DEATH OF HORSE RACING HAS BEEN GREATLY EXAGGERATED
By Ray Paulick
The Paulick Report was among a number of media outlets that received the following message Monday morning after the opening weekends of racing at Saratoga and Del Mar, and the continuation of what can only be termed a successful “less is more” meeting at Monmouth Park.
The email, with the subject line “Top Three Tracks Outperform Top Three Films,” read:
The problem is perception.
Variety weekly tells the world how great their product is.
When are we going to start? How about NOW!
Weekend Estimate July 23, 2010-July 25, 2010. Market data provided by Rentrak.
Film/Gross Sales
1. Inception: $43,505,000
2. Salt: $36,500,000
3. Despicable Me: $24,120,000
Total: $104,125,000
Weekend Handle July 23, 2010-July 25, 2010. Market data provided by Equibase.
Track/Handle
1. Saratoga: $43,430,861
2. Del Mar: $38,805,417
3. Monmouth Park: $24,130,504
Total: $106,366,787
A day earlier, the same person wrote to the same media outlets:
Ladies and Gentlemen.
Let me tell you about the current status of horse racing. The death of horse racing has been greatly exaggerated. The buzz these three tracks (Saratoga, Del Mar, and Monmouth Park) are creating is sensational. All I can say is WOW!
Remember these words:
GREAT RACING WILL THRIVE
GOOD RACING WILL SURVIVE
BAD RACING WILL DISAPPEAR
I replied, thanking him for his uplifting message, to which he responded:
“Ray, I will tell you this with great sincerity. The combination of great racing and the Internet will bring our finest hour. Like a fine wine, it takes time. The problem is too many people think they can show racing with short fields and short payoffs (the racing version of AA baseball) on TV and think people will watch and bet. This isn’t the 1970s; there is way too much competition for the gambling dollar to roll out an uncompetitive product and think the betting public will support it. If you can’t give them quality racing, at least give them competitive full fields which can generate a good payoff. Obviously the major league segment of our sport which was on display this weekend is what the public craves.
“Higher purses, less racing and bigger fields is a good start for the future.”
The writer, who works in the racing industry, told me in a follow-up email he wishes to remain anonymous, but he added some additional thoughts about the current state of the business.
“I track handle at most tracks and follow (Thoroughbred and Standardbred racing) to see where the trends are,” he wrote. “Just like any business, popular products trend up and unpopular products trend down. Many racing insiders simply do not pay attention to the crucial information that is on a chart every day. It tells you what your customers liked and what they hated.
“I have followed thoroughbred racing for 40 years,” he continued. “I have been coming to the races since the early 70’s. I saw Secretariat at Arlington in 1973 and Forego win the Marlboro Cup carrying 137 pounds. We were front-page news then but we missed taking advantage of TV and that decision cost us a generation of fans.
“We can now watch and bet a race on track, online and on the phone. Millions of young people can now be turned on to racing. Tens of thousands of young people all over the country in bars and restaurants screaming for Zenyatta to win her 17th in a row on TVG can’t be a bad thing when the alternative for three decades was not to see it at all. Hopefully we should be able to take full advantage of the Internet…and turn this thing around. A positive spin going into the Haskell, the (Arlington) Million and the Travers could give Thoroughbred racing a lot of momentum.”
So with that positive message in mind, let me review the opening week of racing at Del Mar, which I’ve had the good fortune to attend.
On-track, beginning with an all-time Del Mar record crowd of 45,309 on the July 21 opener, there have been 115,875 people through the turnstiles for five racing days, a daily average of 23,175.
Over those five days, combined handle through on- and off-track locations and via advance deposit wagering systems was $59,315,891, a daily average of $11,863,178. That’s an average per race (there were 45 races) of $1,318,131.
Those are very healthy numbers, indeed. Yes, the anonymous letter writer was correct: The death of horse racing—especially in California—has been greatly exaggerated.
Tags: Del Mar, Despicable Me, Inception, monmouth park, Paulick Report, Salt, saratoga
July 27th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
The phantom emailer has some good points.
However, Racing, even on a consolidated basis, is never going to survive as long as:
- Greg Avioli is running the Breeders Cup
- Stars such as Zenyatta and Rachel Alexandra’s races are not shown on network TV
- Drugs remain rampant, in particular Epogen and other blood doping
- Racing Commissions continue to license slugs such as Dangerous Darrel Delahoussaye, Burton K. Sipp among others
Why would anyone wager on horse racing when it’s so fraudulent when you can wager off shore on Football and often get kickbacks and all sorts of perks?
