Archive for the ‘New York Racing Association’ Category

Today’s first race at Aqueduct was cancelled due to a horsemen’s boycott designed to draw attention to their plight and the failure of Gov. David Paterson and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, among others, to agree on an operator for video lottery terminals or slot machines at Aqueduct, which has been delayed a decade.

Gary Contessa, a leading New York trainer, told the Paulick Report more than 1,000 horsemen attended a rally at Belmont Park Sunday morning calling for action by the governor and others to make a decision on the VLT contract.

Following are Contessa’s comments to the Paulick Report:

“We are trying to get the attention of Albany to let them know what a catastrophic situation we have with New York racing right now, the political ineptness, the absolute inability to get anything done. We are in support of racing. We had a thousand or more people at Belmont today. We had a big rally and cancelled the first race. We did this the right way. We let NYRA know we weren’t coming long before today.

“Hopefully we can wake somebody up, get the governor out of bed, get him to move, get him to do something, or there is going to be more. There is going to be more. We need to move.
 
“We have an absolute political nightmare in New York right now, and I hold the governor and Sheldon Silver personally responsible for this mess. The bottom line is the state is losing a million dollars a day by not having VLTs in new york—a million dollars a day that would go to education, and all we want to do is survive.

“We get a small piece of that and it would help us immensely, just to be competitive. We don’t want to be second–the second best in racing to New Jersey or second best racing to Penn National or Philadelphia Park. We want to be the best. We want to stay on top. We’re not.
 
“We’ve fallen from grace, and without the governor getting off his behind and making a decision about these VLTs, we are never going to regain what New York is supposed to be, which is the capital of American racing. The bottom line is we are just trying to get someone’s attention. It’s all about getting these politicians getting off their hands and doing something.
 
“The bottom line is we are just trying to get somebody’s attention today.

Read more about the rally at Thoroughbred Times

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Ray Paulick

In a report from The Saratogian, Paul Post acknowledges that thinking the unthinkable in this economy is a simple reality. Due to NYRA’s recent problems, Post gives credence to the idea that Saratoga could possibly not run this year.

Charles Hayward indicates NYRA can get through Saratoga, but goes on to say that if New York City OTB closes ‘all bets are off’.

Read it at The Saratogian

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

After much back and forth about the legitimacy of the deal struck by Governor David Paterson and AEG, the Division of the Lottery in New York has refused to give the controversial investor group the slots bid at Aqueduct.

Because of this refusal, Paterson’s administration informed AEG the state has withdrawn their support of the organization.

No doubt this came as a result of the political pressure and lack of transparency in the bid process for the long anticipated VLTs at the Queens racetrack.

Read it at Bloodhorse.com

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

As Michael Veitch of The Saratogian says, Monmouth’s new purse structure implemented by Governor Chris Christie may prove to be the biggest challenge to New York racing in a long time. The push to reduce race days but increase average daily purses to $1 million will force NYRA to compete with the New Jersey track for top horses in the region.

Veitch continues to make the argument that despite Saratoga’s prestige and relatively high purse money ($730,000), many horsemen will be drawn to the $100,000 overnight stakes and the $75,000-$80,000 maiden special weights for 2-year-olds.

Is this a legitimate concern? Will Saratoga become less competitive due to the innovation of their neighbor to the South?

Read it at The Saratogian

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

Since embattled Governor David Paterson named Aqueduct Entertainment Group the vendor for Aqueduct’s proposed VLTs, there has been nothing but controversy swirling around his decision. And while nothing specific has been released, it appears the probe from state investigators into AEG is only making matters worse.

"It’s becoming clearer and clearer that there’s a problem there," a source close to the investigation said. Digging through emails and documents between the state and racino bidders, officials have told investigators they were shocked with the selection of AEG.

"AEG was not highly thought of, at least not by the (administration) bureaucrats."

Read at the NY Daily News

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

By Ray Paulick
In the 10 months since Dan Silver was named director of communications and media relations for the New York Racing Association, NYRA.com has become an innovator and leader in racing’s digital world. Part of the association’s  marketing department since January 2008, Silver and NYRA marketing director Neema Ghaza have become the sport’s dynamic duo when it comes to internet marketing, entertainment and promotions. The innovations they and their associates have developed at NYRA.com and on YouTube are setting the standard for the rest of the industry. If you haven’t checked out NYRA.com lately, you should.

Silver graduated from the first class of master’s degree students at the University of Arizona’s Race Track Industry Program in December 2007 (he also holds a master’s in journalism from Medill at Northwestern University and a B.A. from Haverford College). He had previous horse industry experience working for the Jockey Club, Reynolds Bell Thoroughbred Services and Philadelphia Park.

