Into the Light
Vic Zast on what it’ll take to lead racing to salvation:
The real savior will bring about consolidation of the sport, develop an International outlook, abandon the limiting factor of dirt tracks in favor of reliable synthetics, stop medications entirely, redefine the schedules of when and which racetracks operate, enact graded stakes standards that discourage breeders from raiding the sport of its stars, create a market for horses of stamina, promote the sport collectively and provide full betting access to everyone.
So, a national office with real power and open-minded leadership.
Tangentially related, a suggestion from @o_crunk:
someone should start a snarky tumblr tracking all of pieces on ‘racing problems’ as a ratio to those actually about horses.
We do seem to be in a season of laments …
Not Synthetic, Engineered
Well, this is interesting. The same week in which the Paulick Report posted the results of a leaked TOBA study that came up strongly pro-synthetics mere hours before the Welfare and Safety Summit kicked off at Keeneland with an analysis of data from the Jockey Club Equine Injury Database that showed little statistical difference, at this time, between synthetic and dirt surfaces, a new group has appeared with a slick website and a social media presence to promote synthetics, rebranded “engineered racing surfaces.”
The Engineered Racing Surfaces Coalition:
… believes these surfaces have a viable place in Thoroughbred racing’s future, and is committed to providing accurate and timely information about the benefits of these surfaces.
The coalition is made up of five North American racetracks, all of which have installed Polytrack (credit to Ed DeRosa for noticing that little detail). There’s not much more information about the group posted, but considering the timing and that the only contact given is an email address for Bonnie Hackbarth, a publicist with the Louisville public relations firm Guthrie/Mayes, it would seem the coalition may exist for reasons more than educational.
“A Fairly Simple Thing”
Another recommendation arising from the summit’s committees included the modification of the Jockey Club’s existing InCompass racing-office software to automatically identify horses who have been placed on vet’s lists or starter’s lists in other states. According to Peterson, some trainers ship horses out of the state in order to avoid complying with the conditions that are required to remove the horses from the lists, in the hopes that the state is not aware that the horse has been temporarily barred from racing.
“We frequently see horsemen who shop their horses around to other states,” Peterson said. “It’s a fairly simple thing to address.”
Wonderful. And why not take the change a step further? Make the resulting “Disabled List” accessible through the Equibase site so that those interested — fans curious about why a horse hasn’t started in a while, for instance — can more easily get basic information about a horse’s status.
Handicapped
“I’ve been developing my own handicapping software as a hobby since 2007, but the biggest problem I’ve faced is having enough data to properly calibrate and test the system,” said Ligett. “The data provided as part of the contest is just what I needed to move the idea forward.”
Lock up data, squelch innovation. Give developers data, spur innovation.
Loan Is Not a “Bailout”
Ugh. This Blood-Horse headline qualifies as a gross error:
An Associated Press article has the slightly better headline, “Paterson: NYRA, Saratoga meet will be saved,” so readers aren’t told the proposed $17 million loan is a bailout … until the story’s first sentence. While not overlooking the good news that the state may come through with the money it’s obligated to provide NYRA (money it desperately needs) if the Aqueduct racino wasn’t in operation this spring, it’s hard to see the inaccurate characterization of the deal in the AP lede, and in at least one headline from a publication that should know better, as anything other than a public relations disaster. I look forward to the inevitable editorials and letters demanding to know why New York, with its seven weeks overdue budget, is “bailing out” the undeserving NYRA, when it’s merely fulfilling the promises of the franchise agreement made in 2008.
5/19/10 Update: Never mind? Matt Hegarty reports in DRF that the Governor’s comments “did not reflect any substantive progress” towards a legislative resolution to NYRA’s situation. “I think they’ll pass it,” said Paterson of the proposed loan plan on Tuesday, but a few legislators may balk.
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Meanwhile, in California …
A shame CHRB cut meeting webcasts in January; items #10 and #11 on the board’s Thursday meeting agenda (PDF) should be quite interesting. Magna (MI Developments) is scheduled to give an update on its future racing plans, which won’t include Santa Anita president Ron Charles. He’s resigned, effective Wednesday. A discussion of the voided Oak Tree lease (and potential impact on Oak Tree dates this fall) is to follow. Oak Tree had been talking with the Breeders’ Cup about hosting the event permanently; MI’s decision to pull the lease, affirmed only two weeks before, has complicated those negotiations. “Maybe this will derail BCup freight chugging into SA station,” tweeted Nick Kling. Maybe. Del Mar executives, who have offered the track to Oak Tree, are hoping it might renew the possibility of a Del Mar Breeders’ Cup.
A Perma-Site for the Breeders’ Cup
Kentucky Derby-winning owner-breeder Bill Casner is the latest to take up the argument advocating Santa Anita as a permanent site for the Breeders’ Cup. In a column for the Blood-Horse, he hits all the major points — weather, media market access, facilities, financial advantages, the global racing calendar — and concludes pragmatically:
The time is right to make Santa Anita the permanent venue. It is the correct business decision for the Breeder’s Cup event and the future of our industry.
I’ve refrained from commenting on the BC site debate so far, since it’s not one for which I can claim — or expect much assumption of — objectivity. I’ve done some work for the Breeders’ Cup, I welcome any reason to visit Santa Anita, and it’s probably fair to say I’m pro-synthetic surface. But there’s something about the tone of Casner’s piece that signals whatever the discussion among the BC board members, of which Casner is one, about whether to select a permanent site or establish a rotating site schedule, it’s over — all that’s left is coming to an agreement with the likely permanent host site.
