LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Before the Kentucky Derby contenders sprint from the starting gates, the crowd at Churchill Downs will hand over millions of dollars at betting windows. Gamblers lucky enough to pick the right colts, thanks to homework or hunches, will be getting a little less back on those winning tickets.
The famed track recently announced that it will take a bigger cut of the money bettors place on its races. The decision came after Kentucky lawmakers rejected the racing industry’s latest effort to add slot machines to generate more cash to boost prize money for horse owners.
Churchill spokesman John Asher said without the bigger cut, the track would have had to reduce the prize money for winners of spring races and some races would likely have been cut altogether. Instead, the track was able to increase its stakes purses by 2.7 percent to $7.68 million for the spring races. The track hopes for a domino effect - that higher purses will lure more horses for races, which in turn will bring out more bettors long after the Derby is run.
“If Churchill Downs is to present a competitive racing product, purses must be strong enough to keep current stables in the state and attract new stables and horses to the Kentucky racing circuit,” Asher said.
Kentucky touts itself as the world’s horse capital with its picturesque horse farms and historic tracks. But some race courses are struggling to compete with tracks in states such as New York and Pennsylvania that have parlayed casino gambling into higher purses that lure more horsemen.
The decision by Churchill Downs - the most storied of all tracks - to withhold more money signals the sport’s struggles in states that haven’t expanded racetrack gambling.
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FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) - Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear said he likely would not call the Legislature back for a special session as House and Senate leaders continue to blame each other for not passing bills combating heroin use and overhauling state ethics laws.
“Before I would do it we would need to have some agreement on the topics,” Beshear said Wednesday. “At this point, my door is not being knocked down with folks that are crying out for a special session.”
Republican Senate President Robert Stivers has continued to call for a special session to pass a bill combating heroin use as state officials reported a 650 percent increase in heroin overdose deaths from 2012.
Wednesday, Stivers wrote an editorial for the Cincinnati Enquirer blaming House Democrats for not passing the heroin bill.
“The House received this bill on Jan. 17. Instead of hearing and passing it immediately, they held onto it,” Stivers wrote. “The only logical explanation is that they kept this bill to use as a pawn in their political games.”
Meanwhile, Democratic House Speaker Greg Stumbo sent a letter to Beshear to say a special session must include an ethics reform bill the House passed on the next-to-last day of the 2014 session. The bill is in response to the Legislative Ethics Commission’s decision to not punish a former Democratic House member accused of sexual harassment.
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LEDBETTER, Ky. (AP) - The Transportation Cabinet says officials are looking at ways to speed up demolition of an old bridge over the Tennessee River in western Kentucky where land at the base of the approach piers has slipped downhill.
Cabinet spokesman Keith Todd says the slippage caused two approach spans of the old Ledbetter Bridge between Paducah and Livingston County to drop 3 to 4 feet.
The bridge is no longer used for traffic and was replaced last year. But there was concern Wednesday about possible threat to river traffic, prompting the Coast Guard to shut down the river for a while. It reopened later Wednesday but the Coast Guard isn’t allowing mariners to stop near the bridge.
The two-lane bridge opened to traffic in 1931.
The McCracken County Emergency Management Agency is monitoring the area.
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LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Kentucky Utilities Co. and Louisville Gas and Electric Co. say they want to delay a request to build a natural gas power plant in Muhlenberg County and a solar facility in Mercer County because nine municipal customers plan to cancel their wholesale power contracts with KU.
KU and LG&E say the cancellations are effective in 2019 and total approximately 320 megawatts of load. The companies asked the Kentucky Public Service Commission in January for approval for the two facilities.
The companies asked the PSC on Wednesday to delay the case for up to 90 days while it considers the effect of the termination notices.
The companies said potential loss of the nine customers won’t affect service to the companies’ remaining 1.2 million customers but could have an effect on the cost to serve the customers in the future.
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