Suffolk Downs, the thoroughbred racetrack that owns the Revere, Mass., land where Mohegan Sun wants to build a $1.3 billion resort casino, has assured Bay State gaming regulators that the track’s horses will continue to run if Mohegan Sun wins the Greater Boston casino license.
In a letter this week to the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, William Mulrow, chairman of Suffolk Sterling Racecourse, said the racing would continue for at least the first 15 years of Mohegan Sun Massachusetts’ operation “and, we hope, well beyond.”
Suffolk Downs announced its commitment publicly Thursday, releasing Mulrow’s eight-page letter to the commission.
Clearly, partnering with Mohegan Sun offers financial salvation for the 78-year-old track, whose owners say they have absorbed some $50 million in losses since 2007.
Over the last 20 years, Mulrow wrote in the letter, the marketplace has changed, leaving Massachusetts at a competitive disadvantage. It is one of only a few racing states in which the track operator can’t rely on expanded gaming revenues to help pay for track operations and purses.
Suffolk Downs is the only active thoroughbred track in New England, which was once home to more than a dozen of them.
“We have said repeatedly over the last several years that the future of racing at Suffolk Downs is in doubt absent gaming development on the property,” Mulrow wrote. “That remains true with the new circumstances of Suffolk Downs no longer being an applicant for a gaming license and with our tenant, Mohegan Sun Massachusetts, as an applicant on its own dedicated portion of the property.”
Lease payments from the casino would provide Suffolk Downs with the revenue it needs to keep operating the track, which supports some 1,500 jobs in thoroughbred racing, breeding and related businesses, according to data Mulrow cited in his letter.
The businesses have an annual economic impact of $116.3 million.
Suffolk Downs would relocate its existing track facilities in Revere to the Boston side of the property and seek permits from the City of Boston. If it couldn’t secure the permits, the track would have to locate off-site stables and training facilities somewhere nearby.
Suffolk Downs said either option would require initial capital investments of $30 million to $35 million.
The Mohegan Sun project is subject to the approval of voters in a Feb. 25 referendum in Revere. If approved, it would compete for the Greater Boston casino license against Wynn Resorts’ plan for an Everett casino.
b.hallenbeck@theday.com