After serving various stints in the racing industry, Damon Thayer was first elected to the Kentucky Senate in 2003. A small-government Republican, he eventually served as Senate Majority Leader for 12 years.
Along the way, Thayer was the go-to legislator for Kentucky horse racing issues, and his crowning achievement for the industry was marshaling support for a bill providing explicit authorization for historical horse racing machines at Kentucky tracks after the state Supreme Court ruled that they violated the state’s constitution. With subsidies from the machines doubling purses over the last 10 years, Kentucky’s racing circuit is now considered the most stable in the country.
Last year, Thayer, who has branched out into co-ownership of a bourbon company in Central Kentucky and who maintained a consulting business for racing throughout his legislative career, announced that he would not run for office again. One month ago, he was hired as the senior adviser for a new lobbying initiative focusing on racing issues, particularly in Florida, where the industry has arrayed behind an effort to oppose a bill sought by Gulfstream Park to decouple its racing license from its casino license.
Thayer recently sat down for a discussion of racing topics with Daily Racing Form. An edited transcript follows.
After 22 years in the Kentucky Senate and 12 years as Senate Majority Leader, you walked away last year. What was behind that decision?
I felt like I had done my time, for now, in public service. I was a part of efforts to pass a lot of really significant legislation to move Kentucky forward and, specifically, a lot of legislation to help the horse industry. I moved to Kentucky to work in the horse business, and I haven’t been able to do that on a full-time basis for 22 years. I really wanted to get back to it.
This may seem like a softball, but do you think you left the Kentucky racing industry in a better place?
The racing business is not only in a better place than when I started, but also in a much better place than it was five years ago. I’m proud of that. I feel lucky that I was in the right place at the right time and had the right set of colleagues in both the House and the Senate and in both political parties who were willing to step up and help solidify Kentucky’s North American-leading position in both racing and breeding. And that was one of the reasons why [I left]. There were some really hard fights, but we were able to win them. I felt it was time to move on after that.
Sen. Mitch McConnell has already announced that he will not run for his U.S. Senate seat next year. That’s set off the proverbial “domino effect” among candidates seeking Kentucky congressional seats in 2026. Any interest in D.C.?
I’ve already said that I am not going to be a candidate for the U.S. Senate. If my congressman, Representative Andy Barr, runs for the U.S. Senate, I will consider running for Congress in 2026, but I’m a long way from making that decision. My horse racing business is keeping me extremely busy, as well as running our bourbon company. To jump right back into politics and run for federal office is probably not in the cards, but I’m not ready to rule it out yet.
If you were a member of the Kentucky congressional delegation, what would be your position on the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority?
To repeal and replace it with something better.
Where do you think HISA has failed?
I don’t want to call it a failure, but I think there are a couple of areas that could have been handled better. The implementation was botched. I think everyone agrees on that. It was not rolled out in a very good way. My concerns are in general with how it has dealt with due process and specifically how it has dealt with environmental contaminants. And, I think as everyone knows, I’m not a real big fan of the crop rule. I think the best crop rule in the country is in Kentucky, and HISA should scrap the one it is using and use the Kentucky model.
In the past, I’ve been supportive of an interstate compact model in Kentucky, going back 13 or 14 years ago. That’s still [on the table] for me. And so maybe some form of federal authorization combined with an interstate compact would be better.
I am in favor of uniformity when it comes to safety protocols. I also strongly believe that HISA should be paid for by the federal government, rather than the states, because where we’re headed, you are going to see a lot of states choose to opt out of HISA, and then we’re going to have an even more patchwork quilt of rules than we had before HISA.
I have met with [HISA chief executive officer] Lisa Lazarus to encourage some of these changes on due process and the crop rule. Obviously, she told me she agrees with me on getting the federal funding. This funding model is going to collapse in a few years. What’s going to happen is you are going to have more and more states drop out of HISA and the burden is going to fall more and more on the states that stay in, and that’s not sustainable.
Let’s talk about your current focus. You’re now a “senior adviser” to a group that was formed primarily to oppose the decoupling bill in Florida. Why is it important for a critical mass of the industry to lobby against this bill?
There are two reasons. Number one, the immediate effect on the Florida racing and breeding industries if decoupling passes would be catastrophic. We need to kill the decoupling bill and force Gulfstream Park to keep to its promise that it committed to 20 years ago when horsemen allowed it to have a casino as long as it protected live racing. As everyone knows, the Florida horse industry is 33,000 jobs, $3.3 billion in economic activity. We need to save that.
The second reason is that it could be the camel’s nose under the tent when it comes to expanded gaming in the variety of ways it supports racing operations in a number of states. We need to stop that in Florida before we see it trickling down into other states.
