Eleanor Sobel wants to see greyhound racing at the finish line

What became clear during Tuesday’s meeting of the Florida Senate Regulated Industries Committee is that the debate over SB 2 is going to be a death match. The measure requires greyhound tracks to report dog injuries within seven days.

With 19 greyhound racing permit holders, Florida has more greyhound racing than any state in the nation.  And at least one racing dog death is reported every three days. Many of the injuries the animals suffer are common to stresses related to racing.

“I think this is a barbaric practice and we are subsidizing a bankrupt sport,” state Sen. Eleanor Sobel told the committee.  The proposal is essentially the same as the one that unanimously cleared the Senate and died last year in the House.

Greyhound racing is a dying sport. According to a legislative report, the state spends $3.1 million more each year to regulate greyhound racing than it receives in tax revenue.

The state Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering reports that paid attendance at dog tracks has dropped 85 percent over 10 years and the amount bet has dropped 67 percent since 1990. But the tracks must produce a minimum of 800 races a year to operate poker rooms

“Everyone loses when dogs race. The track loses, the dog loses and it hurts our tax base,” said Sobel. “And it’s barbaric.”

Greyhound owners and breeders see proposals like Sobel’s as a backdoor attempt to effectively do away with the industry and enable the race tracks to branch into other pari-mutuel activates.

“It has nothing to do with greyhound safety,” said Jack Cory, representing the Florida Greyhound Association, about SB 2.  “If it did, this bill would have some greyhound safety in it other than just the title. This is an attempt to do away with racing so that the tracks can become mini casinos.”

Sobel rejected a suggestion to roll her proposal into others that address how the injuries are treated, saying she wanted to keep the bill simple and clean in an effort to bring transparency to the industry; it mandates an injury report is filed with the state within seven days. It cleared the committee with a unanimous vote.

Florida is one of seven states that allow greyhound racing and is home to more than half of the active dog tracks in the country.