NY Bidders Will Have Options
All nine members of the Committee on the Future of Racing in New York met on Monday to discuss the recent testimony given by more than 50 racing industry executives, NYRA officials, and interested members of the public and to consider how best to proceed with the bidding for the state’s racing franchise. The committee members agreed that the land NYRA’s three tracks sit on is owned by the state (a contention that NYRA strongly disputes), and will likely offer bidders multiple options for submitting proposals:
Bids would be based on three scenarios — that the system of racing stays as it is; changes moderately; or undergoes a drastic change.
“You could bid on whichever one you prefer,” said Commissioner Bernadette Castro. She said bidders also should have the option to include OTBs in their proposal.
They’ll need that option because NYRA and the OTBs are separate entities, competing against each other, and New York racing law may or may not be overhauled in the next couple of years to reform this dysfunctional system. At least one lawmaker is warning potential bidders that it won’t. “I wouldn’t count on any sweeping changes in racing law. That doesn’t happen here,” said Racing & Wagering Committee chairman Gary Pretlow.
More from Alan at Left at the Gate:”The upcoming bidding process for the New York racing franchise took on the feel of a Chinese restaurant menu …”
No Races = More Money
Anyone who wants to know how truly messed up New York racing is must read this New York Times article on Yonkers Raceway, which
Despite running no races since June, when it closed to install video lottery terminals and make some renovations … continues to be paid millions of dollars a year from four Off Track Betting Corporations in the state, including $3 million from the corporation operated by New York City alone.
This arrangement makes, as readers might expect, no sense from any angle.
Friends of New York Racing is out with its final report that calls for just this sort of nonsense to disappear. The organization, headed by former NTRA commissioner Tim Smith, proposes a complete restructuring:
FONYR wants the state to completely rewrite its racing law to not only make it less complex and burdensome, but also to permit any entity — for profit, not-for-profit, and joint ventures that could include off-track betting corporations — to bid on the franchise. Smith said the law should make the bidding “permissive and wide open.”
The group said the 2006 changes in the law should also expand account wagering to include Internet wagering; some sort of customer loyalty programs, such as rebates; and to cut the pari-mutuel industry’s tax burden. Additionally, the group said the state should legalize video lottery terminals at Belmont. (A 2001 law forbids VLTs at Belmont and Saratoga.) The report also calls for consolidation into a single state agency to do the work of several agencies that now oversee lotteries, casinos, and racing.
In the longer term, which the group defines as much as two years out, Smith said the competing parties must come to a resolution after several decades of the “OTB situation” –the OTB parlors and racetracks are separate entities. The state, FNYR concluded, needs to restructure the current law that has led to fierce infighting between the tracks and OTB corporations.
It will be interesting to see what influence FONYR has in the coming year. I’m skeptical, but a correspondent quite knowledgeable about New York racing has written to say, “I believe Tim Smith is working magic behind closed doors. I am convinced he’s showing how useless the OTB system is, and that even though they generate a lot of money, it’s operated in a defeating manner.” Maybe …
Snow May Be Falling …
But NYRA would like your requests for reserved Saratoga seats now, please. NYRA opened the reserved seat auction application period for the 2006 meet in mid-November and is accepting requests until December 23.
Whether NYRA will be in charge of New York racing come next August, though, is a matter of some speculation: New York state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno is calling for the New York racing franchise to be awarded in the next six months “to ensure the continued viability of racing in the state.” NYRA’s franchise is set to end in 2007. Bruno isn’t ruling out the possibility that the organization could continue to hold the franchise if it was bid out before then:
“I think if NYRA partners in the right way [it] would be very viable, but they’ve got to partner in the right way,” he said.
What exactly the “right way” would be wasn’t defined by the state senator. A state oversight board, which recently blocked NYRA’s attempt to auction equine art with an estimated value of $2 million and is likely to refuse it the right to sell 80 parcels of land near Aqueduct worth up to $20 million, suggested that NYRA raise takeout to stave off its impending insolvency. President Charles Hayward said that if NYRA is forced into bankrupty, possibly by the end of this month, racing would not be affected.
