Archive for the ‘Racing Media’ Category

By Ray Paulick
What’s going on here? Blood-Horse Publications has engaged its top three editors in a game of musical chairs, the Paulick Report has learned, with new assignments for all three. The shakeup actually makes a lot of sense to this observer, who spent 15 years as editorial chief of the Lexington-based publishing company whose flagship weekly magazine has struggled in the last two years during a brutal recession and shifting media climate.

According to sources, Eric Mitchell, formerly the head of digital media, will be replacing Dan Liebman as the company’s top editorial executive overseeing the weekly magazine and most of the other print and digital editorial products. Liebman will be responsible for producing the weekly magazine and, in a reversal of management roles, will now report to Mitchell. Evan Hammonds, formerly responsible for putting together the magazine each week, will take Mitchell’s old position in charge of digital products, including the bloodhorse.com website. He will also report to Mitchell under the new scheme.

The new titles and responsibilities are expected to be announced Thursday in a press release that could outline new job titles for other editorial staff members.

I hired all three individuals during my tenure at the company. Liebman joined the Blood-Horse first as research director, Hammonds was then brought on as managing editor and Mitchell later joined the company, first as a senior writer and then moved on to other positions, including research director, editor of the TBH MarketWatch newsletter and finally head of digital media.

When I parted ways with the Blood-Horse in 2007, Liebman was named my replacement as editorial director of the company and editor in chief of the weekly magazine. In the ensuing 24 months he has had to reduce staff and slash expenses as a result of declining advertising revenue.

Mitchell brings outstanding skill sets to his new position, both journalistically and as someone acutely aware of the migration of many readers from print to online resources. He has a very good overview of the Thoroughbred industry, in part because of his experience as a writer who covered many of its most complex issues on the racing side of the business, and from his years as editor of MarketWatch, which examines stallions, breeding and the marketplace.

If anyone worked harder than Mitchell during my years at the Blood-Horse, it was Evan Hammonds, who while responsible for producing the weekly magazine as managing editor was also instrumental in developing many of the online features at Bloodhorse.com. I would look for his full-time input at Bloodhorse.com to be very productive and creative. Liebman, whose strengths are his breeding industry knowledge and good network of sources in Kentucky, has his work cut out in filling Hammonds’ shoes in producing the weekly magazine.

All in all, I view these changes as very positive—for the company and its many dedicated employees, and for the industry in general, which benefits from a healthy weekly trade magazine. There’s no guarantee Mitchell will be able to turn around the company’s fortunes, but I don’t think there’s any doubt it has a much better chance of doing so under his leadership.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick
“What kills a company is not competition, but arrogance. We control our fate.” So said Eric Schmidt, the chairman and CEO of online giant Google in an article in the New Yorker magazine last year. 

Stacy Bearse, the president and publisher of Blood-Horse Publications, apparently doesn’t share that belief. In a staggering show of arrogance, Bearse recently sent a letter to members of the board of trustees of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, which owns the company, urging them to shift their advertising dollars away from Blood-Horse’s competition, specifically Thoroughbred Times and Thoroughbred Daily News, and spend their money with him. He made a similar plea to undermine his competition during a TOBA board meeting in Lexington in April. (Click here to read his recent letter.)

(Fortunately, he didn’t tell TOBA trustees, many of whom are associated with major stallion farms that make up the bulk of the advertising market, not to advertise with the Paulick Report, the horse industry’s fastest-growing web site. Please feel free to contact us to learn more about our cost-effective advertising opportunities!)

“The market is simply not large enough to support two profitable weeklies,” Bearse wrote to the TOBA trustees. “There’s a very good chance that one won’t survive this downturn. It may come down to who runs out of cash first.”

I contacted Joe Morris, publisher of Thoroughbred Times, to see if he had any comment about Bearse’s assertion. Morris disagreed that the market couldn’t support two magazines but said he wasn’t going to get caught up in a fight and instead chose to "go out and sell something."

Bearse said declines in advertising revenue have caused Blood-Horse to reduce the company’s workforce and cut salaries and benefits. Among those let go in the most recent round of layoffs were writers Amanda Duckworth, the inaugural Joe Hirsch Scholarship winner and a graduate of the University of Kentucky’s journalism school, and Ryan Conley, a top-notch reporter with extensive industry experience, knowledge and contacts. Both were dedicated professionals, but many other good people have lost their jobs at the company in the last 18 months. Thoroughbred Times and Thoroughbred Daily News have not had to take such drastic measures.

“My job is to ensure that your magazine – The Blood-Horse – is the last one standing, and that it emerges from this dark period strong and successful,” Bearse wrote.

That’s good news, I thought, as I read the letter to the TOBA trustees. My old boss (I was Blood-Horse editor from 1992-2007) surely must have a plan to improve the efficiency of the staff or make the product more timely, interesting or relevant to readers. The last thing I want to see are more of my former colleagues out of work, and less coverage of Thoroughbred racing and breeding, whether in print or in digital form. The Paulick Report believes competition is good for any business.

