Funny, Not So Funny
Suffolk COO Robert O’Malley on the state of Massachusetts racing, past and present:
“I always remember the line from Dave Wilson, who was the racing writer with the old Record in Boston: ‘Suffolk Downs is the only place where a Ph.D. from M.I.T. would chase a tattered bum across the apron asking, “What do you know?”‘”
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“There isn’t the interest in the local product from day to day. There’s more interest in out-of-town races.”
Modest Revival for Suffolk Stakes
The Massachusetts Handicap and the James B. Moseley Breeders’ Cup may not be on Suffolk Downs’ 2005 schedule, but the rest of Suffolk’s 2005 open stakes schedule will be revived.
The track cancelled 10 $40,000 open stakes races in early April to help conserve the overnight purse account. In a meeting with the New England HBPA last Wednesday, Suffolk agreed to replace those races with an equal number of $25,000 stakes. Officials from the Breeders’ Cup offered to match the purses on four of those races, which means that Suffolk this year will run six $25,000 named races and four $50,000 stakes races, in addition to the 12 state-bred stakes already scheduled.
“The people at the Breeders Cup saw that we were forced to cut our stakes program to stabilize the overnight purse structure for the local horsemen and stepped up made us the offer,” said Suffolk COO Robert O’Malley. “This will give both the horsemen and the track the opportunity to still offer a respectable stakes program without heavily impacting our overnight purse structure. In addition, it will give our racing fans some nice races to look forward to.”
Racing secretary Jim Pambianchi is meeting with HBPA officials this week and is expected to publish the revised stakes schedule soon. [Many thanks to reader and fellow Suffolk fan Doug Beaton for the HBPA news link.]
Suffolk notes: Apprentice jockey Anne Sanguinetti earned her first win at Suffolk in race one on Monday, aboard Judith’s Trifle.
Opening Day Notes
The weather was grim — rainy and foggy — but the mood at Suffolk Downs was anything but for opening day, despite all the recent glum news about the track’s future. More than 6,200 people filled the grandstand, wagering more than $331,000 on the day’s 10 races. The scene was noisy and happy, with crowds gathering at the rail for each race and raucous cheers going up from all over when horses neared the finish line. Fans stood at the paddock fence shouting, “Good job” and “Great ride” and “Welcome back” to jockeys and trainers, who smiled and said, “Thank you” and “Glad to be home.”
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I arrived two minutes too late for the first race and missed the second attending to the bureaucratic rigmarole of getting my backstretch badge renewed. I made it to the paddock in time to catch the horses entered in the third race walking, and picked number one to win. (Not for any sound handicapping reason; I decided on Friday that handicapping Suffolk on Saturday was a largely useless exercise, given the weather forecast, the number of horses coming off long layoffs and the rest coming in from tracks all over the east.) Horse one tossed his head playfully and danced on his toes as he and his groom walked the paddock. He looked confident and ready to run, unlike some of the others — horse four was so nervous he had to be saddled walking, horse six was washy, and horse five was ill-behaved, rearing up in his stall and refusing to let the jockey mount. His groom brought him out to walk again, and as the two circled around, the rider, with a lift from the trainer, caught the horse and leapt up into the saddle. Horse five bucked and tried to shake the jockey off. A woman next to me laughed and said affectionately, “He’s wild, isn’t he?”
I watched the race standing at the fence near the finish line. As the horses came down the stretch, number four was in front. My horse was chasing and looking like a solid second when, in the last half furlong, he switched leads and tore down the final yards, winning by a nose.
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My racing companion joined me for race five. In the car of the train he’d been on, he told me, a group had been talking excitedly about Afleet Alex. On the train I was on, a man across from me had the Herald folded open to the racing page and was studying a simulcasting program; to my right, two young guys talked about the Derby. “Everyone says Bellamy Road will win,” said one, “But I like Bandini.” Opening day: All the racing fans are out.
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Standing in the rain, watching the horses from race three jog back to be unsaddled, I thought: If I had to choose right now between being at Churchill Downs all next week or at Suffolk today, I’d choose Suffolk.
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Jockey Dyn Panell had a great opening day, winning four races, three for trainer John Rigattieri. Joe Hampshire, one of Suffolk’s top riders in previous years, isn’t returning to Boston this year. He’s decided to stay at Philadelphia Park, where he leads the jockey standings.
Horses who raced at Laurel this winter won five of yesterday’s races; two from Tampa won, as did one from Mountaineer, another from Aqueduct, and one who hadn’t raced since last fall at Suffolk. Horses shipping in from Gulfstream didn’t win any races, but did manage five seconds and thirds.
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Elsewhere: “Suffolk Downs back in saddle” (Boston Herald) and “Suffolk opens under clouds” (Boston Globe)
Suffolk Opens Today
Suffolk Downs opens today! First post time is 12:45, season passes will be given out with all paid admissions, and there’s a new $1 Pick 4 wager on the day’s last four races. I’ll be out there all afternoon, taking in the races, catching up with friends, and generally just having a very good time. More tomorrow….
