As Session Nears End, Florida House Tax Bill Attempts To Strip Out FTBOA From Existing Purse Subsidy Law

[Wandering Eyes]

A sprawling, 133-page tax package in the Florida House of Representatives that got advanced by that chamber's Budget Committee on Tuesday includes a small section tacked onto the end of the bill that would maintain $27.5 million in annual purse subsidies at Gulfstream Park and Tampa Bay Downs while stripping out the Florida Thoroughbred Breeders' and Owners' Association (FTBOA) as a receiving or administering entity for that money.

The annual purse subsides were signed into law last year. Although the dollar-amount allocation for Thoroughbred entities would remain the same, the language in House Bill 7033 would take away the annual $5-million distribution made to the FTBOA that currently gets used to fund Florida-bred and -sired purses, stallion awards, “other racing incentives” and the “promotion of the Florida Thoroughbred breeding industry.”

Instead, the House version of the taxation bill would redistribute the FTBOA-allocated money directly to the two tracks to pay the related purses while deleting the requirement that horses eligible for those state incentives must registered with the FTBOA.

The non-profit FTBOA, which has been in existence since 1945, represents over 1,300 Thoroughbred breeders and owners in the state.

The FTBOA was instrumental in getting the purse subsidy bill passed in 2024, and it has consistently fought against various decoupling issues over the last two decades, including three pieces of legislation that are currently active in the Florida session that is expected to end May 2. Those highly controversial decoupling bills would remove the live racing requirement for Gulfstream Park and Tampa Bay Downs to operate their respective casino and card room.

Lonny Powell, the FTBOA's chief executive officer, told TDN on Wednesday that the House's opposition to his organization is intertwined with the FTBOA's adamant stance against decoupling. He added that the FTBOA is used to having to deal with “blowback from any opposition” to such a polarizing legislative topic.

“I don't expect that $5 million being removed,” Powell said. “Remember, there are two branches of the legislature. We just don't believe that the other side is going to really approve that type of obvious [attempt to] take FTBOA's money out and spread it amongst the racetracks that want to decouple. It just doesn't have a lot of traction.

“If you were calling me and saying the Senate voted [for those anti-FTBOA measures], that would be a different conversation. I'm just saying that the House has consistently voted along these directions from the word 'go' this session. They're finishing out their business, and I don't expect them to get any softer or to take any more pressure off of us,” Powell said.

“I'm concerned that such a discussion even took place, but not really surprised on the [anti-FTBOA sentiments of] the House. We just feel really good about the Senate doing the right thing, and [the larger issue of decoupling] is obviously a very complicated and complex issue that [has to] get settled within the last several days of the session.

“We do not anticipate the Senate going along with us being unfunded [via House Bill 7033] from the very [purse subsidy] bill that we championed on behalf of the industry over the last two years.”

When the House Budget Committee heard about 45 minutes of testimony on the 2025 tax bill before reporting it favorably by a 16-1 margin Apr. 22, the section about purse subsidies and the anti-FTBOA language did not get discussed.

The post As Session Nears End, Florida House Tax Bill Attempts To Strip Out FTBOA From Existing Purse Subsidy Law appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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