#suffolkdispute2011
Coverage of the 2011 Suffolk Downs-New England HBPA dispute
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No Consensus (Yet)
The NEHBPA board met on Sunday to discuss the latest offer from Suffolk Downs for the 2011 meet, but a consensus on the terms could not be reached, reports Lynne Snierson:
“There was a lot of talk but there is no agreement yet,†said one board member who asked not to be identified. “Our discussions were mostly about clarification, of both exactly what Suffolk is offering and of what we want and what we can accept. There is no consensus among us at this time, but one may be within reach.â€
Details of the proposal have not been confirmed. Both sides may have moved toward a compromise on purses and days, with Suffolk reportedly upping its offer for total purses to $8.4 million* from $7.5 million and the horsemen giving way on the 100-day meet minimum the group has sought. Snierson indicates that the simulcasting revenue split, which the horsemen have argued should be 50-50, may also still be in contention. The board will meet again tonight to discuss the proposal; updates here as available.
*The total of the new offer from Suffolk is in line with the counter-offer made by the NEHBPA to the track on February 10, which proposed purses based on available revenue and 100 days. A source confirms the track is proposing average daily purses of $103,000 to $110,000 for 75-85 days of racing.
1:15 PM Addendum: More from Snierson:
Suffolk Downs has threatened to shut down in March if the New England Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association and other chapters across the country do not restore simulcast signals by Feb. 26, according to a source close to the negotiations in the ongoing dispute …
A racetrack source said there was no deadline for the offer, but indicated that it was important for the blocked simulcasting signals to be restored quickly or purses and days on offer for the meet were in danger of being cut due to lost revenue. During the weekend of February 12-13, the first full weekend Suffolk was unable to simulcast such tracks as Aqueduct and Gulfstream, handle was down approximately 50% over the equivalent weekend the year before.
Saturday Notes
The Suffolk Downs-NEHBPA dispute has made Paul Daley pessimistic:
Sadly, within the next month, live thoroughbred racing in New England may become the stuff of history books.
Despite the resumption of negotiations on Thursday with the NEHBPA, six simulcasting signals are still blocked at Suffolk Downs. For the second consecutive Saturday, Massachusetts bettors will take their money elsewhere: “My good friend, suffolkdownslova, has to drive all the way to Raynham-Taunton Greyhound Park to place the bets he so lovingly needs.”
Monmouth’s experiment has been mentioned as a model for Suffolk’s future, but a more instructive success might be Tampa Bay Downs, where many Massachusetts horsemen winter. Ed DeRosa highlights just one example of what the track has done well — the reduced takeout Pick 4, up 31%.
Orlando Bocachica, Suffolk’s leading rider in 2009, is hot at Gulfstream.
2/20/11 Suffolk Dispute Update: The track has presented the NEHBPA with a new offer for the 2011 meet. More information will be available on Monday.
Horsemen, Suffolk Talk
The NEHBPA and Suffolk Downs resumed negotiations this afternoon, one week after the horsemen offered the track a proposal for the 2011 meet, and almost four weeks after talks over purses, days, and the simulcasting revenue split initially broke down. No details of the discussion were divulged. Frank Frisoli, the horsemen’s lawyer, sent the following statement:
The NEHBPA conferenced with representatives of Suffolk Downs this afternoon. It anticipates receiving a proposal in the very near future from Suffolk Downs which will be presented to the Board of Directors of the NEHBPA.
The NEHBPA will have no further comments on this matter pending receipt of a proposal.
Track officials have not yet commented.
Hopefully, that the horsemen expect a proposal soon from Suffolk is a sign some progress was made today in finding a resolution to the bitter dispute.
2/18/11 Addendum: Lynne Snierson reports on the Thursday conversation:
“We had a good dialogue today and some of it is encouraging,†said Chip Tuttle, chief executive officer of the East Boston, Mass., track. “There are some places where we still have additional work to do to reach a consensus. We will keep the process moving forward.â€
In light of the past few weeks, that’s a promising statement.
9:00 PM Update: “Constructive” talks continued on Friday …
Later Today
Suffolk Downs and the NEHBPA will resume talks, reports Lynne Snierson:
Frisoli said on Feb. 16 that a conference call among the negotiating teams for both sides has been scheduled for late afternoon on Thursday (Feb. 17)….
“We want to race this year and we want to have a good relationship with them,” said Frisoli. “We have been flexible and they have been rigid. But now they want to talk to us, and that is a good sign.”
