SARATOGA SPRINGS – Should racing at New York’s three major racetracks, Saratoga, Belmont Park and Aqueduct, and the video-lottery casino planned for the Big A, be run by a non-profit corporation, whose mission is to promote racing and provide revenue for the state? Or by a for-profit company, whose primary duty is to make money for its shareholders?

That is a major question confronting the nine-member Ad Hoc Committee – three members each appointed by Gov. George Pataki, State Senate leader Joseph Bruno, and Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver – to recommend which one of several organizations responding to the committee’s Request for Proposal (RFP) should get the nod when the New York Racing Association’s current franchise expires at the end of 2007. Final bids are due today, with the committee expected to make its final recommendation by Sept. 29 or shortly thereafter.

NYRA chairman Steve Duncker, president and CEO Charles Hayward, and board of trustees member James Heffernan, meeting with the press yesterday, made the case that NYRA, a non-profit that has been running racing in the state since 1955, should have its franchise renewed. Today, NYRA will submit an 1,800-page proposal that took “hundreds of hours” to complete, although they could not provide specific details of their proposal because the Ad Hoc Committee has imposed a gag order on all bidders until the final decision is reached.

Duncker, a retired partner at Goldman Sachs, said making money for shareholders “is the American way, but it’s not the best way for this industry.” He cited the example of Churchill Downs Inc. selling off Hollywood Park six years after acquiring it. The future of that track, which sits on a valuable piece of real estate, is now in doubt.

The front-runner for the franchise appears to be Empire Racing, a for-profit formed earlier this year with the backing of the N.Y. Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Assn. Empire has taken on several other partners, including Churchill Downs Inc. and Magna Entertainment Corp., which together own and operate many of the nation’s racetracks.

Duncker, who thinks NYRA has “a very good chance” of retaining the franchise (Hayward does not), said he welcomed Empire’s coalition in the process. “It so clearly sets this debate: profit versus non-profit,” he said. “Let that be the referendum.”