Archive for the ‘daily racing form’ Category

By Ray Paulick
For those of you who decided to disconnect from the racing world on Sunday, let me just say that we had a little situation here.

Actually, it wasn’t so little. Collusion between the co-owner of Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird and the owner of runner-up Pioneerof the Nile to keep Kentucky Oaks winner Rachel Alexandra out of the starting gate for Saturday’s Preakness Stakes would have, if successfully orchestrated, created one of the biggest embarrassments this sport has seen in my lifetime.

Apparently, and thankfully, the plot to keep the filly out of the race was aborted on the same day it was hatched. And that says something about the world we live and how cable television and the internet not only have changed how we get our news, but have given the public an opportunity to swiftly react to it, and in some ways alter the course of events.

I was enjoying a quiet Mother’s Day brunch Sunday afternoon with my family when I got an urgent message that Ahmed Zayat, Pioneerof the Nile’s owner, during a telephone interview on HRTV said Mine That Bird’s co-owner Mark Allen called Zayat and asked him to enter an additional horse in the Preakness to block Rachel Alexandra’s entry in the race. The filly, newly acquired by Jess Jackson last week and expected to be supplemented to the Preakness at a cost of $100,000, would only get into the starting field if fewer than 14 horses were entered, because early Triple Crown nominees are given preference over supplemental entrants in the Preakness.

Allen said he would enter a maiden in the race, and if Zayat entered a second horse, there was a strong likelihood Rachel Alexandra would not get in. It would also put Derby-winning jockey Calvin Borel back aboard Mine That Bird after he chose to ride the filly.

The Paulick Report linked to Dan Farley’s timely dispatch in England’s Racing Post that quoted Zayat, who repeated part of the conversation he’d had with Allen. Internet forums (Thoroughbred Champions, Pace Advantage, among others) and blogs lit up with comments about “cowardice,” “unsportsmanlike conduct,” and actions that were “terribly unflattering to the sport,” and would take “the racing industry’s massive dysfunction to brand new levels.”

The late Paul Mellon, who for me defined the kind of sportsmen who helped make this game so wonderful, was, I’m certain, spinning madly in his grave over how racing has degenerated and deteriorated.

Officials of the Maryland Jockey Club must have had visions of angry, pitchfork wielding mobs of racing fans descending upon Pimlico Saturday in search of the two would-be evil-doers, Zayat and Allen. One of those officials called Zayat to explain to him that his actions weren’t being very well received and that it might not be such a bad idea to reconsider.

NBC Sports, which pays a handsome sum to televise the Preakness and has been promoting the hell out of the anticipated matchup between Mine That Bird and Rachel Alexandra, might have been a little upset as well if the filly was somehow excluded.

Before sunset, a flurry of online articles was published by Bloodhorse.com, Sports Illustrated, New York Times and others, quoting both Zayat and Allen with abandoning their ill-conceived plan and waving white flags of surrender–but not before humiliating themselves and embarrassing the sport.

The whole news cycle was over in about six hours. I’m convinced the internet reporting and commentaries, along with the public outrage expressed in online forums, drove the decisions of Zayat and Allen as much as the phone call from a racing official in Maryland may have done.

Twenty years ago, before racing had two cable channels and the internet to provide an explosion of instant information, this Sunday storm might not have ever made into the public spotlight. The late Joe Hirsch, the executive columnist for Daily Racing Form, would have gotten wind of the conspiracy first (Joe always got it first), but by the time the Form had its next press run on Monday afternoon, someone (probably Joe himself) would have smacked some sense into Zayat and Allen.

For those of you who on Sunday were plugged in to HRTV (or TVG, which also did its own reporting on the issue), the Paulick Report or other web sites, this whole unseemly saga would be old news by the time your daily newspaper hit the front door Monday morning, or the weekly trade magazines are delivered later this week.

Times have changed.

One final thought: What is it about fillies and the Preakness that brings out the worst in some people?

Twenty-nine years ago, Angel Cordero Jr. used intimidating, and many of us still believe unsportsmanlike, riding tactics aboard Codex to beat the Kentucky Derby-winning filly Genuine Risk in the 1980 Preakness.