Related: “New York state’s incredibly selfish and short-sighted politicians have really done it this time,” says Bill Heller.
12/7 News: “New York Racing Association executives pleaded to state officials Tuesday to help them avoid taking the 50-year-old operation into bankruptcy, and their pitch didn’t fall on deaf ears.”
More on Weightgate
The indictment last week against two former NYRA officials for falsifying jockey weights raises “serious and disturbing questions,” writes Steven Crist (Daily Racing Form — sub. req.):
What is perhaps most troubling about the entire matter is the way that it was addressed when it first began to come to light. NYRA officials have said that they initiated the investigation when they heard about possible improprieties at the scale more than a year ago. The appropriate response would have been for someone to step in and put a stop to it immediately. Instead, apparently because NYRA was operating under a deferred prosecution agreement and all sorts of regulatory scrutiny, paralyzed officials turned over their concerns to prosecutors rather than intervening themselves.
An investigation commenced, including surveillance at all three NYRA tracks, and evidence was collected on 67 “incidents” in 59 races run between June and December of 2004. In effect, then, it appears that investigators knowingly allowed these races to be run under tainted conditions for months in order to fatten the indictments against the clerk of scales and his assistant.
It is difficult to see how this approach protected rather than further deceived the public. Instead of fixing the problem, investigators appear to have allowed it to continue, in order to build a better case.
Also in the DRF, Matt Hegarty reports on the allowances officials make for jockey weights before and after races:
According to the racing officials, the clerk of scales typically subtracts the weights of helmets and safety vests — which are required equipment in all jurisdictions — before and after a race from the official weight and will many times give allowances for any dirt, water, or sweat that a jockey and his equipment will pick up during a race. In addition, in many jurisdictions, riders carry more equipment to the scales after a race than before, and that weight is also subtracted from the official post-race weight.
“Let’s say a guy checks in with 115 pounds, and that’s without the helmet and the jacket,” said Victor Sanchez, the clerk of scales at Calder Race Course in Miami. “You’re going to expect him to come back 118 or 119 because now he’s got the jacket and helmet, and he’s carrying the saddle girth which soaked up a lot of sweat plus his pommel pad and saddle, and if it’s muddy, then you’ve got all that dirt and water, and that stuff is heavy. You still mark 115. That’s just logical.”
Seems logical. But did investigators know officials made such calculations? That’s one of the questions raised by the indictment, which alleges that the five cited jockeys rode from seven to 15 pounds overweight. Hegarty notes:
In nine of the races, the riders were assigned 120 pounds or more. At a minimum of seven pounds overweight, that means the jockeys would have weighed 127 or more, or at least 11 pounds more than what any of the jockeys claimed was their regular riding weight.
Put that way, the allegations sound even more preposterous.
Ripped Off?
So … following the news that former NYRA officials have been indicted for reporting false jockey weights, racing fans and anyone who bet on a NYRA race in 2004 should be outraged, right? After all:
… the defendants, acting in concert with the co-conspirator jockeys, fraudulently obtained compensation from the owners for riding, and deprived bettors of hundreds of thousands of dollars by misrepresenting the jockey’s weights and thereby tricked said bettors into betting on said horses.
But I did a spot check of the results of the races specifically mentioned in the indictment, and here’s what I found:
| Date | Track | Race | Horse # | Odds | Finish |
| June 23 | Belmont | 7 | 1 | 48-1 | 5th |
| July 11 | Belmont | 3 | 10 | 14-1 | 3rd |
| July 17 | Belmont | 8 | 9 | 41-1 | 9th |
| August 16 | Saratoga | 1 | 11 | 52-1 | 9th |
| August 16 | Saratoga | 2 | 4 | 23-1 | 7th |
| August 30 | Saratoga | 6 | 6 | 24-1 | 12th |
| November 6 | Aqueduct | 9 | 4 | 11-1 | 3rd |
| November 7 | Aqueduct | 8 | 10 | 55-1 | 8th |
| November 12 | Aqueduct | 1 | 8 | 94-1 | 7th |
Bettors seemed to do a pretty good job of assessing the alleged affected horses’ odds, even without the overweight information. Could this be because weights aren’t all that relevant to most handicappers? This shouldn’t be taken as a defense of wrongdoing — but I am wondering if the attorney general’s office isn’t being a just a bit overzealous in its prosecution of this case.
