Rockingham Park president Ed Callahan has made contact with Trot Insider in effort to clarify issues in regard to the possibility of the track only being a simulcasting facility at some point in the future
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"Rockingham is not looking to cease live racing, it seeks to prevent an additional cost of up to $480,000 to continue live racing in the State of New Hampshire," Callahan wrote. "The bill that is proposed would pile all of the regulatory cost onto the tracks that continue live racing.
"The greyhound tracks in New Hampshire have been under siege by the animal rights lobby who succeeded in passing a referendum in Massachusetts in 2008 preventing greyhound racing and closing the greyhound tracks in that state in 2010. In [New Hampshire] that lobby had their bill to eliminate greyhound racing defeated in the [New Hampshire] Legislature in February. Now they are attempting to achieve the same result in this piece of legislation attached to the state budget.
"Rockingham currently pays the state of [New Hampshire] in excess of $2,500,000 per year in taxes and fees, an additional $480,000 is not acceptable."