What are the counterarguments you’ve heard from people who support the bill?
They’re fairly weak. We know that the sponsor of the bill is very close friends with Gulfstream’s lobbyist, and that seems to be the main impetus behind the bill.
But what about next steps? Let’s say the bill is defeated. Nothing stops 1/ST from then closing the casino and selling the property outright. It’s worth far more to developers than to casino operators. How does the racing industry stop an outright sale even if it is successful in stopping decoupling?
There’s nothing to prevent anyone from selling their property. But if Gulfstream Park is going to continue to remain a racing operation, as long as decoupling is defeated, racing will have to continue there. (Editor’s note: Racing is only statutorily required in order to retain the casino license.)
I think, as everybody knows, the future of racing at Gulfstream Park is marginal right now. Whether it’s short-term or long-term, I don’t put the chances of racing remaining at Gulfstream Park as very good. But we need time to be able to negotiate what the future looks like for Florida racing, whether it’s at Gulfstream Park, whether it’s at Hialeah, whether it’s an expanded role for Tampa Bay Downs, or whether there’s a new racing license available for somewhere north of Broward and Miami-Dade [counties], or perhaps in Marion County.
We don’t know if it was in writing, but there was a three-year deal floated by 1/ST saying they would commit to three years of racing if the industry backed the decoupling bill. If what the racing industry in Florida needs is time and Gulfstream’s long-term future is murky at best, why not accept that deal?
Because it’s not acceptable at this time. The Florida people would like there to be a longer deal for racing because it’s going to take longer to figure out what the next steps are. I’d also like to note that the Gulfstream Thoroughbred horsemen and the Tampa Bay HBPA and OBS and the FTBOA [Florida Thoroughbred Breeders’ And Owners’ Association] are all supporting the Thoroughbred Racing Initiative, so we’re all singing from the same hymnal, so to speak. We’re determined to defeat decoupling and then we’ll be able to hopefully sit down and negotiate what the future of Florida racing is, with or without Gulfstream Park, knowing that the owner of Gulfstream Park is not committed to a long-term future there. From my talks with the people who I work for, they’d like to see a longer time horizon at Gulfstream Park so some other future can be negotiated.
When TRI was announced, you said that you would be available to lobby for racing-friendly legislation or initiatives in other states. What issues are going to be most important for TRI to address in other states?
The reason the group doesn’t have Florida in its name is that it wants to be available to assist other states that are distressed. The immediate concern once we have Florida addressed is California.
Obviously, [1/ST] is not committed to horse racing in this country. They have closed down tracks in Michigan, Oregon, and California. They are getting out of Maryland. They clearly want out of Florida. So what’s left? One of horse racing’s most iconic racetracks, and that’s Santa Anita.
What will be your focus in California?
It’s too soon to tell. But my experience in Kentucky, that I’m applying to Florida and other states where I’m working or where I will be working, is that cooperation is better than extinction. We learned that in Kentucky, when everyone came together to advocate to pass [historical horse racing machines]. Now, in Florida, we have everybody except Gulfstream Park on the same page advocating to save Florida racing by defeating decoupling.
So I would say it would be something like that, where we get everybody together – owners, horsemen, breeders, jockeys, and hopefully even track management – to try to figure out a way forward. I strongly believe that the states that are going to thrive with horse racing in the next five to 10 years are the ones that have good relationships with state legislators in state capitals. To have that success, you have to have some sort of agreement to work together.
It makes legislators very nervous when an industry is divided. They just don’t want to deal with it when that’s the case. If everyone is together, you are more likely to have success. And because racing is legalized on a state-by-state basis and regulated at the state level, those relationships at the state capitals are going to become more and more important.
When you talk to legislators or other people outside of Kentucky, what responses do you get regarding the sport’s record on fatalities, on welfare and safety?
Everywhere we go, people feel like we have made great strides on aftercare. It is one of the biggest issues the industry faces. I think everybody, whether they are for or against HISA, whether they think HISA should be changed or remain the same, I think they are pleased to know that the fatality numbers are decreasing. There is unanimity that we are making progress on aftercare, but that we can always do more.
So do you think that it’s well-known outside of racing that the fatality rate is going down? When you look at coverage in mainstream media, it seems that most people believe that racing is more dangerous, not less so. What do people who talk to you say? Do you hear that the sport needs to address this issue more forcefully?
No, I really don’t, at least not from the people I talk to outside of racing. But you have to remember, I live in a bubble here in Central Kentucky. But when I talk to people who are casual fans of racing, they say that they feel like the sport has gotten safer. But I don’t know if that’s a fair sample size. I don’t hang out with a bunch of PETA types or horse racing haters, either inside or outside of my circle of friends.
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