Hilarious..."He spit out the reasons why he should own its tracks: the New York Racing Association lost $20 million in 2003..."

Everything I've read indicates that Magna Entertainment is hemorrhaging cash; as they article points out, they racked up an impressive $95.6 mil of losses in 2004.

"They wanted him to sell or spin off Magna Entertainment, his horse-racing subsidiary, to restore share value in another subsidiary, a real estate company..."

That real estate company gave M.E. $192 million in loans, interest-free until 2008, to help finance the reconstruction of GP and some work at, I believe, the Meadows. So, what if the investors succeed in forcing a spin-off - are those loans still OK as is? I'm asking, I have no idea.

"In Albany, Governor Pataki had released his proposed budget, which called for the state's track franchise to be put up for bid starting at $250 million, with annual payments of perhaps tens of millions more on top of that...."

Even Magna's own PR shills admitted, during their public comments after the year's "earnings" report was released, that they are hamstrung for awhile as far as taking on more debt. Wouldn't cash outlays required by the up-front bid fee and the annual payments weaken M.E. even further? What happens if they get the NY franchise and then a few years down the road they can't make the annual payments?

Richiebee, I agree with both your comments on the Spa - it IS too long at six weeks, and Stronach would certainly extend it to AT LEAST 8-10 weeks. (By the way, isn't CD planning to run a longer summer meet? Even a 6 week SAR meet suffers a probable loss of ship-ins under that scenario, the effect is obviously amplified if the meet is 8, 10, or 12 weeks...). And let's not forget the "upselling", as his folks call it, that would take place at the Spa...jacked up seat prices, jacked up admission prices, who knows what sort of luxury tents and boxes crammed into who knows where. Call me a misty-eyed idealist, but I do feel that Saratoga needs to be handled somewhat differently than a run-of-the-mill "racing plant", it holds obvious and significant historical value, and it needs to be run with an eye on that fact.

So, Stronach's company loses money hand over fist and its future seems dangerously tied to what happens with slots in a number of states. In many cases, the future of slots is precarious at best, and even here in NY, where slots are operating right now, a lower court ruled last year that it is against the state consitution for racing to get a piece of the slots action. That decision got kicked up to a higher court that is full of Pataki appointees, so it may well get reversed - but who knows, really.

Obviously racing has big problems here in NY and elsewhere, but just because this guy made a ton of money selling sprockets, that means he is The Savior the racing industry has been waiting for all these years? I don't buy it.