Significant Support
8/20/09 Update: Much, much more on the Saratoga numbers, from Steve Zorn. “The Saratoga sale’s success masks some serious problems, and does nothing to address the weakness in the thoroughbred industry.”
How much did Sheikh Mohammed and the Maktoum family support the recently concluded Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select sale? By quite a bit more than acknowledged, according to Bill Oppenheim’s estimate in today’s TDN:
While no one seems to want to admit it publicly (they buy for “unnamed principals who don’t want to be identified,” or some such doubletalk), everybody knows a number of European trainers and agents are employed to sign for horses which end up racing for Maktoum entities. My entirely unofficial and unverifiable estimate is that seven other agents or trainers were signing tickets on their behalves, and their actual purchases consisted of about 37 yearlings totaling around $20.5 million in sales. That would represent 18 percent of the horses sent through the ring, and 39 percent of the money spent. I’ll bet that closer to the truth.
Perspective
In the midst of headlines about expensive yearlings and the optimism such babies inspire, Jeff Scott reminds readers,
that the vast majority of the most important races continue to be won by horses that didn’t cost a small fortune. For example, the 83 Grade I winners over the past 12 months included just four horses that sold commercially for more than $350,000 – one yearling and three juveniles.
Of 35 Grade I winners sold as yearlings, 20 were purchased for $85,000 or less. They included no less than seven champions (Curlin, Zenyatta, Big Brown, Wait a While, Forever Together, Midnight Lute and Stardom Bound), as well as Derby winner Mine That Bird, who brought all of $9,500 at Fasig-Tipton’s 2007 October yearling sale.
Odds and ends: “I was told he was drunk, had no credit, and had run away.” No, not Sheikh Mohammed, on the premises and good for $11.8 million, or 22.6% of the gross at the just concluded Fasig-Tipton select Saratoga sale, but an unknown bald man, who opened the bidding at $1 million for a Kingmambo filly then fled the pavilion after the hammer came down … Trying to interview the Sheikh? “Don’t bum rush” … Obligatory The Green Monkey mention.
A Better Strategy
Steve Davidowitz, making sense*:
Too often, the sport’s leaders look in the wrong direction to build up the fan base while seeking stop gap measures to keep some tracks afloat.
Whereas slot machines have boosted purses at several tracks in states that cooperatively legalized slots a decade ago, the numbers of contemporary tracks seeking slot machines has increased to the point where the impact is bound to be diluted, if not an apocalyptic foreshadowing to the end game of this 400 year old sport….
It is my judgment, and I know I am in the minority now, but I believe strongly that racing would be better off trying to expand on-line wagering access rather than repeatedly banging its collective head against stone walls, seeking more slot machines.
*Login alert: Davidowitz’s column is now part of the Trackmaster Players Club; you may have to register before viewing if you don’t have a free account.
The Trouble With Racing
Speculation, allegations, rumor, and hearsay from Jim Squires in his new book, “Headless Horsemen,” reviewed by Ray Kerrison in the Wall Street Journal:
Mr Squires believes steroids were first used in Âracing in the 1950s. He makes some startling claims about earlier horse-racing champions. He alleges that 1973 Triple Crown winner Secretariat may have raced on steroids. “There are oldtimers who insist that even the magnificent physical stature of the great ÂSecretariat was not all genetic and his early problem settling mares†— that is, breeding — “may have been a by-product of steroids.â€
The allegations continue. Mr. Squires writes: “Denigrators of the late Frank Whiteley [1915-2008], the surly magician who trained Damascus and Ruffian, Âsincerely believe that his magic came from sniffs of Âcocaine and say they know people who say they saw Whiteley coming out of the stalls brushing the white dust off his hands.â€
Fascinating stuff, as I expect Squires’ commentary on the industry power structure to be when I begin reading the book. More to come …
A Fresh Perspective
Betfair USA president Gerard Cunningham, in an interview with DRF reporter Matt Hegarty, responding to a question about shifting wagering dollars and what TVG can do to attract new revenue and new fans:
I do want to comment on this idea of cannibalization, that online wagering has damaged handle at the racetrack. I actually don’t accept that premise. If I go back 10 years ago, before there was online wagering, and I move forward through the period, imagining that there was no Internet wagering on horse racing, then horse racing would still be competing against all of these other sports that are bringing in many, many more interactive entertainment experiences, and it would be competing with the sports that have remade their venues into very pleasant facilities, and with a whole new set of Internet wagering competitors, like online poker, which is a much cheaper bet than online horse racing, and you would have had this major change in the economy, in which we are all working a lot harder than we were a decade ago, where none of us have jobs for life anymore, and we do not have time to go to the track during the week. So if we didn’t have Internet wagering, the industry would be in much worse shape today. Internet account wagering has helped keep the wealthier, white-collar professional who has a busy job engaged with the sport during the week, and allowed him to participate in the sport as a bettor.