So, what will it mean for American racing if the Breeders’ Cup settles at Santa Anita? The game will be more international (in wagering and participants), the event will attract more media attention (as it did this year in earning Emmy and SBJ award nominations). Forget talk of a “civil war,” especially if Santa Anita remains synthetic; there’s too much money and prestige at stake for the most recalcitrant owners and trainers to hold out for long. It will be a major change, but one with real potential for growing the game.
I don’t have much strong feeling about what the BC board seems on the verge of announcing, except on the matter of which track — and in that, they’ve made the right call, if Santa Anita is indeed their plan. There are many arguments for choosing Churchill, arguments not to be dismissed lightly. But, if Churchill Downs were to be named the permanent site, I’m certain that years from now we would look back in regret, pinpointing the decision as the moment the game became irrevocably marginalized, not only internationally, but within the US. Move the Breeders’ Cup to Louisville, and Churchill would become synecdoche for the two biggest events on the calendar, transforming racing from a national sport (niche as it may be) to a regional spectacle. No thanks, to that future. I’d rather see the Breeders’ Cup take a shot at global relevance and a mass audience in the glorious California sunshine.
Significant Support
8/20/09 Update: Much, much more on the Saratoga numbers, from Steve Zorn. “The Saratoga sale’s success masks some serious problems, and does nothing to address the weakness in the thoroughbred industry.”
How much did Sheikh Mohammed and the Maktoum family support the recently concluded Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select sale? By quite a bit more than acknowledged, according to Bill Oppenheim’s estimate in today’s TDN:
While no one seems to want to admit it publicly (they buy for “unnamed principals who don’t want to be identified,” or some such doubletalk), everybody knows a number of European trainers and agents are employed to sign for horses which end up racing for Maktoum entities. My entirely unofficial and unverifiable estimate is that seven other agents or trainers were signing tickets on their behalves, and their actual purchases consisted of about 37 yearlings totaling around $20.5 million in sales. That would represent 18 percent of the horses sent through the ring, and 39 percent of the money spent. I’ll bet that closer to the truth.
Perspective
In the midst of headlines about expensive yearlings and the optimism such babies inspire, Jeff Scott reminds readers,
that the vast majority of the most important races continue to be won by horses that didn’t cost a small fortune. For example, the 83 Grade I winners over the past 12 months included just four horses that sold commercially for more than $350,000 – one yearling and three juveniles.
Of 35 Grade I winners sold as yearlings, 20 were purchased for $85,000 or less. They included no less than seven champions (Curlin, Zenyatta, Big Brown, Wait a While, Forever Together, Midnight Lute and Stardom Bound), as well as Derby winner Mine That Bird, who brought all of $9,500 at Fasig-Tipton’s 2007 October yearling sale.
Odds and ends: “I was told he was drunk, had no credit, and had run away.” No, not Sheikh Mohammed, on the premises and good for $11.8 million, or 22.6% of the gross at the just concluded Fasig-Tipton select Saratoga sale, but an unknown bald man, who opened the bidding at $1 million for a Kingmambo filly then fled the pavilion after the hammer came down … Trying to interview the Sheikh? “Don’t bum rush” … Obligatory The Green Monkey mention.
A Better Strategy
Steve Davidowitz, making sense*:
Too often, the sport’s leaders look in the wrong direction to build up the fan base while seeking stop gap measures to keep some tracks afloat.
Whereas slot machines have boosted purses at several tracks in states that cooperatively legalized slots a decade ago, the numbers of contemporary tracks seeking slot machines has increased to the point where the impact is bound to be diluted, if not an apocalyptic foreshadowing to the end game of this 400 year old sport….
It is my judgment, and I know I am in the minority now, but I believe strongly that racing would be better off trying to expand on-line wagering access rather than repeatedly banging its collective head against stone walls, seeking more slot machines.
*Login alert: Davidowitz’s column is now part of the Trackmaster Players Club; you may have to register before viewing if you don’t have a free account.
The Trouble With Racing
Speculation, allegations, rumor, and hearsay from Jim Squires in his new book, “Headless Horsemen,” reviewed by Ray Kerrison in the Wall Street Journal:
Mr Squires believes steroids were first used in racing in the 1950s. He makes some startling claims about earlier horse-racing champions. He alleges that 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat may have raced on steroids. “There are oldtimers who insist that even the magnificent physical stature of the great Secretariat was not all genetic and his early problem settling mares” — that is, breeding — “may have been a by-product of steroids.”
The allegations continue. Mr. Squires writes: “Denigrators of the late Frank Whiteley [1915-2008], the surly magician who trained Damascus and Ruffian, sincerely believe that his magic came from sniffs of cocaine and say they know people who say they saw Whiteley coming out of the stalls brushing the white dust off his hands.”
Fascinating stuff, as I expect Squires’ commentary on the industry power structure to be when I begin reading the book. More to come …
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Jessica Chapel is a writer and editor living in Cambridge, MA. Railbird v1 was a thoroughbred racing blog that ran 2004-2008; Railbird v2 is a broader collection of notes and links, but still (mostly) about the horses. More ›
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