More: Bill Finley reports in the New York Times that evidence was gathered using surveillance cameras in the jockey’s room and that in at least one stakes race, a horse carrying too much weight won: “According to the indictment, the scheme included 10 stakes races, including the Cigar Mile, run at Aqueduct. Santos won the $350,000 race aboard Lion Tamer, who was reportedly carrying 115 pounds with Santos aboard.”
About those extra pounds: The indictment alleges that jockeys rode anywhere from seven to 15 pounds overweight. That’s a lot. “It sounds a little far-fetched to me,” said retired rider Eddie Maple to Times-Union writer Tim Wilkin. “I rode at 116 (pounds), and you could tell if I put on 2 pounds. That’s a lot of weight in our game.”
NYRA Officials Indicted
Last December, New York state police raided NYRA offices for an investigation into jockey weights. The New York Post reports this morning that NYRA officials, including suspended chief of scales Mario Sclafani, will be indicted today for falsifying jockey weights:
Sources say the indictment claims that officials failed to report the accurate weights of the jockeys before the races and lied about their weights afterward — cheating bettors out of accurate data to make well-informed wagers and allowing “people who knew of the fraud” to have a definite edge when it came to picking winners.
The sources were unable to say whether investigators uncovered hard evidence that the indicted NYRA officials profited directly from betting on “tampered” and “tainted” races.
A spokesman for Spitzer declined comment and wouldn’t reveal which officials were involved. Sources say Spitzer’s probe also targeted Sclafani’s top deputy, Braulio Baeza, a Hall of Fame jockey who won 3,140 races in a 16-year career.
More details: NYRA clerk of scales Mario Sclafani and assistant clerk of scales Braulio Baeza were indicted this afternoon in Saratoga County court on charges of falsely reporting jockey weights (Blood-Horse). The two officials, both suspended from work since January, were immediately fired by NYRA.
The 116-page indictment also names several jockeys as un-indicted co-conspirators:
The indictment alleges Sclafani and Baeza conspired with five prominent jockeys — [Jose] Santos, Robby Albarado, Herberto Castillo Jr., Ariel Smith, and Cornelio Velasquez — on 67 different occasions between June 2004 and December 2004 to allow them to ride when they weighed as much as 15 pounds over* their announced weight.
“Co-conspirator jockeys then rode horses in races and thereby caused the horses to carry in excess of five pounds over the designated weight,” the indictment alleges. “In so doing, the defendants, acting in concert with the co-conspirator jockeys, fraudulently obtained compensation from the owners for riding, and deprived bettors of hundreds of thousands of dollars by misrepresenting the jockey’s weights and thereby tricked said bettors into betting on said horses.”
According to the indictment, the jockeys (including, in addition to the five named above, Aaron Gryder, Pablo Fragoso, Jorge Chavez, and Oscar Gomez) paid Sclafani and Baeza their riding fees for the races in which their overweights were misreported.
The New York Attorney General’s office has issued a press release and the full text of the indictment.
NYRA responds to the indictment: “… NYRA has terminated the employment of former Clerk of Scales Mario Sclafani and former Assistant Clerk of Scales Braulio Baeza effective immediately. NYRA suspended Sclafani and Baeza on January 12 when the allegations first came to light and appointed Timothy D. Kelly as the Acting Clerk of Scales. Since then, the association has instituted a number of reforms, including the use of digital scales at each of its three racetracks…. In providing background to today’s announcement, NYRA President and CEO Charles E. Hayward emphasized the association’s role in initiating the investigation and its ongoing commitment to complete transparency to ensure the integrity of racing.”
Odds & Ends
A “secret group” has sent a letter to the US Attorney’s office urging that NYRA be prosecuted:
The group, whose identity is not being disclosed, said in a letter sent by its lawyer July 21 that NYRA has continued to operate in questionable and suspect ways — despite being under the terms of a strict deferred prosecution arrangement for more than a year (Blood-Horse)
Not so very coincidentally, the unidentified group is interested in bidding on the NYRA franchise.
—
I know the story of the investigation into Wild Desert’s whereabouts before the Queen’s Plate is a couple of days old, but I love this Bobby Frankel quote:
“I don’t know anything about it,” Frankel said. “They asked me to run the horse in my name in Canada. That’s what I did. That’s all I know” (Daily Racing Form)
Ok.
—
This sounds familiar …
The new system, called the “FTBOA Chase to the Championship” rewards points for top-three finishes in for Breeders’ Cup races, graded stakes wins, races on Florida’s signature racing days, including the Florida Million, Florida Cup, Florida Stallion Stakes series, and Sunshine Millions, open-company stakes with purses of $40,000 and over, as well as group and listed races included in Part I of the of the International Cataloging Standards and International Statistics booklet…. The Florida-bred with the most points in each division on December 31 is deemed divisional champion (Thoroughbred Times).
Afleet Alex leads the three-year-old division and all categories overall in the new Florida standings. Just as he does in these standings.
Shakeup at NYRA
“Charles Hayward, the president and CEO of the New York Racing Association, announced four major personnel changes Thursday intended to give the beleaguered franchise a ‘fresh approach’” (Daily Racing Form). Racing secretary Mike Lakow, chief veterinarian Dr. Celeste Kunz, and vice president of human resources and labor relations Ralph Chetcuti were fired by Hayward. Steward David Hicks retired. Hayward were circumspect in his comments on the changes:
All these people made significant contributions. Mike Lakow is one of the preeminent racing secretaries in the country. I have no desire to say anything negative about these people. The fact I fired them is the result of the evaluations of how they fit into what we’re trying to accomplish moving forward (New York Post).
Trainer Bobby Frankel, always good for an inappropriate quote, told the Post, “It’s a disgrace. They owe us an explanation. It’s like the Gestapo, they just chop your head off. It’s not right.”
Mike Lakow has been replaced by assistant racing secretary P.J. Campo. Dr. Kunz, best known for saving Charismatic after he broke down in the 1999 Belmont Stakes, was replaced by Dr. Anthony Verderosa.
Recommendations from Friends
Friends of New York Racing is releasing its first study of the New York racing industry on Monday, and will recommend that the “three major thoroughbred racetracks should be run as a business for profit in partnership with the state, all off-track betting outlets should be folded into the enterprise, and video lottery terminals should be allowed at Belmont Park.” Friends of New York Racing estimates that replacing NYRA with such a model would attract capital investment of up to $1 billion and produce more than $6 billion for education in 10 years, in addition to assuring racing’s future in the state. How very sensible — which means, what chance in Albany? (New York Times)
Speeding Up the Process
New York governor George Pataki is pushing a proposal to speed up the bidding process for NYRA. “In the final hours of the New York legislature’s 2005 session, a whole series of racing bills are being debated behind closed doors at the state Capitol, including a Pataki proposal to move to July 1 from Dec. 1 the date for the appointment of a nine-member panel charged with beginning the NYRA franchise bidding process.” Interesting. (Blood-Horse)
6/24 Addition: Pataki’s proposal passes. NYRA gets an oversight board, and the formation of the committee to handle the bidding process for the New York racing franchise has been moved up to July 1 from December 1.
—
This opening sentence from a Los Angeles Times article says it all about Belmont’s persistent short field problem this spring:
The five horses running in today’s seventh race at Belmont Park, a $50,000 overnight handicap at six furlongs, are better than average New York breds.
Only 34 days to go until Saratoga opens …
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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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