In 1988, the late Woody Stephens hit a low point in his Hall of Fame training career when he had jockey Pat Day employ suicidal tactics in the Preakness aboard Forty Niner against Winning Colors, the front-running filly who defeated Forty Niner in the Kentucky Derby two weeks earlier. It ruined both of their chances of victory.

Interestingly, in both cases, the Daily Racing Form published front-page editorials criticizing the tactics used against the two fillies, an extremely unusual occurrence by the Form. The 2009 version of Daily Racing Form might well have an editorial printed on the Rachel Alexandra saga in the next day or two, but by then will anyone care?

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick
Will a bet-processing tote division be the newest sibling in the Jockey Club’s family of companies? That’s the word I’m hearing from a variety of sources within the industry who say the not-for-profit breed registry is itching to get into the tote business with a new, for-profit subsidiary along the lines of Equibase, the horse industry’s official database for racing information that the Jockey Club owns in partnership with the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America.

Alan Marzelli, the Jockey Club’s president and chief operating officer, declined to comment when asked by the Paulick Report about the company’s possible entry into the tote business.

It makes perfect sense for the Jockey Club to take over yet another segment of the Thoroughbred industry, though it would be a move that is not universally supported. Would its entry into the tote business be a case of merely doing what’s right for the industry, or an opportunity for empire building by the Jockey Club, which already has six for-profit divisions? Those divisions are Jockey Club Information Systems (a data provider to industry publications, sale companies, and others); equineline.com (which sells breeding and racing statistical reports); Equibase (which sells past performance information to Daily Racing Form and for programs sold at racetracks and provides some free information to the public); TrackMaster (which sells customized handicapping information); InCompass (which bills itself as a technology solutions company for the industry and is involved in such areas as racetrack paymaster accounts); and TJC Technology Services (which provides technological infrastructure and support for the various Jockey Club companies).

These Jockey Club companies are all inter-related. For example, Jockey Club Information Services and equineline.com require pedigree information, which is provided by the Jockey Club’s registration department. Racing results from Equibase are fed into TJCIS, equineline, and Trackmaster products for consumers and into software applications in racetracks. A bet processing or tote company and an account wagering division currently are missing pieces in a Jockey Club strategy to cover as many of the industry’s bases as possible. The various companies must pay for the data, but the money essentially shifts from one pocket to another.

Let’s look a little more closely at the state of the tote industry. The three existing companies – Scientific Games Racing (Autotote), AmTote and United Tote – each has roughly one-third of the North American market. All have been struggling for years, in part because racetracks have played one company against another in contract negotiations and have marginalized their business. As a result, they have not made the kind of profits that lead to substantial investment in research and development, and the end product has been one that is technologically inferior and suspect in its ability to maintain absolute integrity in wagering pools.

All three companies are for sale. AmTote, which Magna Entertainment acquired for $17.4 million in a two-phased purchase agreement in 2003 and 2006, is part of that company’s bankruptcy filing. Last month, Scientific Games, a company that makes most of its money in lotteries, hired a financial consultant to look into selling its pari-mutuel division, formerly known as Autotote. Youbet.com, an account wagering company that has not been profitable, paid $49 million for United Tote in 2005 (at least two times higher than the appraised value of some industry insiders). One year ago, Youbet.com officials said they were hoping to find a buyer for United Tote.

At this stage, a purchase by the Jockey Club of United Tote seems the most likely, and sources say a deal could be announced in the coming weeks. The company has contracts with the New York Racing Association, which walks in lockstep with the Jockey Club. United Tote also serves Keeneland, whose president, Nick Nicholson, was instrumental in the development of the “family of companies” strategy when he worked as executive director of the Jockey Club. United Tote has contracts with the other Kentucky racetracks, including Churchill Downs, which employs AmTote at the other racetracks it owns.

All of the uncertainty involving the three leading tote companies comes at a time when the integrity of the Thoroughbred industry’s pari-mutuel wagering systems is being questioned by racing commissions, track operators, and, perhaps most importantly, horseplayers. Autotote, in particular, has been at the center of several controversies, including the 2002 Breeders’ Cup pick six scandal when three of the company’s employees had the only winning ticket and were in line for a $3-million payout. It was discovered they hacked into the system and processed their pick six tickets after the first four races had been run.

