,000 to $200,000 a year. The thing I want to say that is positive about this is. All of the money comes from the tracks. Not one penny comes from the purse account ladies and gentlemen. I am an owner as well as a breeder and I have to tell you personally, I love big purses. I want every dollar of the purse account go to the owners of the race horses. If that were only possible. So the Board, what we do in order to run a thinly capitalized organization, is hire Danny Arrigo over there for $36,000 dollars a year. We have our Breeder Awards compiled by contract so we don t have any employee costs there. We have the accounting by contract and I d like our auditor to stand up. Dave, he performs an audit for us at a very reasonable price. And as I said we have that audited statement right here. I think we have one of the few organizations, and if you check the non profits in the State of Illinois we are one of the few that does have audited statements. We have the website kept by contract, and the secretarial, other then Diane, my secretary does on her work hours, she works on a contract basis. So we produce what we produce and you have seen it on our website and in our packet today. We do it and we now have funding in order to participate with lobbying for two lobbyist and we also are trying to participate with the excess funds we have because we are not for 13

14 profit. Now, we have tried to come up with ideas on legislation since four years ago when I became actively involved. For example I d like to recognize Lyda Williamson, who was on our Board, she came up with one of the basic parts of this bill that came and emanated from the ITBOF of a minimum number of races at each of the tracks in order for them to participate in casino gambling so we don t see the casino running away with our race track. So we have relied upon that and we have tried to reinstate the stallion awards, we have tried to get a support of an increase of the breeders awards, and these are just a few the subjects we have covered and I have put a very minimal amount of our legislative effort into the packet so you can see what we are doing. Now one of the things that I think the Board of Directors wants is we want increase participation by all the stake holders. We have got a lot at stake here. Sen. Link outlined it and for that reason we tried to broaden the membership as much as we can so that we can get out with an increased membership to the owners, breeders, trainers, farriers, veterinarians, and we have some of the largest trainers on our Board, some of the largest owners, and some largest breeders in the State on our Board. We need increased participation so we can try to push this bill over the finish line. To secure participation for these annual meetings, I had Danny send out post cards with four salient questions that we could come up with and also request your comments. I think those are the vital comments we need to address over the near term. What we did then was when you gave back your questions, your comments that your felt were pertinent we put them in a typed out list. Those are in your packet. Those are the people who told the Board of Directors what to do and in the next Board meeting I assure you, I will pose that for the Board of Directors to act on the post cards to do what you told us to do. I think each one of the questions was very important and believe it or not a lot of these issues were split. And the Board has got to make a decision and come down on one side or another on each one of the issues. Now why do I think this is important? Let me tell you I bred a few horses up until I got on the Board four years ago and I think these issues and I think the gaming legislation is vital because when we started this Dan Arrigo came to me and wanted to keep statistics on the racing at the track. I started looking at the statistics that the Illinois Department of Agriculture puts out. What we have found out over the past three years is that the statistics show that 50% of the horses that field at Hawthorne and Fairmount are Illinois bred horses. 50% of the winners at those tracks are Illinois bred horses. We are not breeding inferior horses, contrary to what a Kentuckian will tell you and we are breeding to keep field size. Even here at Arlington, where they keep talking about bring people over from over seas and Dubai and places like that, over 37% of the horses at this meet come from Illinois breds. And we get more then our fair share of winners. So to me, it s critical that the Illinois program continues. I can tell you what s happening. The field sizes are dropping off. If you look at the Illinois Department of Agriculture s statistics, there is a reason the field sizes are dropping off. We the breeders, and I am one of them, can t afford to breed because we don t have the purses there that support and drive the whole engine. They keep talking about gaming being 14

15 the civilith. The shinning star at the end of the tunnel that is going to save the industry. I would pose to you that the Board of Directors is concerned because by the time that gets here, if we don t have any horses to race the tracks are going to shut down. If you look at the statistics that I have available, it is just numerically not working. Because of the drop off in foals. In 2013, we had 136 Illinois bred and Illinois foaled. Now we had 400 foaled with the Illinois bred so a total of 400 Illinois foals. In two years, when we come to race how is that going to fill fields. We don t have this year s statistics as of yet. I can tell you if the tracks rely on Illinois horses for 50% of their fields, what s going to happen when they have 50% fewer horses. Somehow or other, whether or not we have gaming, our Board of Directors has to gather together with every stake holder in this business and bring this forward so we can increase our field size and we can increase our breeding. So you think, well, we will bring it back with gaming. I started looking into that and I looked at other states and what happens when they stop having a track. What happens is the infrastructure is lost. You never think about this, like the Senator said, You come here and there are horses on the track. And you say well we shut it down we will bring some back next year to fill up the fields. But the problem that exists is that every horse that comes to the track, statistically again, it takes $30,000 dollars to get that horse minimally to the first 2 year old race. This morning Gail told me there are about 2,000 horses on the back stretch. That represents 60 million dollars in some costs. Sixty million dollars that has been put into this investment and you don t see out here on the track. You don t see anywhere else. And when you close a track down, like in Michigan and Nebraska, you just don t resuscitate them. They just don t come back like magic. Or you can go borrow money and build a new McDonalds. So I beg of you, I ask you to join the ITBOF actively. Be a stake holder so we can go to Springfield and further more we need you on the Board. I want you to come in. I want you to run for the Board. So I kind of tried to address each and everyone of the observations that are in the post card by an overview. I want to thank everyone for coming here today. Again, please, please help us on the Board of Directors. Thanks a lot and I really appreciate your attendance. (Applause.) Meeting ends. 15