The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission said the Iowa Greyhound Association has asked to drop the number of meets at Iowa Greyhound Park in Dubuque to 18 days and also to end greyhound racing after the season in 2022. The last remaining dog racetrack in the state, Iowa Greyhound Park has survived this long due to payment obligations made by other tracks.
IRGC Administrator Brian Ohorilko said, “As part of the original greyhound cessation legislation that was passed approximately seven years ago, the two racetracks that offered greyhound racing, Q-Casino and Horseshoe Casino, could opt out of greyhound racing and pay a fee over seven years. Those payments have been coming in every year and the last payment would be made in 2022.”
Dog races began at the Dubuque Greyhound Park June 1985, followed by Bluffs Run in Council Bluffs in February 1986 and Waterloo Greyhound Park in October 1986. Following the closure of Iowa Greyhound Park, if the greyhound industry remains the same, only three dog racetracks will remain operational in the U.S.: Mardi Gras Casino and Resort and Wheeling Island Hotel-Casino-Racetrack in West Virginia and Southland Park Gaming and Racing in Arkansas. Florida, once the capital of greyhound racing, banned the sport late last year.
In May, a bipartisan group of members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced to ban greyhound racing. U.S. Rep. Tony Cárdenas of California stated, “Greyhound racing is cruel and must end. These docile animals are kept in stacked cages for 20 hours or more a day and are subjected to brutal training practices and races, facing the risk of injury and death at every turn.”