Racing executives familiar with the tote business suggest that United Tote may have the best tote machines, while the back end or software infrastructure for AmTote is the most advanced. Scientific Games is viewed as the laggard of the three companies, from a technology standpoint.

SHADES OF EQUIBASE?
This all sounds a bit similar to when Equibase was created in 1990. The Daily Racing Form had been owned by Walter Annenberg’s Triangle Publications for well over a half-century when he sold it to Rupert Murdoch’s News America Corp. in 1988, ending what had been a very cozy relationship between the Form and the racing industry. Whether this upstart Aussie (whose publishing empire includes the New York Post, Fox and other major media outlets) upset Jockey Club pooh-bahs like chairman Ogden Mills (Dinny) Phipps or they were worried about price-gouging or additional changes in the Form’s ownership will probably never be known. But under the banner of the racing industry collecting and owning its own data (versus a private company like Daily Racing Form doing it), Equibase was established in the imposing shadow of the Jockey Club.

At the time, there were pronouncements that the industry needed to provide more information to fans. Alan Marzelli, then the chief financial officer of the Jockey Club, said the “promotion and betterment of racing is behind the decision” to start Equibase. David Haydon, a longtime Jockey Club employee and the first Equibase president, took it one step further, saying the new company would “address racing’s need for fan base expansion.” Jockey Club chairman Phipps himself said, “Everyone in the industry realizes we have to make a day at the races more enjoyable and less intimidating for the general public.”

Equibase has succeeded as a business. Now, instead of competing with the Daily Racing Form, which eventually closed its track and field data collection operations, the Form is its biggest customer, purchasing past performance information to provide in its daily newspaper and for its online products. Most racetrack programs now include past performances – at a fee to consumers.

But where exactly has Equibase succeeded in expanding the fan base or making the races less intimidating?

Other sports, from Major League Baseball to the National Football League, National Basketball Association, and the PGA Tour, provide extensive data at absolutely no cost to the fans. This information is used by fans to make watching the sports action that much more enjoyable, and allows them to be more informed, whether it’s for their own general knowledge or to participate in the fantasy leagues that have become so popular, especially with young people.

Racing, or more specifically Equibase, insists on charging its fans for some of the most basic data. Lifetime past performances of a single horse cost a consumer $8; lifetime stats on a jockey or trainer cost $7 on Equibase’s sister site, equineline.com. If you want career statistics for a baseball player, just go to Google and type “Barry Bonds stats” and you’ll have a plethora of choices for free.

If you want to look at a simple race chart that’s more than a few days old, Equibase charges you $1.50. You want the box score of an NBA game from last month? Go to NBA.com, and click on scores. They’ll provide you with more stats on the game than you could possibly ever want – at no charge.

“It is symptomatic of our industry being a step behind,” said one racing executive who has grown wary of Equibase’s profit-driven motive and thinks the company has strayed from its original mission. “It’s short-term thinking. If our objective in racing is for the horseplayers to win, we should do everything we can to help him, and increase the churn. That’s where the revenue for our business should come from, not from the statistics the horseplayer needs.”

Hank Zeitlen, the current president of Equibase, said fans can get deals for free past performances from some of the account-wagering companies (which, of course, have to pay Equibase to buy the data) and there is often past performances for “feature races of the week” that Equibase makes available at no charge.

 “If you look back to 1990 and see what information was available and how it was made available, we’ve accomplished a lot,” said Zeitlen, who added that it’s unfair to compare racing with other sports. “The economic models of other sports are different than ours,” he said. “Each of those leagues has revenue coming from television. We don’t have that. And Equibase is not a handle-driven business.”

Zeitlen overlooked the fact that the tracks in the TRA that own two-thirds of Equibase (the Jockey Club owns one-third) are handle driven businesses.

JOCKEY CLUB’S THIRST FOR PROFITS
Perhaps it’s this thirst for profits that makes more than a few people wary that the Jockey Club may be getting into the tote business. There are some in that industry who say the Jockey Club, despite its claims, is not a very savvy technology company, and that its entry into the business would not be a giant leap forward – particularly if they wind up with a monopoly. Others believe the Jockey Club should focus on its core business, registering foals, and let private enterprise take care of other segments of the industry.

