Even the old-timers, the die-hards, worry that horse racing in Oregon may be rounding its final corner.

"The real horse player is a dying breed," says Wallace Sanders, as he sits at a table inside

, a stack of thumbed-over racing forms in front of him.

Sanders, 75, has been coming to the track and betting the horses since graduating from Jefferson High School in 1955. On Saturday morning, the retired postal worker and about two dozen others are scattered around the cavernous clubhouse, waiting for races to begin in Florida and other distant tracks.

Off-track-betting, where players wager on live, televised races from around the country, is one way Portland's venerable racetrack has been able to keep its doors open most of the year. But the crowds that once showed for live racing during the summer have thinned and managers are looking for ways to bring more to the sport, a $150 million industry in Oregon.

The latest gambit: machines that allow people to bet on historic races just as they would a live race. Sometimes called instant racing machines, they have been successful at tracks in Arkansas and Kentucky.

An experiment with them in Oregon several years ago ended when they were deemed illegal by the state attorney general. Now the machines could return to Portland Meadows if the state Legislature agrees to give them another shot.

, D-Salem, has introduced a bill that would allow the financially struggling racetrack to install the machines in the hopes of bringing it more people and more revenue.

"This one is definitely about helping Portland Meadows do better, which helps the entire horse racing community do better," says Clem, the chief sponsor of

.

The bill is being pushed by track owners and by horse owners and breeders and the Oregon Quarter Horse Racing Association.

"Horse racing, we're told, hasn't adapted to technology," says William Alempijevic, general manager of Portland Meadows. "It's a sport supported by older men, and doesn't appeal to a younger demographic."

If the bill passes, a number of the machines would be installed at the racetrack. Based on pari-mutuel wagering, players would be able to pick races from the past, get some information about the horses and jockeys, then make picks the way they would any other race.

The race, which would be disguised enough so even the most astute gamblers can't tell which one it was, would then run, and cash prizes awarded to the winners.

It might appeal to the younger set, but not to the pros who follow the sport.

"If it keeps the place open, that's great," says Paul Santos, of Vancouver, who is among the group wagering on distant races Saturday morning. "But that's not what I play. There's no intellectual challenge."

Sanders, the longtime horse gambler, remembers the first experiment with the machines in 2006. It didn't go well, he says.

"They were like a ghost town," he says. "No one sat down at all."

Now, however, the time might be right, says Alempijevic. The younger generation likes the excitement of horse racing and they like video games.

"Technology and information presented in a visual way is very important nowadays," he says. Racetracks, not just Portland Meadows but around the country, have to reach out to a broader, younger clientele to survive, he says.

"Basically the industry as a whole is facing financial difficulties," Alempijevic says. "There's a misconception that it's something that rich people do. It's something passionate people do."

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