Links for 2009-07-17
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Betfair's smart approach to the US market, anticipating expansion, using TVG: "The technical team he is building in Silicon Valley is therefore taking a very modular approach to what its building online so that various components of online gambling can be turned on and off depending on the laws in individual states (or even countries). So that might mean poker and horseracing in one state, and sports betting in another."
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Search scanned DRFs from the 1890s through the 1980s. Partial resource, ongoing project, helpful to racing history buffs. (Via @colinsghost)
Women: Get Some for Your Racetrack
Trainer Louie Roussel on Arlington’s “Fab 4”:
”Pretty faces never hurt a racetrack, but what’s more important is that these four are not just pretty faces. They are educated, knowledgeable, talented young professionals that are there to add ambience, aesthetics and insight into a customer’s day at the races.”
Yes, that’s right. Women provide ambiance and aesthetics at a racetrack, just like a fresh pair of drapes or beautiful landscaping. Power Cap affirms, writing of the Mother Goose crowd at Belmont:
It may be easy to dismiss these women as taking up space and not contributing their fair share to the game. Not only did they receive free admission but I did not see them hitting the windows with $100 exacta boxes. However their contribution is not to the handle but to the track aesthetic and of the ambiance of the facility.
Women: Not wasting space when they’re making your racetrack look better. Track executives, why not pick up a few today to spruce up your facility?
7/7/09 Addition: Speaking of women and racing, EJXD2 emailed yesterday to ask if I’d noticed the Best Turned Out Filly/Lady contest, one of the events at Saratoga during the August 8-9 Fasig-Tipton Festival of Racing (during which there will also be Best Turned Out Horse contests). I hadn’t, but wonder, per Alan’s comment below, if maybe NYRA shouldn’t add one more contest to the weekend to keep things fair: Best Turned Out Colt/Gentleman.
Tough Times Ahead
As if there were doubt that the aftermath of the recent hard-fought Kentucky slots battle would be rough, turf writer Lenny Shulman fires away at state senator Damon Thayer, who works in the industry but kept quiet through the debate: “If there is any justice, the next job that will be lost because of you and your buddies, will be yours.”
Night Numbers
By all accounts, Churchill Downs’ inaugural night of racing was a success: “It looks like the Dubai World Cup,” said jockey Julien Leparoux, surveying the crowd (Daily Racing Form); “We had to park and walk like it was Oaks or Derby day,” said an attendee (Paulick Report). The final attendance figure announced by Churchill was a healthy 28,011 for a card without a major stakes. But what about handle? As @superterrific noticed,
… all the reports of success don’t include handle …
Churchill no longer releases handle totals, but it is possible to glean clues about last night’s wagering from the pool data included on Equibase charts. For instance, on Friday, June 12, $1,966,831 was wagered WPS on 11 regularly scheduled races compared to the $2,309,563 that was wagered WPS yesterday on 11 nighttime races. That’s an increase of approximately 17% in the WPS pools week to week. In the late Pick 4 pool, $103,062 was wagered the previous Friday versus $137,689 last night, a 34% bump (the first Pick 4 pool was up 14%). Pick 3 pools totaled $273,409 compared to $243,508, up 12%. The tiny Pick 6 pool was up 80%, going from $4,811 last Friday to $8,653 last night. Total exacta pools showed some of the smallest growth, up a mere 6%, or $1,584,627 last night compared to $1,500,217 the week before.
Overall, not bad, considering the crowd skewed young and casual (Aside: Churchill took much criticism for raising the track entrance fee to $10, but clearly that didn’t keep people away and it surely made up for some of what many attendees didn’t — and wouldn’t have — bet). Looking at what information is available, it seems safe to conclude even without official figures that night racing was a win for handle as well as attendance.
Addendum: Curious about the totals, I returned to the charts and tallied all the pools for both dates. On June 12, total handle came to $5,872,007; on June 19, $6,526,603, an increase of 11%. Without figures from Churchill, it’s impossible to know the breakdown between on- and off-track wagering and whether on-track bettors wagered less per capita Friday night or how simulcast wagering might have been affected. Regarding the latter, it does seem likely the late post-times resulted in depressed off-track handle: The first three races on Friday night were the only races where pool totals didn’t exceed totals from the previous week. It was in race four, which had a post-time of 7:30 p.m., that wagering took off, with $704,666 wagered compared to $387,382 the week before. Take the first three races out of the totals for both days, and Churchill handle was up almost 18% for races four through eleven.
6/21/09 Update: The Courier-Journal reports that Churchill Downs took in $6.5 million from all sources (the same number I came to above), “a 32 percent increase.” Since the reporter earlier referenced 2008 numbers in discussing on-track numbers, I’m going to assume that this increase also represents a year to year comparison, not a week to week.
Rachel Alexandra Wines
“Rachel Alexandra Wines, debuting this holiday season” (via @EJXD2). Just in time for a month of parties … and for sending to Eclipse Awards voters.
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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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