Texas H.O.R.S.E. announced today its enthusiastic support for a constitutional amendment and implementing legislation filed in the Texas Senate by Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, and in the Texas House of Representatives by Representative Beverly Woolley. Senator Jeff Wentworth is listed as a co-author of the bills filed in the Senate.

If approved by the legislature, the constitutional amendment will be voted on by the citizens of Texas on November 8, 2011.  Following its approval at the polls, the amendment will authorize video lottery gaming at the 13 licensed horse and greyhound racetracks in Texas, and provide that the 3 federally recognized Indian tribes in Texas are not prohibited from operating video lottery machines on their tribal lands.  The implementing bill filed today will define the administration and regulation of video lottery gaming when the constitutional amendment becomes effective.

The legislation will pave the way for an industry that will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes annually for Texas. Just as importantly, it will provide the tools to allow the Texas racing industry to compete on a level playing field with all the states bordering Texas, whose respective governments all gave their racing industries the support and mechanisms with which to effectively devastate the industry in Texas during the last decade. Additionally, this legislation reaches out and provides much needed support to the non-racing segments of the horse industry, establishing a Performance Horse Development Fund, and Texas will be unique in that regard. This means that the benefits of this legislation can potentially impact all 254 counties in Texas, down to local rodeos and other local horse events. 

 In addition to providing substantial tax revenues to Texas, the ultimate benefit will be to help revitalize the enormous equine agricultural industry in our state, resulting in many thousands of additional jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars  in economic impact annually. Texas has always been looked to as the “home of the horse”; it is our heritage. This legislation will go a long way toward giving the Texas horse industry what it needs to regain its rightful status as the best in the nation.

Texas Horse Organizations for Racing, Showing, and Eventing (H.O.R.S.E.) was founded in 2008 to unite, for the first time, all the major horse organizations in Texas. Its members include the American Quarter Horse Association, American Paint Horse Association, and the National Cutting Horse Association, all national organizations headquartered in Texas, as well as the Texas Thoroughbred Association, Texas Quarter Horse Association, Texas Horsemen’s Partnership, Texas Arabian Breeders’ Association and the Texas Paint Horse Breeders’ Association.

For more information, please visit www.texashorseweb.com