Apparently, that isn’t the case with Stacy Bearse: his plan is to kneecap the competition.

“But for us to succeed,” he wrote to the TOBA trustees. “I need your support. If you advertise in TDN or Thoroughbred Times, consider shifting your dollars to The Blood-Horse. If you divide your advertising, consider consolidating your investment in The Blood-Horse. If you board your mares or own a controlling interest in a stallion, encourage the farm manager to support The Blood-Horse.”

Then came Bearse’s most chilling comment: “You don’t need two weeklies to cover this market.”

That is exactly why the Paulick Report was launched, to prevent the consolidation of news and analysis for this industry into one, Pravda-like, party-line publication, and to ensure that it has an independent voice.

As someone else pointed out to me, Blood-Horse and the Thoroughbred Record (now merged into the Thoroughbred Times) both survived the Great Depression and the Times and Blood-Horse made it through the severe horse industry slump from 1985-92. Following that same logic, would the horse industry be better off with just one large stallion station instead of all the competing farms, or one auction house?

I think Eric Schmidt was right: It’s not the competition that kills a business.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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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
If the Breeders’ Cup board of directors and management thought the decision last month to reinstate the stakes supplement program in 2009 (less than a week after voting to suspend it) was going to quiet any dissenting voices, they were wrong. A scathing commentary on the Breeders’ Cup, written by longtime owner and breeder Peter Blum and appearing in the Jan. 10, 2009, edition of the Thoroughbred Times, states publicly what a number of nominators to the program have been saying privately for some time: the Breeders’ Cup has lost its way.

Blum’s commentary is a must read. If you’re not a subscriber to the Thoroughbred Times (the article, unfortunately, is not available online), do yourself a favor and beg, borrow or steal a copy of the Jan. 10 issue.

Blum insists the Breeders’ Cup will not be living up to its mission if the board eliminates the stakes supplements after 2009, as many fear will happen. Board chairman Bill Farish said the reinstatement applied only to 2009. Blum suggests some of the Breeders’ Cup leaders “mirror the problems that characterize virtually all of our industry’s leadership; they are uncreative, self-serving, arrogant, out of touch, and not mindful of their constituents.”

He also questions the investment strategy for the organization’s cash reserves, saying the “mismanagement of our money amounts to a serious breach of trust and a failure of fiduciary responsibility.” Blum said he is appalled by compensation packages for and lack of accountability by top management, and believes voting for board of director seats is “skewed.”

His conclusion is a call to action by others who have similar feelings: “We have lost the Breeders’ Cup as it was defined in its original mission statement,” Blum wrote. “It is time for breeders to take it back.”

Blum’s plea should serve as a reminder for breeders throughout the country not to give up on the program and continue to nominate their stallions and foals. The financial backbone of the nominations remains in Kentucky, but every single stallion or foal nominator is a stakeholder in the program who has the opportunity to vote in the annual election of members and trustees. Those members and trustees decide who sits on the Breeders’ Cup board, so the elections are critically important. As citizens of Florida in 2000 and Minnesota in 2008 learned, every vote matters.

It will be interesting to see how the Breeders’ Cup reacts to Blum’s commentary. Will board chairman Farish and CEO Greg Avioli chant a “this too shall pass” mantra and instead focus on a behind-the-scenes strategy to ensure the balance of power on the Breeders’ Cup board of members and trustees remains in their favor when 13 of them are elected later this year? Will they use a vehicle like Bloodhorse magazine, on whose board Farish sits, to respond to Blum’s criticism?

The Breeders’ Cup is not just feeling heat from breeders. There is more than a little sentiment throughout the industry that the expansion of the former one-day, eight-race program to a two-day, 14-race event has diluted the championships among American fans (while, admittedly, increasing interest for European horsemen). Additionally, many racing fans were vocal in their disapproval of the Breeders’ Cup moving all of the filly and mare races to the Friday program in 2008.

The Oak Tree Racing Association, which opted to guarantee $5 million in revenue to the Breeders’ Cup for hosting the 2008 championships at Santa Anita Park, reportedly fell more than $2 million short because of weak ticket sales and lower than anticipated on-track handle. I imagine Oak Tree officials aren’t thrilled with that deal right now. The two sides have been busy working on a settlement that will not jeopardize the Cup’s scheduled return to Santa Anita in 2009.

The growing criticism of the Breeders’ Cup is no small matter. By many accounts, its creation more than 25 years ago was one of the most positive developments the sport has ever seen. No one – including breeders, owners, jockeys, trainers, racetrack companies and racing fans – wants this enormous industry asset to be lost in a maze created through poor leadership.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

Visit the Paulick Report for all the latest news throughout the racing world.

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