1956 VETOES.

antee, and perhaps improve, the standard of racing in Mary-
land and place racing in this State on a favorable competitive
base with racing in New York, New Jersey, Delaware and
West Virginia.

The proposal met with the combined opposition of Baltimore
legislators, who reported overwhelming sentiment in the city
against the removal of Pimlico, and other racing interests.

Legislative discussion of the matter developed the proposal
of additional racing days for the Laurel and Bowie tracks,
both located in the Baltimore-Washington perimeter, as a
possible offset to a threatened decline in racing revenues to
the State.

Since the safeguarding of revenues from racing, so long as
the State is dependent upon this source of revenues, is a pri-
mary consideration in the licensing of pari-mutuel betting on
this sport in Maryland, additional days of racing at the mile
tracks in a locality which would draw both Baltimore and
Washington patronage appeared to be the simplest alternative
approach to an assurance of continued revenue, which was the
underlying interest of the State in the proposal to consolidate
the Pimlico-Laurel operation at an expanded and modernized
track. For that reason, I suggested its further consideration
by the General Assembly.

However, the measure as finally enacted deprives the Racing
Commission of any discretion in the matter of the twenty ad-
ditional days authorized, and makes it mandatory that ten each
be added to the meets at Laurel and Bowie, regardless of
whether the returns from a hundred days of racing at mile
tracks are maintained at a level commensurate with the State's
dependence on this source of revenue. This would constitute
a basic change in policy.

As presently written, the law authorizing pari-mutuel racing
in Maryland vests the Commission with discretion in the
assignment of racing dates to licensees, and in this discretion
is a measure of protection for the State's interests.

The net increase of thirty authorized days of racing (twenty
days mile tracks; ten additional half-mile days), plus the
extra five days that would be permitted the three harness
tracks which will operate this year, presents complications in
the assignment of dates which were not forseen in all their
implications at the time of the consideration of this legislation
by the General Assembly.

Years of experience have established the impracticability of
racing in Maryland during the months of December, January,
February and March, covering a period of a hundred and
twenty-one days. In the remaining two hundred and forty-four