Regarding revenue lost to simulcasting signals blocked as part of the dispute, NEHBPA lawyer Frank Frisoli told the Blood-Horse: “Although we believe that Suffolk caused this dispute and should therefore equitably be held accountable for the loss, we are still agreeing to share the loss.†That’s magnanimous.
Elsewhere: A Saturday Afternoon Horse praises the NEHBPA, chastises Suffolk:
Isn’t it the responsibility of the business owner to keep his customers happy? And with that in mind, didn’t management know that the simulcast signal would be pulled if they weren’t serious and sensitive to the horsemen’s interests and concerns? Of course the fans are unhappy, but that’s managements’ problem to resolve.
No, it’s not. We’ve heard several times during this dispute that the track should treat the horsemen as equal partners. If equal applies to revenue, then it applies to taking care of customers. Bettors fund purses — in slots-less Massachusetts, it’s as simple as that — and each time a simulcasting signal is cavalierly cut, or a bet is blocked on an ADW because of a squabble, revenue is lost not only at that moment, but later, because fans leave the game. The more customers alienated, the smaller purses paid — making unhappy horseplayers a problem for the horsemen as much as for the racetrack.
More on Tuttle’s Tuesday letter: “… little to endorse and much to dispute …“
100 Days or No Days
A view from Michigan on the news from Massachusetts and Maryland:
Now it is the Track Management’s that are finally coming under fire from the years and decades of rage that’s been building up from taking all this crud. And the Horsemen & Women have finally said ENOUGH.
We may die, but with us SO WILL YOU….
Now you know what they’ve felt like all those years of your threats. For once some are telling you what will be. For they will decide their future, not you.
Fiery.
I haven’t talked to anyone, on either side, in the dispute over the 2011 meet between Suffolk Downs and the NEHBPA who has framed negotiations as such an existential struggle, but there is an undeniable touch of the apocalyptic in the New England horsemen’s bargaining stance. What’s being fought over isn’t just the terms for one summer, it’s the very survival of Massachusetts racing.
When the horsemen charged in a fact-sheet posted to the NEHBPA website last week that Suffolk wasn’t negotiating with the intention of running a live meet this year, they made it clear they believed there was nothing less at stake.
From Suffolk’s perspective, the horsemen have also made it “clear that the HBPA’s position on the 2011 season is 100 days or no days at all,” wrote the track’s COO in a letter to the NEHBPA yesterday, in which he reaffirmed that Suffolk plans to race in 2011. “[W]e have been consistent about our intention to run a live meet in 2011 and still hope to do so.”
Days could be the sticking point. “From a breeding standpoint, we need a long meet,” New England Stallion Station owner Ken Posco told me yesterday. “I’m with the 100 days minimum.” I asked him why a shorter meet wouldn’t work for the local breeding program. “It will in time,” he replied, “if we get legislation for gaming.” Until then, it’s essential to protect racing as it exists.
That’s the horsemen’s position on days, and they want — not unreasonably — average daily purses at a level that will allow people to care for themselves and their horses. In 2010, horsemen raced without a contract; purse cuts last August left many feeling betrayed and vulnerable. A justifiable determination to avoid the same exposure this year suffuses their statements.
The problem is, as the handle and revenue numbers for the past four years released by Suffolk show, that there isn’t much of a market for 100 days of Massachusetts racing. Since 2007, total handle has dropped more than a third.
In my exchanges with NEHBPA lawyer Frank Frisoli, he’s expressed optimism that the recovering economy will keep 2011 numbers consistent with 2010, and been insistent on the horsemen’s demand for an equal simulcasting split, which would fund purses at the level (approximately $95,000 per day) horsemen seek in the proposal the group submitted to Suffolk last week.
But an equal split would mean less revenue for Suffolk, a tough sell to any business, and certainly so to a track that’s lost $40 million in four years. When I asked Frisoli about this, he replied, “Suffolk Downs controls its expenses.”
In abstract, 50-50 sounds fair. In reality, the horsemen are asking the track to cut back or operate at more of a loss this year for their benefit (a proposition that must seem less attractive to management each day simulcasting revenue is lost to blocked signals and nearby simulcasting parlors).
In our conversation, Posco summed up the situation, the issue at the root of the rest: “Without slots, there’ll be no racing or breeding in Massachusetts.”
It always comes back to slots. Without the prospect of expanded gaming, racing would have ended at Suffolk years ago. With it, though, perspectives skew toward an imagined slots-rich future. Instead of looking for ways to make racing better now, for all involved, the focus is on getting through another year, squeezing what there is from dwindling revenues for 100 days, hoping for a jackpot. The existence of Massachusetts racing depends on it.
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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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