Tim Smith, the former president of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, is heading something called Friends of New York racing, a group that will issue recommendations concerning how to restructure racing in the state. So far, Smith has had little to say on the record about his group and its plans, but it's clear what its message ought to be: It's time to blow the thing up.   That should have happened a long time ago. The current structure consists largely of a quasi-public corporation in the NYRA that is not necessarily profit driven and is in competition with six separate government run off-track betting districts that are havens for patronage positions. The OTBs confounded the problems by fleecing its patrons with a surcharge on winning wagers that has taken hundreds of millions of dollars out of the horseplayers' pockets that were never put back through the windows. There might be a worse way to run racing, but I can't think of one.

Everyone seems to understand that there has to be a better way, but changing things has been a different story. Politics is a powerful force and it has steadfastly maintained the status quo. The New York Racing Association has been around since 1955 and New York City OTB opened for business in 1971.  The result was a terribly inefficient system that caused New York racing to fall well short of its full potential. But no one seemed inclined to do anything about it.

That may finally change. Friends of New York Racing, a group whose contributors include Churchill Downs, Magna Entertainment and several other heavy hitters, has stepped into the ring at a time when the sport's problems are worse than ever, which, in an ironic twist, could be a blessing. Are things so bad that the politicians will finally rise from their collective slumber and fix this badly broken system? From the recent rash of bad news, that hope has arisen. 

NYRA, whose franchise expires at the end of 2007, is still digging out from a scandal that involved its mutuel clerks and resulted in an 18-month deferred prosecution agreement that calls for the organization to be overseen by a federally appointed monitor. Just as the legal problem appeared to be dying down, cops swooped into Aqueduct earlier this months armed with search warrants while investigating an apparent problem with the jockeys riding under the wrong weights. Financial woes abound. The organization lost $20 million in 2003. The installation of slot machines at Aqueduct could have fixed that but they have been put on the back burner due to NYRA's legal problems and the chances that it will no longer operate racing after 2007.

New York City OTB is also mired in crisis. The organization reportedly lost $9.5 million last year and is considering closing half its parlors and is mulling a rash of layoffs. The problems are so bad that New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg told the New York Daily News that he is willing to unload OTB.

"If there's a way to get out of the gambling business that makes sense for New York City, we'll be happy to talk about it," he said.

Both organizations are losing money, NYRA's franchise is about to expire, slots aren't coming to Aqueduct any time soon and the mayor of New York is on the record that he's willing to sell OTB. It all adds up to the distinct possibility that the status quo may finally crumble.

The obvious solution is to merge OTB and NYRA and then sell the combined entity to the highest bidder, be that Magna, Churchill Downs, a group made up of current members of the NYRA board or someone or something else.

That would be a win-win for everyone. The state, the city and other municipal governments would receive a badly needed influx of cash and New York racing would be far better off in the hands of a private enterprise that ran both the tracks and the off track betting operations. With a fresh start under new ownership, it wouldn't take long before slot machines would be humming away at Aqueduct, providing still more revenue for everyone involved and a purse structure that would be the envy of every other racetrack in the country.

 It won't be easy to accomplish. Selling public off-track betting corporations and three racetracks whose profits are turned over to the state will mean working through a nightmarish heap of red tape. Tim Smith and Friends of New York Racing won't be able to dictate what the state does, but maybe they can provide a road map for working through this mess. Though the aims of the organization remain sketchy, that should be its primary goal.

 New York Racing could have a tremendously bright future or it could can continue to stagnate for years to come. That will depend on what conspires in Albany over the next couple of years and what course is chosen for the structure of New York racing. It's time for major changes. Hopefully, someone is listening.