Citing three reasons, the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association on Monday announced that it has terminated its membership in the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA). The withdrawal became effective on April 1.

In a letter sent to NTRA Commissioner Tim Smith, association Executive Director Michael Ballezzi said his organization found that recent discussions with the NTRA regarding structure of governance did not yield sufficient progress.

The association also cited the "NTRA's lack of communications with respect to certain of its decisions to all of its members has been lacking." Ballezzi said his organization received no follow-up to a meeting concerning the Television Games Network in September 1999, despite promises from the NTRA.

The association also said that while it has taken two steps to promote racing to current and new fans, "neither of them have been supported or recognized by the NTRA."

"Specifically we asked you to participate to a partial extent in the advertising on our television show for which we included NTRA ads and you refused," the letter stated. "In addition, to our knowledge, the (association) is the only horsemen's organization which has cooperative buying of shavings, feed, and other horse supplies and there has been no recognition of this by the NTRA or any effort to include us in the national buying cooperative which has been put together by the NTRA."

The Pennsylvania group is the first horsemen's member to announce its formal withdrawal from the organization.