The Paulick Report spoke with Silver about how NYRA.com has evolved during his relatively short tenure there:

NYRA has clearly made a decision to use its NYRA.com website, along with Youtube, to inform, educate, and entertain racing fans and horsemen. How did your strategy evolve?
It’s very important to mention right away that all of the initiatives we have introduced wouldn’t be possible without support from the top, in our case NYRA president & CEO Charles Hayward and NYRA COO Hal Handel. They let me and Neema Ghazi, NYRA’s director of marketing, have pretty much free reign in exploring new ways to use the internet to benefit our fans. With the knowledge that they’re behind what we’re doing, it makes it much easier to launch new initiatives.

In terms of the strategy and how it evolved, I think it’s just trying to use our resources to the best of our abilities in reaching out to current and prospective racing fans. The internet is not just the future of marketing, it is the present, and it affords many opportunities to market your product and educate fans at a very low cost, certainly costing less than conventional methods of advertising like television spots, radio spots, and newspaper ads.

On The Lead, our monthly email newsletter, was the jumping-off point for our internet outreach initiatives. We launched it in April 2008, and now, two years later we are up to almost 100,000 subscribers.

The first group of video series that we launched were the jockey and trainer profiles and the Trips & Traps handicapping show. For the jockey and trainer profiles, we have always thought fans would have interest in that. If you go to a Yankees game, between innings there is always something on the video board, maybe a profile of Derek Jeter, and fans love that stuff. It seemed like a no-brainer to do similar things with the stars of our sport and put them on Youtube and the NYRA site. Trips & Traps was a brainchild of Andy Serling, who I can’t say enough about. He wanted to give fans something they don’t ordinarily get, and the type of in-depth trip analysis provided on Trips & Traps is unmatched in my opinion.

From those first three series it just ballooned to what it is now, and it will continue to expand.

How much investment has been made in the effort from a budget and personnel standpoint?
The great thing about expanding your presence on the internet is that it is very low cost. It costs nothing to create a Facebook page, Twitter pages, a Flickr page, racing blogs, etc. For shows like Trips & Traps we are just using existing studio space at a time that it isn’t normally used, so there is minimal extra cost there.

We are extremely fortunate at NYRA to not only have the support of top management but also to have some incredibly talented and passionate employees that work on all of these various internet initiatives. A lot of people see all of the different things that we have developed and assume we have consultants that handle everything. That couldn’t be further from the truth. These initiatives are all created and maintained by NYRA personnel.

Are you developing products for different audiences? Some things seem to be designed for casual fans and others for regular horseplayers and horsemen?
Absolutely, we try to have something for every type of racegoing constituency out there. Trips & Traps and the Andy Serling Twitter page are items that even the most advanced of bettors should be able to benefit from. The jockey and trainer interviews are for fans that want to learn more about the stars of the sport. The Backstretch Buzz and NYRA Spotlight videos are great educational tools for fans to learn about what goes on behind the scenes to allow a Thoroughbred track to operate. The NYRA Facebook page, Twitter pages, and NY Racing Insider Blog allow fans to stay up to date with all of the latest NYRA news, and also are great vehicles to try and attract new fans. The New York Watch website allows fans to identify the up-and-coming stars of racing.

For horsemen, we recently launched an email service, with help from Equibase, that allows owners to receive email notifications when their horses are entered to race. To illustrate the point that our top management is not only on board, but also enthusiastic about using the internet to reach out to people, the idea behind this service came from NYRA chairman Steven Duncker.

One initiative that horsemen, bettors, and most fans of the sport have enjoyed is the photo finish archive on the website. We post all of our photo finishes, win, place, and show, on NYRA.com shortly after the conclusion of each race.

What’s proven to be the most useful or successful addition to the web site?
The Friday Night Live Web Chats have been extremely well received by fans. Our terrific web designer, Nick Aquilino, put together a great live chat webpage that’s as professional as you will find anywhere. Andy Serling often does these chats, and gets in-depth handicapping the weekend cards, but we also have had chat guests like NYRA COO Hal Handel, trainer Gary Contessa, and jockey Richard Migliore. All of the chats are available in an archived format on the chat page, and I think you’d be surprised at how candid many of the answers are from our guests. The toughest thing about the chats are that we usually have 300 questions asked and the guest can only get to 60 or so during the hour- or two-hour chat period. But I am a really big fan of these chats and would urge any racing fans to check them out. Friday nights at 8:00 p.m.

Has anything surprised you? Something you thought would be popular that hasn’t or something that has been better received than expected?
While not surprising, the Andy Serling Twitter page has been a tremendous success. We launched it at the start of Saratoga meet last year and he is up to almost 1,800 followers. The great thing about this is that once someone starts following you on Twitter, they are usually there for good. So someone may not even be thinking about betting one day, receive a Tweet that Andy just gave out a $20 winner, and all of a sudden that person is thinking about NYRA and betting one of our races based on Andy’s advice. It’s an absolute no brainer. I think Twitter is more useful for things like that than an informational news page.

