VOTE "NO" ON QUESTION 2 DEMONSTRATION

Maine Friends of Animals is speaking out against Question 2.  Please join us in a peaceful demonstration.

• Where: at the entrance of Scarborough Downs
• When: on Saturday, October 29 from 11 AM to 2 PM rain or shine.

MFOA will provide signs and handout materials. Try to come early as the press usually arrives at the onset. There is parking at the adjacent Embassy Inn & Suites Hotel and America Best Value Motel. Please be courteous of the hotel and park in the back of the lot.

Directions to Scarborough Downs:
From Portland: Take 295 South to Exit 2/Scarborough. Follow access road to Route 1 South. Pass through 7 traffic lights. Scarborough Downs is on the right at the 8th light. If on Route 95, take Exit 42 marked for Scarborough Downs, which will take you to the Payne Road Entrance of Scarborough Downs. Enter there and drive about 1/2 mile through to Route 1 to the front entrance, which will be the location for the demonstration.

Our perspective:
Harness racing survives only because of a $2 million subsidy from casino revenue each year. In 1990 with the industry in full panic, the solution was monies from off-track betting parlors. Then in 2003, the solution was giving the industry money from the state’s share of slot machine revenues. Yet the Bangor and Scarborough tracks still often run in the red and audiences continue to decline. And there is no evidence anywhere that slot machines have or will revive harness racing.

Standardbred breeders, whose purpose is to continually produce new winners for Maine’s harness racing tracks, are escalating the crisis of unwanted horses. Horses are raced from 18 months to the age of four or five. Then they typically become unwanted. Horses may live to the age of 30. What happens to them after their short racing careers? What happens to the many horses that do not make the cut as racers?

More off-the-track standardbred horses are in need of rescue in Maine than any other type of horse. Without enough humane retirement options, the majority are sold to the highest bidder and sent to Quebec’s slaughterhouses. “Kill buyers” can load horses into their trailers right at the race track. If Question 2 passes, the problem of unwanted horse in Maine will only continue to grow.

It is time we pull back the curtain and expose the harness racing industry for what it is — a miserable life for horses, a business left to regulate itself and a significant cause of unwanted horses and horse slaughter. It is an outdated, inhumane and dying form of entertainment.

Additional ways to help

• Distribute Fact Sheet and ask friends, neighbors and business associates to Vote "No" on Question 2. No to Racinos!
  
• Donate today! Taking on the harness racing industry takes funding to be effective. Please help MFOA defeat these vested interests that want to continue this inhumane, outdated and dying form of entertainment.
• Write a Letter to the Editor. Review the above Fact Sheet and write a letter -- generally 250 words or less -- to your local daily and community newspapers.