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COUNCIL BLUFFS Terry Markley remembers the glory days of greyhound racing, when gamblers needed a reservation to score a clubhouse table or else stand elbow-to-elbow with other dog enthusiasts.
That was in the late 1980s and early 1990s, before the whistling bells of the slot machines began to drown out the barking of the dogs.
“Before 1995, it was pretty packed in here, before people started to drift away from here to the riverboats,” said Markley, a retired military man who spends his afternoons betting on the dogs in a nearly empty clubhouse at Horseshoe Casino.
No longer top dog in Iowa, the state's two dog tracks in Dubuque and Council Bluffs are struggling to stay alive.
It's a fight that dog breeders, owners and trainers say could end a way of life for about 1,300 people who make their living working directly with the dogs.
The casinos that are forced by state law to subsidize live dog racing are pushing to end the meets, saying it's a dying industry.
Harrah's Entertainment Inc., which owns the Council Bluffs dog track, offered last week to give the state $7 million annually for an indefinite period if it were allowed to close the track.
A bill in the Iowa Legislature to end live dog racing was dropped Friday, but the casinos are expected to try again next year.
“These guys are about greed and power,'' Bob Hardison, president of the Iowa Greyhound Association, said of the casinos. “It has nothing to do with Iowa. And they don't care if 1,300 people lose their jobs.”
The casinos respond that the bettors have spoken and that they prefer to play blackjack, slot machines and poker.
“These dogs have been running every night. There's no one there. There's no one betting. And we have to pay out to those owners to run these dogs when no one is betting on them,” said Jim Carney, a lobbyist for Harrah's.
The casinos say they spend about $12 million a year subsidizing the two dog tracks in Iowa.
The woes hitting the Iowa greyhound industry can be seen across the country.
Nationwide, the number of dog tracks has declined to about 25 from a high of 55 in the late 1980s.
In the last few years, greyhound tracks have closed in more than a half-dozen states, including Wisconsin, Arizona and Massachusetts. Only six states continue to offer live dog racing: Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Florida, West Virginia and Iowa.
The sport's decline is mirrored by the decline in betting handle. In 1991, about $120 million was wagered on live dog racing in Iowa. In 2008, $7.3 million was wagered, according to the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission.
In Iowa, the dog track in Council Bluffs opened to great fanfare in 1986. In its early years, the Bluffs Run track ranked among the nation's top 10 greyhound tracks in amount wagered.
It had its critics. Officials in Nebraska blamed the dog races, along with the growth of lotteries and keno, to the slide in wagering at the Ak-Sar-Ben horse track in Omaha. Ak-Sar-Ben closed after the 1995 season.
The greyhound tracks were top dogs in the region's gambling industry until 1991, when American Indian casinos began opening about an hour to the north on Winnebago and Omaha tribal lands. The real hit, however, came in 1995 and 1996, when Iowa licensed full-fledged casinos.
Today, the bulk of the sport's followers appear to be retirees who arrive at the track, scribbling in their books and handicapping the dogs.
On a sunny Thursday afternoon, about 100 people were in the clubhouse when the dogs began racing at 4 p.m. Many appeared to be betting on simulcast races that were being shown in the clubhouse.
Several gamblers said they started out betting on the horses in Omaha, but when Ak-Sar-Ben closed they migrated to the dogs.
Many noted that they would still be able to wager on simulcast dog races, but it would not be the same.
“This is going to be a sad day if they take this away. A lot of us are retirees. This is what we do. This is our entertainment,” said Markley, 65, of Bellevue.
The closing of the dog track would mean the end of a career for Charles “Mickey” Canapp. The 74-year-old is one of about 150 licensed breeders in Iowa.
In addition, there are about 370 greyhound owners in Iowa and about 70 greyhound farms, according to the Iowa Greyhound Association.
Canapp has about 70 dogs on his farm in Underwood on any given day.
“I breed 'em, we whelp 'em, we train 'em and we race 'em in the state of Iowa,” said Canapp, who would politely stop the conversation to watch the races.
He plows back thousands of dollars into Iowa's economy, he said, pulling out a $750 receipt for dog food that he recently bought.
Canapp believes more could be done to publicize the greyhound tracks. He said younger Iowans often don't even know the sport exists.
“All we have to do is advertise. It's not on TV. It's not on the radio, and it's not in the newspapers,” he said.
Contact the writer:
444-1309, robynn.tysver@owh.com
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