The support for expansion of legalized gambling in Massachusetts that has been expressed in this space has been based to some extent on protection of the local racing industry.

As industries go, it's a small one, that state officials estimate involves about 500 jobs - drivers, trainers, farriers and the like - connected to Plainridge Race Course. That it's a small industry, of course, doesn't make any difference. Jobs put food on the table and, whether it's for the families of thousands in high-tech or dozens in the horse business, all need to eat.

How the local racing industry would make out under the casino plan unveiled this week by Gov. Deval Patrick has not been made plain by the governor. Indeed, we see no evidence that he has given these hard-working folks any consideration at all, despite the months of deliberation he says went into his casino proposal.

What is eminently clear is that Patrick is more concerned about using casinos to leverage tourism business to Western Massachusetts, Greater Boston and Southeastern Massachusetts than in the lives of area residents who draw their livelihoods from horses. Without a plan that could ensure their future, we will not support the governor's proposal. Neither do we expect Plainville's legislators, Rep. Richard Ross, R-Wrentham, or Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, to give the plan any help in advancing.

The governor's comments about casinos have also been devoid of our favorite L word - local. It has been our position that any gambling expansion, whether of building new casinos or of adding slot machines to race tracks - so-called racinos - be subject to local approval as expressed either at town meeting or on a local ballot. Under Patrick's plan, the state would award three casino licenses under a competitive bidding process. Patrick may want citizens to think that state authority will produce the most trouble-free system. Given the sleight-of-hand that has historically been employed at the Statehouse, particularly on revenue-producing schemes, we think the opposite is true. Decisions on gambling should be made by the people closest to the gambling centers. Not surprisingly, Plainridge's directors have already voted to seek one of the licenses if Patrick's plan is approved. How well that would play in Plainville remains to be seen, but where a racino would probably have been accepted, we have detected little support for a full casino on Plainridge's 91-acre site.

Given Patrick's emphasis on casino gambling as a means to promote tourism, you can't help but expect that the governor's Southeastern Massachusetts target for a casino would be on Cape Cod, or at least someplace closer to that tourist Mecca - Middleboro, perhaps, where voters have already given an Indian casino an invitation to move in - than Plainville. Be that as it may, without assurance that local voters would have a say-so on a casino license, we will not support the casino plan.

We are not insensitive to the state's desire to raise additional revenue. Some of the potential uses of gambling revenue - property tax relief; repairs to bridges, dams and highways - are issues on which calls for public attention have appeared in this space. That scenario has been in the background every time a gambling expansion proposal has made any headway on Beacon Hill.

Sources on both sides of the aisle at the Statehouse have forecast a long and tough battle for the Patrick plan. So be it.

When the fight is over, local interests must be better represented or the proposal defeated out of hand.