Churchill Downs CEO Robert Evans isn’t feeling the gloom. In his keynote address at the UA-RTIP Symposium on Tuesday, Evans found reasons for optimism among horse racing’s challenges, including this stat:

Evans said that racing’s customers still respond to quality, and that if the downsized industry keeps more of the quality product and reduces the poor end that the industry should thrive. To illustrate that point, Evans noted that handle on the top 25 races actually increased 18% in 2009 versus 2003, even as total handle during that period declined 19%.

Interesting. If you think you know the 25 big-event races Evans was referring to, Ed DeRosa has a contest for you. The TDN has Evans’ presentation, which includes his outline for a potential viable business model (PDF).

Dirt racing fans aren’t alone in loathing synthetic surfaces. Turf racing fans also hate synths, and for reasons that are familiar. Alan Aitken writes of the Hong Kong all-weather surface, “a purulent sore on the otherwise peach-like complexion of racing,” on Saturday: “Despite the course running fast, leaders staggered home in very slow sectionals but still held on as if by magic.” Everyone hates it when pace doesn’t play as expected.

“I knew that American horse racing had to work in a complex, often out-dated, multi-jurisdictional legal environment. I knew there were a number of different industry bodies, with seemingly overlapping remits. I knew there were many tracks, quite a few of which ran low-quality, sub-scale race days in front of very few fans. But what I didn’t appreciate when I started this was the sheer magnitude of these factors. So, put simply, the sport is even more fragmented than I expected.”

(Part 1 of the interview with Field.)

An observation by Secretary Crickmore, of the Monmouth Park Association, as related by the Thoroughbred Record of April 29, 1893:

There is too little system and method in the conduct of American race tracks.

From a post on June 5, 2008:

The Supreme Court squashed Major League Baseball’s attempt to maintain exclusive control of player statistics, turning down its appeal of an Eighth Circuit Court ruling that allowed fantasy baseball leagues to use the data without paying a licensing fee. “The information used in … fantasy baseball games is all readily available in the public domain,” said the appeals court, “and it would be strange law that a person would not have a First Amendment right to use information that is available to everyone.” Well, this is interesting … and most definitely relevant to the industry. Applied to racing, this ruling could be interpreted to mean that almost all data and statistics in the past performances and results charts are in the public domain (which makes it ridiculous that Equibase buries historical charts behind a paywall), but not presentation of the data or statistics [so no straight re-posting of PDF charts], or analysis derived using proprietary methods (such as speed figures).

CBSSports.com responded to the Supreme Court’s decision by launching a new site that makes available data for baseball, as well as football, basketball, hockey, and auto racing. I’d love to see a similar initiative in racing. As baseball stats wizard Bill James said,

People take information and build knowledge. When you give them new information they will create new knowledge, absolutely and without question.

Free data and historical stats, that’s the way to build the fan base.

And here’s a commenter responding to another post from September 9, 2008:

I feel silly declaring any facet the BIG problem, considering the state of the industry these days, but o_crunk brings up an issue that I think has become a major drag on racing, and that’s all the data and information and video tied up by exclusives and hidden behind paywalls. It’s tough to market this game when you force players to jump through endless hoops to get the most basic information and watch races — this is especially so when we talk about marketing racing to gamblers, and focusing more on the game. Racing can’t hold on to the people who might be the most interested if, after hooking their attention and enticing them with promises of easy wagering, intellectual stimulation, and friendly competition, the industry has to tell people this ADW carries these tracks and another those tracks, and you can watch live streaming video, but only if you have a wagering account and you wager a certain amount, and you can’t find simple historical data or get more than the most basic entries and results information without paying and paying and paying again. It’s folly, when we’ve come to a point technology-wise where people expect to go to Google and find whatever they want — or download mobile apps that give them all the game information they can handle for their favorite team or sport.

“If you look back to 1990 and see what information was available and how it was made available, we’ve accomplished a lot,” Equibase president Hank Zeitlen tells Paulick, and that might be true — but it’s not enough.

While reading reactions to the failed SXSW panel “New Think for Old Publishers” this morning, I came across this advice to the publishing industry, which struck me as a similar, but more articulate response to the question:

Aside three: Might as well address the blogger question. It’s quite simple. Find the bloggers big and small in your various genres, develop a relationship with them, understand their tastes, like, dislikes, deadlines, lead time, preferred method of communication, preferred formats for books [remember, they are publishers too and have many of the same issues you have]. Treat the bloggers with respect — you need them more than they need you. And note, the publishers who are already doing this well are leaps and bounds ahead of you.

A few adjustments and the prescription works for racing: Find the bloggers big and small covering your racetrack(s) or events; develop relationships with them; understand the stories and angles that appeal to them, their publishing schedules, and their preferred forms of communication. Add them to your mailing list for press releases and reply to their questions as you would inquiries from other media sources. Treat bloggers with respect.

Hm … that is quite simple.