Topeka ? Kansas regulators are giving three shuttered racetracks more time to save their licenses, but one track owner says legislators will have to intervene for dogs and horses to run again.

The Racing and Gaming Commission approved a 60-day reprieve Friday for owners of Wichita Greyhound Park, Camptown Greyhound Park in Frontenac and The Woodlands in Kansas City, Kan., which has separate dog and horse tracks. Those owners must draft plans to eventually reopen their businesses.

Commission spokesman Mike Deines said the group’s 3-1 decision allows the owners to make their plans contingent on the Legislature rewriting a 2-year-old law next year allowing slot machines at the tracks. Critics of the law say it doesn’t do enough to make the tracks’ slots profitable or subsidize their racing.

The Woodlands closed last year, Wichita Greyhound Park in 2007, and Camptown in 2000. The commission moved to take the tracks’ licenses last year because they weren’t running races, then put off action until Friday.

Deines said commissioners didn’t have much to say about the latest reprieve after emerging from a closed session in Anthony, about 55 miles southwest of Wichita. They were there for the last of two annual weekends of dog and horse races.

“It’s a thoughtful decision that gives us better clarity as to what our business is going to look like after slots are passed,” said Doug Lawrence, executive director of the Kansas Greyhound Association.

Phil Ruffin Sr., whose company owns both the Wichita and Camptown parks, called the commission’s decision good news and said his firm will draft a plan. However, he added, “It’s meaningless unless we get the bill passed.”

And passing a bill next year to rewrite the slots law is far from a sure thing. Leaders of the Republican majorities in both chambers refused to even have the issue debated this year.

Under that law, the Kansas Lottery owns the rights to the gambling on each slot machine, though not the equipment itself. The owners’ share of revenues is capped at 40 percent, and they were unable to come to terms with the Lottery during negotiations.

The law allowed slots at all three parks with local voters’ consent. But Sedgwick County narrowly rejected the idea in 2007, blocking slots at Wichita Greyhound Park, and Ruffin closed it.