SALEM, N.H. March 9, 2003 (AP)--Joseph Carney Jr., the president and owner of Rockingham Park racetrack, died Sunday after a long illness. He was 70.

The track announced that Carney, also an owner of the Seabrook Yankee greyhound track and a director and founder of Connecticut Yankee dog track in Plainfield, Conn., died at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Carney was also a former director of horse and dog tracks in Foxboro, Mass.; Henderson, Ky., and Key West and Pensacola in Florida.

Carney and his partners bought Rockingham in 1983, three years after fire destroyed the clubhouse and grandstand and it closed. They reopened the track in 1984.

With revenues dropping in recent years and unable to get video gambling at the track, the owners announced in December the track would switch from thoroughbreds to harness racing this summer.

``We will all miss him very much,' said Ed Callahan, vice president and general manager at Rockingham.

Carney is survived by his wife, Jill; three daughters, Kathleen, Mary and Ellen, and two sons, Joseph III and James; five grandchildren; two brothers and two sisters.

Funerals arrangements were not immediately known.


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