Maryland Mess
John Scheinman has a full report in the Thoroughbred Times on the apparently imminent end of Maryland racing. Here’s the kicker:
Asked if he believed the Preakness would be run next year, commission chairman Louis Ulman said, “I’d say no.â€
That state is exploring all its legal options for saving racing dates and the Preakness Stakes. “That could involve seizing the tracks by eminent domain.”
10:30 AM Update: MTHA general counsel Alan Foreman tells the Blood-Horse: “This needs to be solved in the next 48 hours …”
11:55 AM Update: Tentative agreement reached? That’s what Maryland governor Martin O’Malley’s office is telling reporters. (Confirmed. Details TK.)
12/23/10 Update: As Frank of That’s Amore Stable mentioned in a comment below, a compromise deal was reached on Wednesday. The Preakness has been saved; 146 days of racing have been scheduled for 2011. One aspect of the agreement that should please horseplayers is this — horsemen won’t be compelled to lobby for takeout increases, as MID-Penn was demanding earlier.
More from the Baltimore Sun: “The governor’s deal puts racing on life support for at least a year, but it doesn’t change an obviously poisonous ownership structure for the tracks that imperils racing’s long-term viability.”
Racing’s Working Class
Unappreciated. Endangered.
PowerCap responding a New York Times piece on the Big A:
I contend that Aqueduct holds a different type of charm. Certainly in this world there are diverse experiences and tastes — especially in New York. Aqueduct is a remnant of old working class New York …
The New York Times on NYC OTB workers facing their future:
After that, she said, she would have to find another job soon because merely maintaining her health insurance would cost almost $500 a month. “I’m good at everything,†she said, rattling off her qualifications. “I can serve food. I can run a register. I can stack boxes. I can baby-sit kids.â€
From John Scheinman’s report on uncertainty in Maryland:
“I think it’s kind of a shame what they’ve been doing so far,†said jockey Forest Boyce…. “The most amazing thing about this industry is they employ all levels of education, from people who just got out of jail to people that graduate from Yale.”
The Washington Post on the last day of racing at Laurel:
There are 85 trainers with 969 stalls at Bowie and 68 trainers with 1,059 stalls at Laurel Park. “There’s going to be a lot of unemployed, homeless, helpless people with nowhere to go,” says Pickett, 30, who was one semester shy of a law degree when she chose to work with horses full time.
If Churchill CEO Robert Evans’ 10-year business model for racing is right, we’ll be reading more of these stories in the near future as the industry contracts.
Raises? Yes!
Are you kidding me? Of all the things to complain about when it comes to New York racing, NYRA giving 327 non-union employees average pay raises of 3% is pretty far down the list. In any other year or any other industry, such a raise would be a run-of-the-mill annual cost-of-living increase. But in New York, and at NYRA, it’s an outrage! It’s arrogance! Especially because NYC OTB just closed! The New York Post, which breathlessly reports that “top managers” are getting raises and fraudulently invokes the specter of a state bailout for NYRA, gives space to grandstanding politician Assembly Racing and Wagering Committee chairman Gary Pretlow to denounce NYRA as “bloated” and the raises as “an irresponsible act.” The Sarotogian headlines an editorial today, “Raises? Really?” and calls NYRA “tone deaf.” Nick Kling writes:
Non-union employees may get their additional money, but in the process NYRA has generated enough bad feeling to guarantee it will come back to bite the association when it wants something in the future.
That’s absurd. Here’s the thing: 3% — or even the average 5.5% given to 10 employees — isn’t that much money. NYRA president Charles Hayward, who defended the raises as the first given non-union workers since January 2008, told the Blood-Horse that the raises will cost NYRA approximately $600,000 in added payroll next year. That works out to around $1835 a year (or $153 a month, $35 a week) per employee, which raises the average salary of those workers from approximately $60,000 a year to around $62,000 a year. That’s $62,000 in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and at a time of great challenge to NYRA — with NYC OTB closing last week, and the Aqueduct racino opening in 2011, NYRA needs to retain its workers (and it really needs its workers to feel good about their jobs) if it’s not only going to survive what’s ahead, but come out thriving. Giving end-of-the-year raises to the rank-and-file is a strategic and morale-boosting move at a crucial moment in the organization’s history. Sorry, but there’s nothing outrageous about that.
Little Money
New York City OTB was big, but it paid peanuts for simulcasting rights, and not just to NYRA (which gets about 50% more from out-of-state ADWs than it did from NYC OTB). In the Courier-Journal, Gregory Hall reports:
The New York City system wagered $9.6 million on Turfway Park races in 2009, resulting in $169,000 in revenues that were split between Turfway and its horsemen through purses, said Bob Elliston, president of the Florence, Ky. track. This year, with fewer Turfway racing dates, the total so far is just over $5 million, resulting in $87,000 in revenue split between Turfway and horsemen, he said.
That’s about 1.75 cents per dollar wagered. Turf Paradise had a slightly better deal, but NYC OTB still wasn’t adding much to the pot, reports DRF:
Vince Francia, the general manager of Turf Paradise, said on Friday that New York City OTB bettors had wagered $3.7 million on Turf’s signal since the track opened on Oct. 1, or about $77,000 a day. Because of New York City OTB’s bargaining power, Turf Paradise only kept 2 percent of that money as the simulcast fee, Francia said, for total revenue of $1,540 a day, an amount that was split with horsemen.
Yikes.
12/21/10 Addendum: New York breeders aren’t missing NYC OTB much either after two years of not receiving payments. “If you’re not getting anything it’s hard to feel like you’re losing something.”
Saturday Notes
NYRA keeps up its efforts to capture displaced OTB bettors, adding dark day simulcasting at Aqueduct and more bus routes from the city to the track. According to DRF, another 74 NYRA Rewards accounts were opened on Thursday, bringing the number of new accounts opened over the past couple weeks to 300. Friday’s on-track handle (which includes money bet through NYRA’s ADW) was $572,687, or $36,327 more than Thursday’s on-track handle; $22,125 more than the previous Friday. Slow, but steady gains? They must be hoping the pace picks up a little. Adding streaming video to the service would be a boon, but making that little change is tied up in the NYSRWB and, quite possibly, the legislature. Brooklyn Backstretch has been keenly following that part of the story.
Meanwhile, on Friday, the state senate Republicans announced the newly formed Task Force on the Revitalization of the Racing Industry in New York. Said task force member senator John Bonacic: “Racing is more than about people sitting in betting parlors. It is about the sport — making the tracks viable as racing entities — not just places where VLTs are played. We need to focus on helping the breeders and horsemen since they are the infrastructure that develops a successful racing product. We then need to market racing in a manner which brings fans to the track and generates interest in the sport overall.” Good luck, New Yorkers. [12/13/10 Addition: Over on ESPN, Paul Moran comments: “But wherever there is a New York politician, there is never the lack of calamity.”]
Juvenile graded stakes racing winds down for the year with the Hollywood Starlet, which drew eight fillies, today and the Hollywood Futurity next Saturday. “A field of 13 or 14 is shaping up for the 30th running of the race,” including JP’s Gusto and Delta Jackpot winner Gourmet Dinner. Joe Talamo, back from injury, will be on JP’s Gusto once again. The jockey rode the horse through his first three starts. Pat Valezuala then had the mount through the Breeders’ Cup, winning the Del Mar Futurity and Best Pal with JP’s Gusto.
What a process, getting Zenyatta settled into farm life.
The Alternatives
An NYC OTB bettor tells WNYC what he’ll do without his favorite parlor:
Now that he has more free time, Lopez says he’ll probably read more books and occasionally make a visit to the racetrack.
Note that he didn’t say he’d take up slots, scratch-off tickets, poker …
Unsurprisingly, OTB customers are cleaning out their accounts. “[S]ources say the accounts have been sharply draining down 48 hours now since the OTB closed its doors,” reports the Blood-Horse.
Day 2 Post-NYC OTB
Aqueduct numbers year-to-year, week-to-week, and day-to-day:
On the second day without NYC OTB, on-track attendance was still up, and on-track handle spiked by almost 11% over Wednesday, 12.8% over the previous Thursday. Interstate handle declined from the day before, but was up a tiny 1.3% over last Thursday. The ugly number is intrastate handle, which was down 4.6% over Wednesday, and almost 39.1% from last Thursday. How much of that was money moving? The difference in on-track handle from Wednesday to Thursday is plus $53,125; intrastate handle minus $40,000. If most of the upped on-track dollars were formerly intrastate wagers, then NYRA made gains, even if small. Over on LATG, Alan Mann estimates that NYRA needs to “capture one-third of the wagers placed on its races at NYC OTB in order to break even,”* and it does seem as though they’re doing all they can to grab those bettors, if the flurry of press releases sent out today is any indication, offering double points to customers signing up for NYRA Rewards before December 31, opening up Belmont for simulcasting beginning this Sunday, and looking for a way to get the races back on TV in the city.
In a comment yesterday, EJXD2 said, “I wish people would stop lamenting the death of NYC OTB and instead celebrate that a corrupt system is no more.” Fair enough. Huzzah! NYC OTB is dead! But there’s not much time for lamenting or celebrating. John Pricci called December 7, “the beginning of the end of the modern era of racing in New York,” and while we may not look back on that as such a bad thing, given how troubled the era passing became in its latter days, there’s pain ahead due to lost livelihoods and inevitable structural changes. The bright side (really) is now that closure has come to pass, and action is necessary before the whole industry goes broke, New York has an opportunity to blow up the dysfunctional OTB system and replace it with a streamlined operation** better suited to supporting racing in the contemporary market, which means efficient management and an approach to customers that’s less get-your-fix and more have-great-fun. It won’t be easy, but it must be done.
*8:15 PM Update: Talking to reporters in the Aqueduct press box this morning, NYRA CEO Charles Hayward confirmed that’s about right: “Hayward estimated that NYRA has to try and make up for 35 percent of what NYCOTB handled at its parlors because only 2.4 percent of each dollar wagered at an OTB parlor goes to NYRA, compared with 10 percent of each dollar wagered ontrack.”
**12/10/10 Update: Writes Jerry Bossert in the NY Daily News: “I’m all for it, but it will never happen as there would then be only one President, one vice-president, one director of marketing, etc. It will never fly as there are too many patronage jobs out there currently occupying all those seats in the other five regions.” I fear he’s right — political considerations have held up past attempts at reform — but maybe NYC OTB closing was just the shock needed to make this time different. (Via @BklynBckstretch.)
Day 1 Post-NYC OTB
Crisis has a way of focusing the attention. And so it was that in a matter of minutes, during an emergency meeting of the New York State Racing and Wagering board held Wednesday in the wake of NYC OTB’s closure (audio), it became possible for New York horseplayers to sign up instantly for online wagering accounts instead of in person as previously required. The process was streamlined in an attempt to capture shut-out OTB players. “This is a crisis situation and we’re trying to react because people will find their way to a barber shop or the corner bar [to bet], and that helps no one, not the racing industry or the state,” board chairman John Sabini told the Associated Press. (The silver lining to this mess may be that things get a little easier for horseplayers, although it doesn’t sound like that will be so re: streaming video of races. Disappointing. And dumb.)
David Grening reports in DRF that 61 new NYRA Rewards accounts were opened on Wednesday, presumably by OTB customers who made their way to the track. Aqueduct attendance figures were up, compared to Thursday, December 2 (NYRA canceled racing on Wednesday, December 1) and Wednesday, November 24; handle numbers were down, according to figures reported by the Thoroughbred Times. While average total handle decreased “only” 4%, no doubt aided by a lack of racing in California, Florida, and Kentucky on Wednesday to distract simulcast players, intrastate handle was down more than 36% over December 2 and almost 47% over November 24. A number that didn’t show much of a change was on-track handle. Despite a 26% spike in attendance, on-track handle was up a mere 1.65% over December 2. One of those attending, and probably not betting, was Jesus Leonardo, an NYC OTB stooper profiled in the New York Times earlier this year. In a phone interview with the Times on Wednesday, Leonardo said he plans to keep on stooping, at Aqueduct and other tracks in New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia.
“OTB was horrible, and horribly run, in many many ways. But the OTB parlors were places like no other and I, for one, will miss them,” writes the blogger Fat Al on The Half-Empty Glass. I will too. There’s no getting around that the storefront parlors were often as unpleasant as their critics alleged, but OTB was a distinct New York City subculture and — this probably reveals something about me I’d rather conceal — the dingy little shops with their oddball collection of characters were some of the few places I ever felt at home in the four years I lived in the city. On particularly unhappy days, I’d slip into a parlor downtown, and enjoy the anonymous companionship of others staring intently at programs and talking horses and hoping for that one big win. “I liked to watch people come in,” Bill Barich wrote in his classic horseplayer’s memoir, “Laughing in the Hills”:
They were intent, blind to their surroundings, and they all looked terrific, at least until the first race had gone off. Optimism put a bloom in every cheek. Anything might happen, could happen, probably would happen, that was the notion being entertained at OTB.
No longer.
Accommodations
It’s He Said, He Said round two with Paulick and DeRosa, and although I think Ed’s in the right and that in general, conversations about racing, marketing, and women are good to have, I also think that it’s a luxury to be in a position where all we’re talking about is a creepy-sexist Churchill Downs banner ad.
In the Saratogian on Saturday, Michael Veitch took NYRA to task for backing off earlier statements promising racino monies for backstretch housing:
Despite numerous statements by NYRA in recent years on the importance of improving living conditions at Saratoga as a first need, it now appears purse money and other improvements are more important….
With money finally available to help improve their living conditions, the association is going to back off previous assurances? You must be kidding.
I haven’t been in a Saratoga dorm since 2005, but it seems safe to assume conditions aren’t much changed. The buildings are probably still rundown and ill-maintained, and the women’s dorms probably aren’t much more comfortable or secure. In 2005, 15% of the available rooms on the Saratoga backstretch were allocated to female workers, even though female workers made up almost a third of backstretch labor. That meant overcrowding; every room in the women’s Clare Court dorm had 2-4 residents. I shared a 9×11 space with two others for six weeks. The room fit our beds and not much else.
That there wasn’t enough space wasn’t the only issue. The Clare Court dorm was also unsecured, and while residents could lock their individual rooms, they couldn’t lock the bathrooms or shower room. There were no locks on those doors, which opened, and were often left open, to hallways accessible to anyone who wandered in through the open front and back doors. And men did wander in. It wasn’t unusual to find one lurking just outside the bathroom or trying to peep into the shower room. This was — for some women — actually an improvement. Another stablehand told me that the situation was better at Saratoga than at Belmont, where men cut peepholes.
At least in the ad the guy with binoculars is looking at clothed women.
There is a problem with sexism in racing, and it’s not only in advertising, or the patronizing male attitudes Penny Chenery is depicted as overcoming in “Secretariat.” Female stablehands live and work with — as an anonymous hotwalker recently wrote — unwanted, and sometimes physical, attentions. They live with assaults on their privacy and dignity, and occasionally, on their persons. There’s a lot of “friendly banter” in the barns that isn’t so friendly — it’d be called sexual harassment almost anywhere else — and for women living in precarious backstretch housing, the talk is tinged with threat. As for why more women don’t speak up — the reasons range from a determination to be seen as tough and not a complainer, to not knowing where to go or who to talk to about what’s happening. And it’s complicated, as I commented elsewhere, by the fact that a significant number of female backstretch workers face challenges created by class and language, as well as gender.
I’d like to be more upset about Churchill’s banner, but I keep thinking about the anonymous hotwalker, and about women like her, the backstretch workers who will move into the shabby Clare Court dorm at Saratoga next summer and who will have to wonder who’s standing in the hallway while they shower.
The Way Forward
Steve Davidowitz on how to bring change to racing:
Sanan and others in his group must give up their efforts to work internally. They need instead to lose their own resistance to seeking out Federal assistance and shift their agenda towards sympathetic Congressman and Senators to launch a Federally inspired hearing to force each racing state to come together on a national level. The justification for this is the interstate nature of modern horseracing and the negative impact the declining American game is having on many sectors of our national economy.
I’m not so sure about involving the feds, but I am certain that Satish Sanan, or anyone else with ambitions to fix racing, must give up working in secrecy.
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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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