NEHBPA
Suffolk Scene
Winter weekdays don’t draw crowds to Suffolk Downs. A stalwart gang of regulars mill around the first floor clubhouse. The solitary and serious settle upstairs where the air has the heavy, warm stillness of a reading room and conversations in the terrace dining room seem murmured, words swallowed by the emptiness of the open grandstand.
If the loss of popular simulcasting signals from New York and Florida dented attendance at the track this afternoon, it wasn’t immediately obvious. But there was something missing, a lack of energy, the usual rise and fall of excited chatter as races went off. “Why isn’t there racing from Gulfstream?” asked a frustrated fan, standing in front of TVs that showed Laurel, Freehold, and Monticello, the three tracks then available for betting.
A mutuel clerk leaned against a counter before which no customers were lined up. She said to no one, “Isn’t it going to get busy here?”
After the finish was made official in the third from Laurel, a man standing next to me said, “I had the tri!” He showed the ticket, the 4-5 favorite keyed on top, for a payoff of $51.20. “That’s the first time I played Laurel,” said the man, who told me his name was Danny. I asked him what he usually bet. “I like Aqueduct. I like Tampa. But I can’t play them today, can I?” I asked him what he knew of the dispute between Suffolk Downs and the horsemen. “Listen, I don’t pay any attention to that stuff. It takes two to fight, right?”
I asked the same question to another fellow, who declined to give his name, saying that he had owned horses in partnership at Suffolk and wanted to do so again. “It’s the HBPA, it’s part of negotiating,” he said. I asked if he agreed with the tactic of blocking signals. “No,” he replied angrily. “This leadership was never elected,” he said, referring to the NEHBPA board elections canceled last November. “They don’t speak for most of the owners and trainers.”
While watching a harness race from Monticello, I talked to a man named Bill. “I’m a thoroughbred guy,” he said. “But I’m here for half an hour, and this is what’s on, so I’m betting it.” The horses came in 3-2-4. Bill had lost the race. “I think I’ll go to Rockingham on Saturday,” he said.
The Impasse, Cont.
As the dispute over terms for a 2011 Suffolk Downs meet continued, the union representing the racetrack’s workers warned of possible job losses and the number of bettable tracks available to Massachusetts horseplayers declined by one when the Oregon horsemen blocked the Portland Meadows signal in support of the New England horsemen on Monday. That’s in addition to the loss of New York last month and the Ohio and Florida signals last week.
Unless bettors travel to the simulcasting halls at Plainridge or Raynham, which are not affected by the dispute and retain signal rights, leave the state, or open an offshore account or ADW account with an out-of-state address — options discussed by horseplayers on forums and Facebook — they won’t be able to play Aqueduct, Gulfstream, or Tampa races on track or by ADW beginning today, a shut-out Suffolk called “a slap in the face” to fans.
I asked NEHBPA lawyer Frank Frisoli on Tuesday morning what the horsemen would like horseplayers to know about why the signals have been blocked. He replied that he was unable to provide a response at that time, but would have one by mid- to late-afternoon. No further reply was forthcoming*.
How long before the dispute is resolved and what resolution might look like is uncertain. Suffolk Downs COO Chip Tuttle told Matt Hegarty that there was no progress in negotiations as of Tuesday afternoon. “We’re still waiting on a counterproposal to the proposal we offered on Jan. 26.” The NEHBPA board met in a closed meeting last night.
Suffolk management considers itself “free to discuss parameters of the 2011 season with any individual owners, trainers or organizations” (PDF), and a new organization representing Massachusetts horsemen, the Thoroughbred Horsemen of Massachusetts Association, is reportedly being formed, although those who may be involved in it are reluctant to speak publicly about the group or its positions on purses, days, and revenue splits. The Facebook page for the group that has been viewable on-and-off since late last week is on again, but has no followers or messages other than the original posting, reported here on Sunday. “If this association were to become a reality,” said a horse owner who approved of the group’s apparent stance, “I would pledge my support to them to keep racing at Suffolk Downs a reality.”
The most visible support for a new group came from horsewoman Laurine Barreira on Monday when she wrote on the Suffolk Downs Facebook page, “I am more than glad that people are working on making a mass hbpa! we as horseman need someone representing us that actually cares about the future of racing in massachusetts!” Barreira is the granddaughter of horseman and breeder Lloyd Lockhart, the third generation of her family involved in Massachusetts racing, and a co-owner of Ask Queenie, the exceptional Mass-bred retired last fall with 27 wins and $780,365 in earnings.
The effects of the impasse are being felt among the Suffolk community, scattered to other tracks for the winter, reports Lynne Snierson:
“I can’t believe what a nightmare this is,†said one trainer currently stabled in Florida who requested anonymity. “We need a contract in place and it’s already late in the game if we’re going to be able to ship in and start racing again at the beginning of May. We need to submit stall applications and firm up plans. It won’t be easy to get stalls at other places because all of the other tracks on the East Coast offer higher purses and space there is at a premium. Even if we could get in, we don’t have the horses to compete.”
Or, as a horseman succinctly said to me when I asked for impressions of the situation, “If they can’t get it together, we’re fucked.”
*11:45 AM Update: Frisoli replied this morning, stating that “action to deny permission for transmission of the NYRA signal was taken as authorized by state law only after all other alternatives were exhausted” (the NEHBPA does not have control over the other blocked signals), and provided a fact-sheet produced by the NEHBPA in response to one posted by Suffolk Downs earlier (PDF), which includes additional details about the purse structure in dispute.
“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.
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Jessica Chapel writes and edits in Massachusetts. Railbird is a Thoroughbred horse racing blog published from June 2004 to July 2019. More / Contact
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