It was 10 years ago that Tim Smith, then commissioner of the National Thoroughbred Racing Associations, tried to forge a deal between the North American racing industry and IBM Global Services, which promised to modernize the tote system. An IBM executive told the Jockey Club Round Table in 1999 that he had never seen an industry so far behind in technology. The IBM proposal was blown up by some tracks who didn’t see the need for change or improvements in the industry’s tote and simulcasting technology.

Ten years later, we’re even farther behind. It’s clear something must be done to guarantee that the process of handling wagers is improved. If not, the industry will continue to lose the confidence of horseplayers, many of whom are convinced that past-posting of bets and tampering within wagering pools is all too common.

Is the industry ready for the Jockey Club’s family of for-profit companies to grow? Do we really have a choice?

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick

Joe Hirsch, the longtime executive columnist for Daily Racing Form, died in New York City at the age of 80 on Friday morning.

According to a release from his longtime employer, he was at St. Luke’s Hospital at the time of his death. He had been in a long-term care facility in New York after breaking his hip in a fall at his Manhattan apartment last spring. Hirsch suffered for many years from Parkinson’s, courageously going about his daily rounds on the backstretch and writing his Daily Racing Form column while battling the disease. He retired from the Form in 2003. Click here to read a brief biography and here for industry comments about Hirsch.

A funeral service will be held 10 a.m. Sunday at Plaza Jewish Community Chapel, 630 Amsterdam Avenue and 91st Street in Manhattan.

Hirsch (pictured, left, with actor John Forsythe/photo courtesy of Daily Racing Form) had friends and admirers throughout the racing world, and was a global ambassador not only for the Daily Racing Form during his 50-plus years there but for the racing and breeding industry. He won numerous awards during his career, including the prestigious Lord Derby Award from an association of racing writers in England, the Eclipse Award of Merit, and Honor Guest of the Thoroughbred Club of America. Hirsch was also the founding president of the National Turf Writers Association.

Some will recall that Joe, a lifelong bachelor, was roommates with the flamboyant New York Jets quarterback of the late 1960s, Joe Namath. The quarterback was owner of a nightclub called Bachelor’s III (Hirsch was one of the three bachelors it was named after), which was said to be frequented by bookmakers and undesirables. It got Namath in hot water and he briefly retired from football rather than divest himself of the club.

During his career at the Form, Hirsch’s coverage of the Triple Crown races set the standard for other writers. Starting with "Derby Doings," he chronicled the daily activities of all Triple Crown race contenders for weeks on end, providing detailed information for the rest of the industry. In his "spare time," he wrote a number of books, including a colorful biography of trainer Horatio Luro, The Grand Senor.

He has been memorialized with a race named in his honor in the fall meeting at Belmont Park, the Joe Hirsch Turf Classic Invitational, as well as a journalism scholarship at the University of Kentucky. The press boxes at Churchill Downs and Saratoga are  also named after Hirsch.

Hirsch had the respect of racetrack management, horse owners and breeders, trainers, jockeys, his fellow journalists and the racing public. No one was more helpful to young journalists new to the racing beat than Joe Hirsch, who would go out of his way to welcome them to the game. No one was more of a gentleman, either.

All of us who worked around Joe have our favorite stories. Many of them involved the tales he would tell at the countless dinners he organized and invited his fellow writers to. Joe loved great food and the camaraderie of other racing people almost as much as he loved the sport itself.

One of my earliest experiences with Joe came at the 1988 Preakness. Louie Roussel, the co-owner and trainer of Risen Star, was standing on a milk crate, surrounded by dozens of writers and televsision cameras. Many of us had our tape recorders in the air to catch Roussel describe in detail problems Risen Star had experienced with his feet and how a specialist was brought in to treat him and put on a new set of racing plates. Roussel went on for several minutes about the situation.

I was standing directly behind Hirsch, who was holding a small notebook in one hand and a pen in the other. When Roussel was done, he wrote two words — “new shoes” in the notebook. The next morning, when the Form arrived at Pimlico and I read Joe’s must-read “Preakness Doings,” he had a lengthy explanation from Roussel about Risen Star’s foot problem. By that time, I had transcribed my tape of Roussel’s press briefing and was stunned to find that Joe had it nailed almost word for word everything Roussel had said. He was amazing.

