Massachusetts
“A Slap in the Face”
The Thoroughbred Times reports on weekend developments in the Suffolk Downs-New England horsemen’s dispute, making mention of an open letter placed by the track in the Sunday edition of the Daily Racing Form:
The tone of the letter reflects the bitterness of the dispute, calling the horseman’s decision to block simulcast signals “a spiteful, punitive action toward Suffolk Downs, NYRA and its horsemen, and a slap in the face to the bettors of Massachusetts whose wagering dollars supply the purses.â€
It’s a smart move by Suffolk, stepping up as defender of bettors. Much like the TOC with the takeout increase in California, the NEHBPA board has made a crucial mistake in pursuing its agenda by taking Massachusetts horseplayers for granted. When the full impact of the blocked signals from New York and Florida are felt on Wednesday, bettors won’t be interested in parsing the dispute’s fine points — blame will fall where it lands easiest. And to the extent that this story has any legs beyond Massachusetts among racing fans, it’s that yet again, it’s the horseplayers who pay when horsemen and tracks fight.
When Bukowski was horse racing’s customer, the perpetual maltreatment of horseplayers didn’t have much power as a meta-narrative. In an era in which most of the game’s customers are online (and increasingly organized), it does.
2:30 PM Addendum: Another take, from a commenter on the Suffolk Downs Facebook page: “If Suffolk really thinks fans will blame the HBPA on this, that’s crazy. They own the signal(s) and it’s really the only card they have to play.” True, that the signals are the most significant leverage the horsemen have, but the NEHBPA hasn’t sold the story of why such drastic action — and the resulting losses, along with the inconvenience to bettors — is necessary.
2/8/11 Addendum: The full text of the letter published in DRF (PDF).
Digging In
New England HBPA lawyer Frank Frisoli told Paul Daley on Thursday that other horsemen’s groups might pull simulcasting signals from Suffolk Downs “out of solidarity” with the Massachusetts group, which is negotiating with the track over 2011 race dates, purses, and the simulcasting revenue split. Lynne Snierson reports that the Ohio and Florida horsemen have now done so:
On Jan. 29, the New England horsemen withdrew their consent for races from the New York Racing Association to be simulcast in Massachusetts and now races from Beulah Park are no longer available. As of tomorrow (Sunday, Feb. 6), races from Tampa Bay Downs will not be available and Gulfstream Park must stop sending its signal on Monday. Under Massachusetts statute, Advance Deposit Wagering account holders in the state are also prohibited from betting those tracks through TVG, Twin Spires, XpressBet …
Unbelievable. Unsurprisingly, there’s not a word in Snierson’s piece from the NEHBPA acknowledging, much less apologizing for, the affect blocking the feeds has on Massachusetts horseplayers. I would complain about how bettors — the people who fund much of the purse account at the center of this fight — are the only ones getting hurt at this point, but Suffolk kicked the backstretch assistance center, the Eighth Pole, off its grounds, and not being able to play the Whirlaway at Aqueduct this afternoon really pales in comparison to being shuttled to a homeless shelter for medical treatment and social services.
So, the situation is ugly, and complicated, and seems likely to become more so before anything is settled. I heard a few days ago that there were horsemen unhappy with the NEHBPA’s handling of the negotiations, none willing to talk even anonymously, which Snierson confirms, and a group calling itself the Thoroughbred Horsemen of Massachusetts Association appeared on Facebook at this URL before disappearing early Saturday. [2/6/11, 4:00 PM Update: The group’s page has returned. “We are a newly formed organization reaching out to the horsemen of Massachusetts who race regularly at Suffolk Downs,” reads its description. “If you feel that the New England HBPA is misrepresenting Massachusetts horsemen in their quest to sign a purse agreement for the Suffolk Downs 2011 race meet, then we want to hear from you!”]
Meanwhile, the track is apparently planning for a meet beginning in May. “I hope there is room for an agreement [with the NEHBPA],” Suffolk COO Chip Tuttle told Snierson. “But if not, we intend to run a race meet in 2011 regardless.” This makes about as much sense as the NEHBPA’s earlier claims of seeking an alternate venue for live racing. There’s nowhere else to race in Massachusetts, and there’s no one else who wants to race in Massachusetts.
(And if there is? Are these horsemen wanted at Suffolk? There have been years, not recent, in which stalls have been given to unsavory trainers banned from other jurisdictions for the purpose of bolstering the local horse population. Even at the higher purse structure under discussion, the average daily purses will still be lower than any other track on the East Coast. Rogues will apply.)
But I also hope agreement is possible. This just isn’t the way for racing at the last thoroughbred racetrack in New England to end. Suffolk posted on its website this morning a dispute fact sheet (PDF), and a copy of the track’s response letter to the NEHBPA when negotiations initially broke down last month (PDF). A few things jumped out on reading, not least:
The letter also omits other elements of the proposal that further demonstrate SRR’s good faith negotiations. These include a willingness to spread the racing days over a 23- to 26-week meet and to keep the barn area open from late April until at least early November, which you have conveyed is important to your members but creates considerable extra expense for SSR. The SSR proposal also would have committed SSR to adding racing days to the season in the event that the handle generated at Suffolk Downs approaches the level it was at last year.
Suffolk is proposing a shortened meet, and is offering to spread out race dates and keep the barn area open for almost seven months. That doesn’t just sound like good faith, it sounds like a perfectly viable solution, considering the current state of the racing industry and the never-ending, ever-surprising expanded gaming maneuvering on Beacon Hill. The NEHBPA wants the state-mandated minimum 100 days and total purses of $10.6 million, but there’s just no market for that much Massachusetts racing, and there’s no money to support that much Massachusetts racing without slots.
“Even running for a little bit of money is better than no racing and no money,” horseman Charlie Assimakopolous told Snierson. That’s the bottom line.
The Other Side
Yesterday’s post may have been intemperate. Via Twitter, I heard from a New England horseman that the dispute with Suffolk Downs is one of fairness. “[W]e … just want what every other racing jurisdiction gets, a 50/50 split on simo revenues, not 75/25 split for suf.” For another, who prefers anonymity, it’s about protecting the state-mandated days the horsemen have now and the Massachusetts breeding program, which registered two foals in 2010. “If the Downs runs less days this year, it won’t run more next year,” he said. “We’ll never see those days again.” Underlying the fight over purses and dates is also the memory of purse reductions last August following the failure of expanded gaming legislation, cuts that left many on the backstretch feeling demoralized.
That the horsemen have legitimate concerns isn’t in question. They’re fighting for their livelihoods, and they’re in a desperate spot. And, of course, there’s the possibility of slots. Everyone wants to hang on, in case …
And yet, Lynne Snierson’s Blood-Horse report on Suffolk’s “militant” horsemen was a stunning read. The NEHBPA’s stance belies broader trends in racing; there are reasons contraction is a hot topic across the industry. The tactic was tried at Rockingham; there is no thoroughbred racing at Rockingham anymore. Suffolk, legislatively freed to run shorter meets, may not run 100-plus day meets again, but horses won’t race at all in East Boston if the track is closed, and very few outside Massachusetts would notice. “If [horsemen] continue to thumb their noses at Suffolk Downs in hopes for a currently non-existent alterative venue in Massachusetts in which to conduct thoroughbred racing,” writes Foolish Pleasure, “do they seriously believe anyone outside of their little circle will care when the lights go out for good there?” A Paulick Report commenter certainly doesn’t: “Good luck running those horses anywhere else.”
Wild Talk in NE
Frustrated by a breakdown in negotiations with Suffolk Downs over 2011 purses and race dates, the lawyer representing the New England horsemen’s group is considering alternate venues for live racing, reports the Blood-Horse:
“If Suffolk Downs doesn’t want to work with us, we’ll find someone else that does. There is no reason we have to have live racing at Suffolk Downs.â€
The New England horsemen are good people, but this is mad, as is their lawyer Frank Frisoli’s assertion that, “Suffolk [management] can recognize that we’re a partnership, or they can continue to stick their head in the sand.”
It’s not management that’s playing ostrich. Over the past four years, Suffolk has restored parts of the cut stakes schedule, fixed up bits of the grandstand and backstretch, celebrated a 75th anniversary — and lost $40 million keeping racing going. That’s not because Suffolk management is filled with altruists — if expanded gaming ever comes to Massachusetts, the track expects returns on that money many times over — but it has gallantly sustained the unsustainable. The message being sent this winter, and which the horsemen can’t seem to hear for the sand in their ears, is blunt — no more.
Suffolk Blues
Barry Roos on the latest sign of New England racing’s decline:
Sadly it appears the end may be near for racing in New England. The HBPA is blocking the NYRA signal as no agreement was reached with the horsemen. After the worst meet in racing history and no extended gambling passed last year, I didn’t think there would be much chance of racing returning. I figured Suffolk would just fade away.
When live harness racing ceased at Rockingham Park last year, it went with a whimper. The same could happen at Suffolk Downs, the last link to a once great thoroughbred racing circuit. Neither the Boston Globe nor the Boston Herald published even a paragraph on the dispute between the New England horsemen and track management over 2011 purses and days that resulted in the NYRA signal being blocked. The horsemen allege negotiations not done in good faith (PDF), the track that the financial situation is grim:
“The unfortunate fact of the matter is that absent expanded gaming, the business model for 100 days of racing here is not sustainable,†said Chip Tuttle, Suffolk Downs chief operating officer. “The horsemen are having a very difficult time coming to grips with that.â€
We’ve been here before with Suffolk. After the stakes schedule was cut in 2005, I posted a pessimistic piece melodramatically titled, “It’s Dying,” and worried about the inevitable end of thoroughbred racing in New England. The economics have only worsened since, but the track, which celebrated its 75th anniversary last year, still has found a way to open for racing each spring. Management has been betting on slots, and in 2010, thanks to intense lobbying and a state leadership largely in agreement on expanded gaming, their wager came tantalizingly close to paying off, before the bill foundered over the number of racinos the governor would approve.
A new casino bill was filed at the start of the 2011 state legislative session. The game’s still on, and I’m willing to bet, racing will be too, for another year.
Whether that’s good, at the likely purse level, is another matter. Suffolk is offering $75,000 per day for the state-mandated minimum of 100 days. The horsemen want $106,000, which Suffolk countered by offering reduced race dates. Daily purses of $75,000 would be the lowest on the East Coast, and the racing, for that sum or $106,000 per day, over 100 days or 67 days, is certain to be a reprise of last year’s bottom-level cards. That’s not only bad for bettors, it’s bad for the horses and humans on the backstretch.
About
Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
Elsewhere
Find Jessica on Pinboard and Instagram, Railbird on LibraryThing and Twitter.
Etc.
Links
Search
Boston Racing
Spreadsheets/Data
← Home
Copyright © 2000-2026 by Jessica Chapel. All rights reserved.