Virtual Racing Postponed
No mention of this in the Boston Globe or the Boston Herald, but a Derby lister reports that Massachusetts state treasurer Tim Cahill and Suffolk Downs COO Robert O’Malley were on the local TV news show “Greater Boston” Thursday night, discussing the state lottery’s plan to introduce a virtual horseracing Keno game this fall. The most interesting point: That Cahill said the lottery commission will postpone the game’s introduction until further notice, apparently because of the fuss kicked up by state legislators in a public hearing on April 14.
Competing With the Lottery
“Bob O’Malley, chief operating officer at Suffolk Downs, said he didn’t know whether horse-racing fans would find virtual contests as exciting as the real thing. But he said there’s no doubt the lottery wants to grab every gambling dollar it can. ‘The lottery has become a devastating competitor,’ he said. ‘They’re involved in a different product every month. As they push $5 billion to $6 billion a year in sales, there’s not much left for anyone else.'” (Boston Globe)
“It’s Dying”
I went to Suffolk Downs on Thursday afternoon to see a horse and place a Kentucky Derby future wager. There was a small clubhouse crowd of regulars marking up the Form and trading stories about the horses they almost had. In the grandstand, the TVs were turned on, but the first floor concourse was empty and I watched a race alone before heading out the far doors and toward the backstretch. I called my trainer friend to ask in which barn I’d find the horse, and, as long as I had him on the phone, asked what he thought of Suffolk’s decision to cancel its open stakes program this year. “It’s dying,” he said. “It’s the clearest sign yet that the track is dying.”
That’s pessimism. And my friend’s not the only one who feels that way. Another trainer told John Connolly of the Boston Herald that, “We’re looking at the beginning of the end here,” and connected the track’s decision to the state lottery’s announcement the day before that a new Keno-style horseracing game would be unveiled this fall. Suffolk COO Robert O’Malley insists the call was made for strictly financial reasons. “We had a terrible first quarter,” said O’Malley. “I’m a half-million behind in money for purses. And the [purse account], from which we got $1.2 million in 2003, and $800,000 last year, will give us only $200,000 this year. The account is practically empty. I’m just about $1 million short, and this will give us $1 million in savings.”
So, canceling the MassCap and the rest of the open stakes saves a million this year. And the year after that? “The handwriting is on the wall for racing around here,” O’Malley said. “We were forced to give up the frills this year with the elimination of the MassCap, and if we don’t get slots this year, or are adversely affected by a virtual racing game, next year we would probably be forced to cut daily purses to survive” (Daily Item of Lynn). Of course, if Suffolk does that, it will be even more difficult to attract horsemen to Massachusetts for the short meet. A new racing bill must be passed by the end of 2005; perhaps hope for Suffolk can be found in the state legislature, either by the passage of an equitable racing bill that props up purse money, or by slots legislation.
But slots or state subsidies are only short-term solutions. I confess: I’m a reluctant slots supporter. I’m eager to see Suffolk Downs survive, and if slots can buy the track a few more years, I say bring them in. Yet expanded gaming won’t solve New England’s long-term racing woes, and slots won’t change the reality that the land Suffolk sits on is more valuable as development than it is as a track. The track has two train stops, it’s minutes from downtown Boston, the airport, and the harbor, and it’s one of the largest (if not the largest) parcels of open land in a densely built metro area with an overheated real estate market. It would take more than slots to change that equation.
Thoroughbred racing will leave New England. It’s inevitable. Stan Bergstein, in a Daily Racing Form column on the intersection of racing, globalization, and technology, quotes a lecture given by Bill Shanklin at the recent Thoroughbred Racing Associations and Harness Tracks of America joint conference:
Shanklin told the track operators that all of the graduate business students worldwide could be taught by 200 professors using simulcasting and wireless technology … noting that a university in Philadelphia broadcasts a class at 2 p.m. Eastern so that students in various countries around the world are able to “attend” during their normal waking hours. “How many racetracks would it take to supply the world’s demand for simulcasting and account wagering?” Shanklin asks.
Not many, I’d answer. The major circuits — New York, California, Florida, Kentucky — will find ways to survive, as will tracks such as Oaklawn that host boutique meets enticing to tourists and trainers with quality horses. Tracks like Suffolk, without enough purse money to draw the really good horses, and thus schedule the races attractive to big simulcasting handle, will close.
I think that’s the saddest thing I’ve written on this site.
Related: State Senator Michael Morrissey (D-Quincy) has scheduled a public meeting on the proposed state lottery racing game for Thursday, April 14, at 10 a.m. in room A2 of the State House.
Suffolk Cancels MassCap
And the rest of its 2005 open stakes program:
“Based on the impact that the harsh winter had on simulcast wagering and our current projections, we feel it’s more prudent to maintain a healthy purse level for our daily schedule than to run these major races this season,” said Suffolk Downs Chief Operating Officer Bob O’Malley.
“Our attitude this year is to do everything we can to ensure that we will be able to race next year, when we would anticipate restoring the stakes program, including the MassCap. An important goal for this year is to pursue legislation that will allow us to enhance purses and improve our ability to compete with other racing jurisdictions.”
Read: Pursue slots legislation. This development is most disappointing. More Thursday.
Suffolk Condition Book Up
The first Suffolk Downs condition book of the 2005 meet is up. Opening day is April 30 — just 37 days away.
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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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