JC / Railbird - Gloom and Doom

Gloom and Doom

Is there something in the air? Pessimism regarding racing’s future seems to be everywhere lately. John Pricci is “filled with dread” and angry that politics and moralizing do-gooders are imperiling the sport, which:

… is being assailed on all sides, from the politically expedient to an indifferent mainstream press, from an issues-challenged industry media to the backstretch cheats. Racing is a state’s-rights-oriented industry that avoids when possible the mechanisms for policing itself on a national level. (MSNBC)

Nick Canepa isn’t feeling too cheery about the state of racing either:

Horse racing as we have known it appears to be slowly heading down the stretch. The once magnificent Sport of Kings is in danger of becoming the mundane sport of serfs — or slots. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

And then there’s this from Scott Van Voorhis:

Without Las Vegas-style slot machines, horse racing appears to be an endangered species. (Boston Herald)

The Herald article has what is possibly the most unsympathetic to racing quote I’ve seen anywhere:

William Thompson, a professor and gambling expert at the University of Las Vegas, contends the sport is dying and should be left to wither on its own.

If lawmakers feel they need to give one-armed bandits to racetracks to keep them alive, why not grant slot machines to struggling auto makers or dying steel mills?

“We are failing, therefore give us gaming. It’s an absurd argument,” Thompson argued.

“Free enterprise means the freedom to succeed and fail. Failure is extremely important. People take money out of failed enterprises and shift it to enterprises that work.”

Professor Thompson is obviously not a racing fan.
Certainly some of this pessimism is warranted. The latest numbers on handle from California and New York, for instance, aren’t good. Wagering is down more than 4% across California this year, and handle was down 15% for Aqueduct’s winter/spring meet (Blood-Horse). Alan at Left at the Gate discusses NYRA’s dropping handle, and points out that the concomitant 18% decline in attendance is particularly ominous.
Suffolk won’t announce any figures on attendance and handle until the end of the meet, but I won’t be surprised if there’s a 5-10% decline. Bad weather dogged the first four weeks of racing and there’s no MassCap this year. Yesterday, however, was a lovely day — the sun finally came out, the temperature was in the low 70s, and a small crowd of about 4,000 was at Suffolk. My racing companion and his sister came out with me and we sat in the box seats overlooking the paddock and the finish line, watching the horses and cashing an occasional ticket, happily whiling away the afternoon. It was the sort of lazy early summer day at the track that makes all the bad news about racing seem impossible.

Posted by JC in The Sport on 05/29/2005 @ 5:30 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter