Digital Trends
From Thoroughbred Times, at the 2010 Keeneland September sale:
Since every sales company’s catalogs, including Keeneland’s, have been available in portable document format (PDF) online for several years, it has long been possible to download entire catalogs to computers, but Apple Inc.’s new iPad as well as other tablet computers offer new possibilities to anyone who might feel overburdened by the burgeoning tools of the Thoroughbred trade….
“It improves the workflow,†Sonbol continued. “Before, I had to wait on all these paper reports, people looking at horses, vet reports. With this and the internet you can get everything updated on the go. I have my own private database as well, and it links to a server system so you can really speed up your workflow.â€
From Sports Business Journal, on advances in player analysis:
Arguably the most dramatic advance within player analysis has not been within the number crunching itself, but the ability to take the research anywhere and access it through a simple touchscreen. Apple’s iPad tablet device, which sold more than 3 million units in just 90 days following its April debut, is now a must-have business tool for dozens of GMs across the major sports leagues.
“The iPad has been huge for us,†said Jed Hoyer, Padres general manager. The club’s work with TruMedia, which features iPad functionality in its analytics system, derived from Boston, where both Hoyer and TruMedia Chief Executive Rafe Anderson previously worked together for the Red Sox. “You’re really not going to carry a laptop into the ballpark, so having the wealth of data right at your fingertips is a huge convenience, certainly while you’re on the road.â€
The data-everywhere trend is only going to extend to sports consumers.
Equibase, which has started taking seriously growing demand for mobile content, earlier this week added the Racing Yearbook, which first appeared earlier this month as an iPhone app, to its website. The online Yearbook includes charts for the year’s graded stakes, replays, and horse profiles, and while it’s not quite Racing Post breezy to use (you can’t click on horse’s name in a chart to get to a profile, for instance), it is a nice step forward in making more racing information available.
Keeneland Gains
The two-week Keeneland September yearling sale closed on Sunday, and to the relief of those involved in the business of breeding and selling horses, it closed with gains. “I mean, you have to be happy with it overall,” a consignor told the Blood-Horse, “considering everyone was going into it with grim prospects.” Reports the Thoroughbred Times:
Total sales, average price, and median all rose compared with the 2009 September sale, and the buy-back rate improved from 27.5% to 26.7%. Keeneland reported 3,059 yearlings as sold from 4,174 offered for $198,257,900, a 3.3% increase from $191,869,200 in total sales a year ago.
“It wasn’t a home run,” notes the Daily Racing Form. “But the Keeneland September yearling sale … posted solid returns that may have signaled that the bloodstock bust is over.” And it did so with sharply reduced spending by the Maktoums, points out the Paulick Report.
Whew. Everyone feeling a little more hopeful now?
Of the young sires, Bernardini was the standout, with 31 yearlings selling for an average of $199,323, a gross of nearly $6.2 million (numbers via). While I haven’t missed noticing that Bernardini’s first crop runners have been doing exceptionally well, I only noticed yesterday that he’s already an omnisurface sire, with winners on dirt, turf, and synthetics. His offspring have also either won or placed in group or graded stakes on all three surfaces. Interesting.
Is it too early to start talking about possible 2011 buzz babies? Here’s a 2009 filly to watch for, a half-sister to Zenyatta by Bernardini.
Unabashed Praise
… for the Racing Post website. This morning, on noticing that Man of God, eighth to stablemate Frankel in his winning August 13 debut at Newmarket, had won at Yarmouth yesterday, I clicked over to that one’s Racing Post profile, with one question: Had any other horse in that race come back to win? There, I clicked on the race date, then on each finisher’s name, getting a pop-up window with each of their complete career records, and in five minutes — without logging in, entering credit card information, or downloading any PDFs — I had the answer. It was a breeze, as it is every time I visit. The site is data-rich and user-friendly. More advanced features require registration and/or payment, but elementary research can be accomplished with ease.
“We’ve embraced the internet as openly as any sport that I’m aware of,” said NTRA president Alex Waldop in a recent TDN interview. “When it comes to the horse stuff, I think we’ve done a good job,” Equibase president Hank Zeitlin told the Paulick Report. Never mind the DRF, which has invested considerable resources in developing Formulator, a powerful handicapping tool hobbled by an outmoded card-based navigation and subscription model, while letting products such as Simulcast Daily stagnate. All it takes is a few minutes with the Racing Post to realize how far the American racing industry has to go to bring American racing fans an online tool as simple and useful.
Vaguely Reported Plan Goes Nowhere
In late January, the Racing Post reported:
A group of leading American breeders and owners have joined major racetrack operators and high-profile industry organisations in a series of closely guarded meetings over the past six months to plan what they hope will combat the difficulties facing US racing.
Few details were revealed. “We cannot disclose what is being done, not that it’s any CIA secret,” said Satish Sanan, one of the group’s organizers. “In our industry, most initiatives get killed before they get started.”
So, hush-hush went the work, which apparently has come to naught:
… a major initiative designed to bring stakeholders together to generate perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for the Thoroughbred industry abruptly hit a wall. Some who were involved in the project for about a year said the plan derailed and crashed because of refusal by some to relinquish control; others said it had become too complicated and used unreliable financial estimates.
Reading Blood-Horse reporter Tom LaMarra’s piece, linked above, is like trying to look through muddy water. All that’s clear is that the industry’s factions continue to work at odds, and that’s not news.
Into the Light
Vic Zast on what it’ll take to lead racing to salvation:
The real savior will bring about consolidation of the sport, develop an International outlook, abandon the limiting factor of dirt tracks in favor of reliable synthetics, stop medications entirely, redefine the schedules of when and which racetracks operate, enact graded stakes standards that discourage breeders from raiding the sport of its stars, create a market for horses of stamina, promote the sport collectively and provide full betting access to everyone.
So, a national office with real power and open-minded leadership.
Tangentially related, a suggestion from @o_crunk:
someone should start a snarky tumblr tracking all of pieces on ‘racing problems’ as a ratio to those actually about horses.
We do seem to be in a season of laments …
Not Synthetic, Engineered
Well, this is interesting. The same week in which the Paulick Report posted the results of a leaked TOBA study that came up strongly pro-synthetics mere hours before the Welfare and Safety Summit kicked off at Keeneland with an analysis of data from the Jockey Club Equine Injury Database on the statistical difference between synthetic and dirt surfaces, a new group has appeared with a slick website and a social media presence to promote synthetics, rebranded “engineered racing surfaces.”
The Engineered Racing Surfaces Coalition:
… believes these surfaces have a viable place in Thoroughbred racing’s future, and is committed to providing accurate and timely information about the benefits of these surfaces.
The coalition is made up of five North American racetracks, all of which have installed Polytrack (credit to Ed DeRosa for noticing that detail).
“A Fairly Simple Thing”
Another recommendation arising from the summit’s committees included the modification of the Jockey Club’s existing InCompass racing-office software to automatically identify horses who have been placed on vet’s lists or starter’s lists in other states. According to Peterson, some trainers ship horses out of the state in order to avoid complying with the conditions that are required to remove the horses from the lists, in the hopes that the state is not aware that the horse has been temporarily barred from racing.
“We frequently see horsemen who shop their horses around to other states,” Peterson said. “It’s a fairly simple thing to address.”
Wonderful. And why not take the change a step further? Make the resulting “Disabled List” accessible through the Equibase site so that those interested — fans curious about why a horse hasn’t started in a while, for instance — can more easily get basic information about a horse’s status.
Handicapped
“I’ve been developing my own handicapping software as a hobby since 2007, but the biggest problem I’ve faced is having enough data to properly calibrate and test the system,” said Ligett. “The data provided as part of the contest is just what I needed to move the idea forward.”
Lock up data, squelch innovation. Give developers data, spur innovation.
Loan Is Not a “Bailout”
Ugh. This Blood-Horse headline qualifies as a gross error:
An Associated Press article has the slightly better headline, “Paterson: NYRA, Saratoga meet will be saved,” so readers aren’t told the proposed $17 million loan is a bailout … until the story’s first sentence. While not overlooking the good news that the state may come through with the money it’s obligated to provide NYRA (money it desperately needs) if the Aqueduct racino wasn’t in operation this spring, it’s hard to see the inaccurate characterization of the deal in the AP lede, and in at least one headline from a publication that should know better, as anything other than a public relations disaster. I look forward to the inevitable editorials and letters demanding to know why New York, with its seven weeks overdue budget, is “bailing out” the undeserving NYRA, when it’s merely fulfilling the promises of the franchise agreement made in 2008.
5/19/10 Update: Never mind? Matt Hegarty reports in DRF that the Governor’s comments “did not reflect any substantive progress” towards a legislative resolution to NYRA’s situation. “I think they’ll pass it,” said Paterson of the proposed loan plan on Tuesday, but a few legislators may balk.
– – – – –
Meanwhile, in California …
A shame CHRB cut meeting webcasts in January; items #10 and #11 on the board’s Thursday meeting agenda (PDF) should be quite interesting. Magna (MI Developments) is scheduled to give an update on its future racing plans, which won’t include Santa Anita president Ron Charles. He’s resigned, effective Wednesday. A discussion of the voided Oak Tree lease (and potential impact on Oak Tree dates this fall) is to follow. Oak Tree had been talking with the Breeders’ Cup about hosting the event permanently; MI’s decision to pull the lease, affirmed only two weeks before, has complicated those negotiations. “Maybe this will derail BCup freight chugging into SA station,” tweeted Nick Kling. Maybe. Del Mar executives, who have offered the track to Oak Tree, are hoping it might renew the possibility of a Del Mar Breeders’ Cup.
A Perma-Site for the Breeders’ Cup
Kentucky Derby-winning owner-breeder Bill Casner is the latest to take up the argument advocating Santa Anita as a permanent site for the Breeders’ Cup. In a column for the Blood-Horse, he hits all the major points — weather, media market access, facilities, financial advantages, the global racing calendar — and concludes pragmatically:
The time is right to make Santa Anita the permanent venue. It is the correct business decision for the Breeder’s Cup event and the future of our industry.
I’ve refrained from commenting on the BC site debate so far, since it’s not one for which I can claim — or expect much assumption of — objectivity. I’ve done some work for the Breeders’ Cup, I welcome any reason to visit Santa Anita, and it’s probably fair to say I’m pro-synthetic surface. But there’s something about the tone of Casner’s piece that signals whatever the discussion among the BC board members, of which Casner is one, about whether to select a permanent site or establish a rotating site schedule, it’s over — all that’s left is coming to an agreement with the likely permanent host site.
So, what will it mean for American racing if the Breeders’ Cup settles at Santa Anita? The game will be more international (in wagering and participants), the event will attract more media attention (as it did this year in earning Emmy and SBJ award nominations). Forget talk of a “civil war,” especially if Santa Anita remains synthetic; there’s too much money and prestige at stake for the most recalcitrant owners and trainers to hold out for long. It will be a major change, but one with real potential for growing the game.
I don’t have much strong feeling about what the BC board seems on the verge of announcing, except on the matter of which track — and in that, they’ve made the right call, if Santa Anita is indeed their plan. There are many arguments for choosing Churchill, arguments not to be dismissed lightly. But, if Churchill Downs were to be named the permanent site, I’m certain that years from now we would look back in regret, pinpointing the decision as the moment the game became irrevocably marginalized, not only internationally, but within the US. Move the Breeders’ Cup to Louisville, and Churchill would become synecdoche for the two biggest events on the calendar, transforming racing from a national sport (niche as it may be) to a regional spectacle. No thanks, to that future. I’d rather see the Breeders’ Cup take a shot at global relevance and a mass audience in the glorious California sunshine.
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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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