Correction No racing at Meadowlands for Italian guests

As you know we are hosting a group of Italians here from as far as Sicily, as near, if correct Treviso and somewhere in between., if Tuscany is in between. 
The Italians were eager to race at the Meadowlands as have similar groups in the past. The race office welcomed us and then reversed oars under orders fro on high.

The alleged reason  raised centers around a protective NY state law, similar to that in NJ that in state residents can only bet through an in state ADW and a law  which mandates that a NY thoroughbred track must take  in state NY harness signal. This was a deal made many years ago when a law allowing the thoroughbreds to simulcast t-bred races in our nighttime space became law.  NYRA, through its NYRA Bets (In state ADW) takes NY harness racing exclusively and has its own separate  Oregon ADW, which takes bets on out of state ( non NY ) harness signals from NY residents. 
Problem for NYRA,  its Oregon ADW, like all out of state ADWs incurs  a surcharge, to give the in state ADWs , taking wagers from NY residents, a completive playing field.

That surcharge, collected  from ALL the out of state ADWs, Twin Spires etc., gets divided up  throughout the NY industry.  Part of the surcharge  ends up in NY harness  and thoroughbred purses. NYRA gets a big share of that money back, as  does Yonkers, Saratoga, etc. 

Harness  gets less of that money than NYRA. The reason being because NYRA Bets does a large volume of business. While our money dwarfs their share of the surcharge it is significant money to us and is based upon a formula for the divvying  up that money based upon  on track and ADW handle. Empire City Bets (Yonkers ADW)  does less volume than NYRA BETS.   

Yonkers and other harness tracks’  purses receive a good share of the surcharge money anyway as the handle from  all those out of state ADWs has grown exponentially over the years. 

NYRA in the last legislative session wanted to increase the amount of the surcharge and pretty much keep it all. That was pretty much universally not supported in NYS, except by NYRA. 
Now the Meadowlands guru has prohibited the Italians from racing in the Hambo amateur race because NY harness will not give up its revenue to benefit NYRA. 

NY harness interests will not voluntarily give up revenue to NYRA or any NJ interests advocating now on its behalf. 

This is complicated as you can see. I had to advise the Italians of this decision and ask you to support entering horses for the races beginning Friday August 5th at Yonkers the date originally set for them to race in the Hambo amateur race. The condition for trotters is on the sheet and in stead of a purse of $11,500 the race will go for $20,000. The Italians have hundreds of wins and if you ever go to Italy or Europe to race they are beyond great hosts. It is too bad that they have been punished or put in the middle. 

Please support the box for the Italians at Yonkers which  has stepped up to fill the void on August 5th. Yonkers has  put similar purses and conditions for a pace and trot on Monday the 8th of August, $20,000. If you can put one in for the Italians that would be kind and appropriate. 

Joe Faraldo