Governor Paterson says he “doesn’t think the New York Racing Association deserves to run thoroughbred racing, but he won’t try to stop NYRA’s latest franchise struck with former Gov. Eliot Spitzer,” according to the language in which Mr. Paterson’s views were characterized in a May 28 report in Newsday.

The newspaper quotes the governor as saying that NYRA’s past “filled with state and federal investigations into corruption charges” show that it doesn’t deserve a 25-year extension that Mr. Spitzer granted it between his flings with high-priced call girls. Mr. Paterson “says an agreement by state government should be honored with a change in governors.”

NYRA, however, is operating under a temporary agreement, the final details of which have yet to be confirmed by federal bankruptcy court or finalized by the governor. One of the things race-goers were reminded of at the Belmont Stakes over the weekend is what a shameful job NYRA has been doing. It brought a vast crowd out to the track to see Big Brown, sold them huge quantities of beer (the vendor of lemonade ran out just when it started to get hot), and then locked all the bathrooms — for men and women — and hung up out-of-order signs on them. This, it says, was a drop in pressure.

One poor lady, dressed in her race-day finery, was spotted pleading with a bathroom attendant to let her in, only to be told to use some temporary outhouses that had been set up and at which the line, by then, was more than half an hour long. Then the attendant slammed the door in the lady’s face. We hadn’t seen the kind of operation we witnessed at Belmont since we were last in the Soviet Union.

We don’t suggest the bathroom failure is anything more than symptomatic of the unpreparedness of NYRA’s board of directors. But no wonder thoroughbred racing has been in decline in New York State. We’ve read all about NYRA’s vows to reform. But it’s hard to credit them. The fear of the politicians seems to be that racing can’t be made to be profitable, so backers of a commercial enterprise wouldn’t take a risk. In other words, they want socialized racing.

Why should it be that way? New York turf lovers deserve better — they certainly thrill to the race itself, as one could see at the Belmont Saturday — and horseplayers get better in other states. Churchill Downs is a for-profit company, whose Nasdaq symbol is CHDN; Pimlico is owned by Magna Entertainment Corp., whose Nasdaq symbol is MECA. Why do New York race goers have to go be subjected to a non-profit, socialistic company?

The right move is to sell the race courses or just allow private enterprise to build new and better ones. Our guess is that when Mr. Spitzer caved in to threats of a lawsuit from NYRA, he was way too distracted to be performing a fiduciary duty for the state. What possible gain could it be for Mr. Paterson to impose this kind of humiliation on the people on whose behalf he is supposed to be acting?