Joe Hirsch was a thorough reporter and an outstanding writer who cared deeply about the game. Moreover, he was a good friend to so many of us in this industry. We’ve missed him since he left the racing beat in 2003, and mourn his passing. He was one of a kind.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick

One of the first projects that landed on my desk when I joined the Thoroughbred Times as managing editor in 1988 was a feature story on the Jockey Club, the organization historically entrusted with registering Thoroughbreds and being the keeper of the Stud Book. The article was accompanied by a lengthy mail-in survey of Thoroughbred Times readers. The story and the survey results were of great interest, for at the time I had no idea how broadly the Jockey Club reached across the entire industry and how unhappy rank and file breeders then were with the organization’s service, pricing and activities.

It should be noted that there was an agenda to the article. The Thoroughbred Times was then owned by Richard F. Broadbent, whose Bloodstock Research Information Services was facing new competition from a subsidiary of the Jockey Club. There were questions about whether a tax-exempt breed registry like the Jockey Club should create a subsidiary to compete with a private enterprise company like BRIS, which supplied statistical data to breeders, owners and various publications. A few years later, the Jockey Club helped form another for-profit company, Equibase, which competed with the Daily Racing Form to collect racing results (the Form eventually closed its track and field operations and became Equibase’s biggest customer). The Jockey Club has since started other for-profit businesses.

One of the things that struck me was the comparison between how the Jockey Club and the American Quarter Horse Association conduct their business. The Jockey Club is clearly a breed apart from its Quarter Horse counterpart. The AQHA, then and now, is a relatively transparent organization, one whose membership is open and whose leadership is democratically elected through regional and national elections. There is a board of directors, from which comes an executive committee and elected officers. The AQHA has term limits that prevent individuals from maintaining longstanding control of the organization. The AQHA web site publishes a great deal of information about its governance and membership rules, which can be read here.

By comparison, membership in the Jockey Club has always been by invitation only. Click here for an explanation about membership. It is "governed" by a rotating board of stewards, though that term is used loosely since the Jockey Club has been under the firm control of just two men since 1982, when Ogden Mills “Dinny” Phipps was named chairman and William S. Farish became vice chairman (pictured left). Click here to see the current list of Jockey Club members, stewards, and officers.

The AQHA is a huge organization that maintains the registration of more than five million Quarter Horses, with 135,000 registered in 2007 alone. There are nearly 350,000 AQHA members. According to Internal Revenue Service Form 990 for tax exempt organizations, the AQHA generated $54.4 million in revenue in the 2005-06 fiscal year, the most recent year available. At that time it had $73 million in total assets, including nearly $49 million in investment securities. Click here for the AQHA Form 990.

The AQHA, like the Jockey Club, maintains pedigree records, but also promotes the Quarter Horse breed through horse shows and publishes three magazines (the Quarter Horse Journal, the Quarter Horse Racing Journal, and America’s Horse) that had total circulation of over 400,000 in 2006.

The AQHA charges as little as $25 to register a Quarter Horse foal if done within seven months of birth. The organization is based in Amarillo, Texas, and its highest-paid officer, longtime executive vice president Billie G. Brewer, earned an annual salary of $424,928; treasurer Lee Callaway was paid $221,965 (both figures are from the IRS Form 990.) The two executive salaries represented 5.5% of the AQHA’s total payroll of $11,725,124.

The Jockey Club is also a rich organization, one that is exempt from federal taxes but also has several wholly owned for-profit subsidiaries. The Jockey Club’s 2006 IRS Form 990 states that it registered 37,300 foals that year. The Jockey Club generated $13.2 million in revenue in 2006, the most recent year the figures are available. It claimed $32 million in total assets, including $21.6 million in investment securities. Click here for the Jockey Club Form 990.