A recent initiative that has immediately taken off is the free text alert service. We introduced this about a month ago, and nearly 1,000 people have already signed up. Whenever there is a Pick 6 carryover or a weather related cancellation, we send text messages out to those folks that have signed up. This is a great way to spread the word to interested parties about carryovers without bombarding them with information.

Is it fair to say there isn’t a great deal of overlap in the demographics of typical web users and those of veteran racing fans?
I’m not sure that is a completely fair thing to say. By and large, yes, some of the younger generation are more apt to be utilizing Facebook and Twitter, for example, than some folks that are in an older demographic. That being said, I have been approached by some people that have been wagering on and attending the races for quite some time that do follow and appreciate what we are doing online. So I would say that one of the advantages of web-based initiatives is that they allow us to more easily reach a younger and more tech savvy demographic, but at the same time that certainly doesn’t exclude an older demographic from taking advantage of our internet platforms.

Is this viewed as an investment in racing’s future or something that you are getting tangible benefits from now?
I view it as both. Hopefully the new fans that discover some of our internet and video initiatives will continue to follow racing for a long time. I also am pretty sure that we are getting tangible benefits from it now. For example, people who follow Andy Serling on Twitter, probably wagered more on the Saratoga meet than they would have otherwise. And I don’t consider tangible results only in terms of wagering. The Friday Night Live Chats, the NYRA Spotlight videos, and similar initiatives are providing information and education to those that want to learn more about racing. If someone watches our Spotlight video on stewards, decides they want to pursue a job in racing, and goes on to help the industry, it’s a win for racing.

How do you quantify or benchmark the results? Is it having an impact on handle?
I think it’s very difficult to try and quantify the effects these initiatives have on handle. There are so many factors that effect handle, like field size, weather, the overall economy, that it is very hard to try and identify the effect that one specific factor has on handle. For me, when I get emails from industry leaders asking to use our NYRA Spotlight videos as teaching tools, or from racing fans thrilled they have a chance to chat with Richard Migliore, it means that they are having a positive effect on people.

What’s the most important thing you’ve learned through this process?
I think whenever you launch something new, it is imperative to consider what segment of your fan base you are launching it for, and then proceed with how best to connect with that group. You have to be careful not to take the approach of throwing everything at the wall and hoping some of it sticks. We carefully consider each new initiative that we launch, and will continue to do that.

As a closing thought, I’d also like to commend you, Ray, for what you have done with the Paulick Report website. It’s a great resource for racing fans to catch up on all of the latest racing news and also get to read some excellent original articles and viewpoints.

Copyright © 2010, The Paulick Report

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In an article from TIna Moore of the New York Daily News, NYRA got blasted by Assemblyman Pretlow for having excessive salaries. NYRA would counter that in order to bring top people to their organization, they must pay salaries in line with other equivalent companies. What say you?

Read it at the New York Daily News

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

Rev. Floyd Flake, who has been at the center of the controversial decision by Gov. David Paterson to award the slots contract at Aqueduct to AEG, defended the company he has a small stake in.

After the service, the Reverend would not make any comments to the press and drove off in his Mercedes-Benz. There are a lot of comments that could be made on this, but we’ll leave that up to you. Something doesn’t smell right here.

Read it at the New York Daily News

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

The following quotes were released by NYRA after a puzzling ending to a much anticipated 2010 debut for Eightfiveinafifty.

 
Timothy Kreiser, winning trainer of Peppi Knows (No. 3): “Everything went well, obviously what happened with [No. 2 Eightyfiveinafifty], I don’t know.  It helped things, I guess, maybe it didn’t.  It would have been nice to see that horse run just to see what we had there.  We can’t do anything about that, he ran his race and we’re really happy.  The rider did everything perfect – he didn’t rush him, he just settled him down.  With that horse out – that’s what all the talk was about – so if he’s out of it, you think you have a heck of a chance.  We took advantage of it.” 
 
Richard Migliore, winning jockey aboard Peppi Knows (No. 3): “It worked out real good for us.  We got to save ground when the other horse didn’t make the turn.  He’s just a real nice handy little horse.  He’s not a whole lot to look at, but he has a big heart.  Anytime he felt the presence of the other horse, he ran on a little more.  I just hope Jorge’s alright.” 
 
Gary Contessa, trainer of favored Eightyfiveinafifty, who bolted during the first turn, unseating rider Jorge Chavez: “The horse is okay.  He has a two-inch cut on his right hind leg, and he’ll need a couple of stitches, but he was walking sound.  I’m completely mystified as to what happened.  I don’t know if it was the horse, the jockey, or an equipment malfunction. The bit was broken and the rein was shredded – the equipment was in shambles – but I don’t know if that happened during the race or after he bolted.  He’s handled the turns fine in the mornings.  I have no idea what happened.”
 
Note: Jockey Jorge Chavez was conscious and taken by ambulance to North Shore University Hospital for further evaluation.