Officials at Keeneland in Lexington are blaming the national economy on the sharpest drop in sales ever recorded at the September Yearling Sale. We hope that’s the only reason for the decline, and it’s not also because buyers are losing confidence in the quality of racehorses bought and sold in Kentucky.
The 14-day sale ended Monday with total sales of $191,859,200, down 41.51 percent from last year’s 15-day total of $327,999,100. The average price was $60,734, a 33.25 percent decline from 2008, while the median of $22,000 price was down 40.54 percent from a year ago.
It marked the first time in the 66 years of the yearling sales at Keeneland that sales fell by more than 40 percent. According to the Courier-Journal in Louisville. the previous record decline was 27 percent in 1947. The previous largest median decline was 21 percent in 1988, but then that figure has only been published since 1987.
Keeneland Sales Director Geoffrey Russell says the thoroughbred industry is no different from other markets that have been affected by global financial woes. But if you believe many of those in this state’s racing industry — led by the Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP) which has been pushing for expanded gambling — the ability of tracks in other states to use revenue from expanded gambling to increase their purses is hurting both the breeding and racing of thoroughbreds in this state, in addition to the financial viability of some tracks.
Is that just a ploy to convince legislators and voters to approve expanded gambling at tracks? Maybe, but clearly buyers were not as interested in spending big bucks on young thoroughbreds sold at Keeneland this fall than they have been in previous year. It could be just because of the economy. Or maybe the horse industry knows what it is talking about when it frets about the future of breeding and racing in this state.
Editorials
Record decline — 10/01/09
Did economy or quality cause drop in Keeneland sales?
- Editorials
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Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.
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Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.
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'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.
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Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.
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Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.
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Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.
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Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.
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Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.
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Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.
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Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.
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Charles Chattin
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