In addition, the Jockey Club claimed that its subsidiaries generated over $25.7 million in income for 2006 ($13.7 million by TJC Holdings Inc. & Subsidiaries, which is engaged in information services and software solutions; $4.9 million by The Jockey Club Racing Services, for the collection of Thoroughbred racing data; and $7.1 million by The Jockey Club Technology Services, Inc., for its technology services). Click here for more information on those subsidiaries, which include shared ownership in the data collection company Equibase, and full ownership of TJCIS (The Jockey Club Information Systems  and data supplier Equineline), and InCompass Solutions, which provides software systems for racetracks.

The Jockey Club’s IRS Form 990 lists its annual Round Table Conference in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., publication of its Fact Book, and providing financial support to other industry organizations among reasons for its tax-exempt status, in addition to its breed-registry responsibilities.

The Jockey Club charges $200 to register a Thoroughbred foal, considerably higher than the AQHA’s fee. Its last increase was in 2000, when it was upped from $175. The Jockey Club, which for many years was known as the “New York Jockey Club,” relocated its registration department from New York to Kentucky in 1988. 

Its highest-paid officer is president Alan Marzelli  (pictured, left), who earned $672,796 in 2006, 58% more than the AQHA’s top executive. The Jockey Club has three executive vice presidents: James Gagliano, with a salary of $256,885; Daniel Fick, $243,546; and Laura Banllaro, $243,804. IRS Form 990 also lists but does not itemize another $542,776 in 2006 pension plan contributions for those officers. The salaries represented 39.1% of the Jockey Club’s total payroll of $3,626,092 (exclusive of its subsidiaries, each of which have its own executive staff and employees).

The Jockey Club’s 2006 tax return came to light recently when an entity called “CTBA Boardwatch” (which generally concerns itself with the inner workings of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association) distributed IRS Form 990 to numerous individuals. A number of those people contacted the Paulick Report and were outraged over the salaries paid to Marzelli and his three executive vice presidents.

I don’t know the going rate of executive compensation for a tax-exempt company in New York, where three of the four Jockey Club officers are based (only Dan Fick, a former AQHA executive, is located in the Lexington offices of the Jockey Club). Perhaps those numbers are perfectly in line with other non-profits. I would imagine, though, that the going rate for an executive staff is higher in New York than it would be in Kentucky.

It does seem strange to me that the Jockey Club continues to maintain a nicely appointed office in the high-rent district of midtown Manhattan, on 52^nd Street just off Park Avenue. I doubt that it’s gotten many walk-in customers seeking to register their foals since the registration department was moved to Lexington more than 20 years ago. It is conveniently located near the headquarters of Bessemer Trust, the Phipps family-run wealth management firm whose offices are just a few blocks away on Fifth Avenue.

I asked Jockey Club communications officer Bob Curran why the Jockey Club continues to have a New York office 20 years after the organization’s primary function was relocated to Lexington. A few days later I received the following statement from Jockey Club president Marzelli: “Beginning in 1989, when the first of our commercial subsidiaries was incorporated, The Jockey Club has created and developed a group of for-profit subsidiaries and strategic partnerships, each designed to serve specific segments within the industry by utilizing highly efficient, state-of-the-art technology platforms. We have built and managed this growing list of technology-based companies with a corporate office based in New York and operations centers in Lexington, Ky., and Mountain View, Calif.”

That didn’t really answer the question “why a New York office is necessary” although it did tell me something I didn’t know; namely, that the Jockey Club now has a division in California’s high-tech Silicon Valley town of Mountain View.

The bigger question is who is the Jockey Club accountable to. Is it simply Phipps and Farish and their hand-picked stewards? Is the breeders who have paid registration fees over the 100-plus years of its existence? Is the Thoroughbred industry at large? If there is accountability to the industry, why isn’t there more transparency in the operational and financial activities of the Jockey Club and its various subsidiaries? Why is its membership so restrictive and its governance so secretive?

James Gagliano, one of the aforementioned executive vice presidents, touched on some of these questions, during the Jockey Club Round Table in August in which he discussed some of the activities of the Jockey Club and its affiliate for-profit companies. Click here to read Gagliano’s remarks.

Are you satisfied that the Jockey Club is properly and responsibly representing the best interests of the Thoroughbred industry? Let us know in the comment section below, or take the Daily Paulick Poll about the Jockey Club and its activities, located on the left-hand column of the Paulick Report home page.

Copyright © 2008, The Paulick Report

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