July 28th, 2010 at 1:42 am
Love the positive thinking by this writer but hate to remind him/her that genpop still has no idea racing exists as a real sport. ZenYand RA don’t even exist on fans’ sports radar.
Support your local tracks this summer just like an earthy neighborhood mom will visit her local Farmer’s Market.
FYI “Despicable Me” sucked. Invest your movie dough in “TOY STORY 3″.
July 28th, 2010 at 5:25 am
Look at the recent Belmont handle. Total handle was 9.6 million a day down from 9.8 million a day. Just because they are down a few percentage points in a terrible economy shows that the product held up pretty good. The fact that there is nearly a million dollars bet every time the horses entered the gate at Belmont shows that there is nothing wrong with the sport, the problem is with the people running it.
For example. Who was the genius twenty years ago that thought it was a good idea to sell signals for only 3%. Or the brilliant minds at NYRA who opposed Off Track Betting back in the seventies.
July 28th, 2010 at 7:54 am
What I take from this is - the tracks without the sex appeal of a Belmont, Saratoga, and Del Mar (for example); or the tracks without an infusion of alternative gambling - those tracks need to just go ahead and close.
That’s not a story with a happy ending. What we need is DiCaprio to help us shape our dreams.
July 28th, 2010 at 8:15 am
People might know that racing is on tv if tvg and hrtv advertised somewhere other than THEIR OWN NETWORKS! Run an ad during football, golf, baseball etc. telecasts and watch the handle grow!
July 28th, 2010 at 8:24 am
Progressive, you are correct. I can’t recall any racing-related business marketing itself outside of the industry, whether that is the two television channels, the trade publications & sites or whatever. There is just no attempt to grow racing beyond the folks who are already involved in it at some level (bettors, fans, owners, etc.).
July 28th, 2010 at 8:27 am
Ray’s anonymous donor makes for some encouraging reading and we are pleased that he wants more time, perhaps to study giveaways, free gates and other sleight-of-hand techniques!
Those pretty, young faces that show up for opening days in the height of summer are not the same demographic that can sustain our rock concerts once they know the words! But they could be if they don’t equate the $10,000 dollar claimers with the dollar hot dogs and cheap beer. There is more to it. But we have talked ourselves into the fact that bad racing belongs at good venues. We use false labels and stats such as “the end of the iron horse” or “a drastic shortage of horses”, mostly scare tactics and non of which is true! Sure the industry is trending slightly downward but our greatest horse populations were from foal crops far below the present levels. And 40% of our foal crops go to Europe and do extremely well. But we didn’t have 10, 12 and 13 races a day fueling “burn out” gimmicks with high take-outs. Let’s hope that our anonymous contributor has the time to calculate the week-end fall out of burn out bets in 2010 versus 1980. If that can be realized it will prove that they can’t recharge their racing budgets fast enough to be back on monday! But slot managers won’t accept that. They are just not used to the cost of going racing impacting their little iron men!
July 28th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Mr. Anonymous was described by Ray as working in the industry. This makes him part of The Establishment, which will always be rosy-cheeked and optimistic, positive regardless of the situation and always grasping at the straws of favorable momentary events.
July 28th, 2010 at 9:09 am
I had a great time this weekend at Arlington. Big crowd, great atmosphere, beautiful track, good food, we didn’t lose too much. It was a great day out and lots of others there thought so too. Bottom Line: Racing is not dying where it is done right.
July 28th, 2010 at 9:15 am
Gross is vastly different than net.
July 28th, 2010 at 9:30 am
Racing MUST get rid of the drugs.
A couple of years out from the terrible publicity generated by several high profile breakdowns on national TV, the urgency seems to have gone out of the anti-drugs movement, but that doesn’t mean it won’t resurface with a vengeance the next time an Eight Belles breaks down. And there will be a next time.
Lasix is banned everywhere but here. If they don’t need it overseas, we certainly don’t need it in the US.
July 28th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Assuming players’ per cap on those tracks was around $200, about half a million individuals participated. At $8 per moviegoer, about 13m attended the flicks. Perhaps it is difficult to compare economics of two vastly different products. But, fair to say, while overcast, the sky isn’t yet falling. In fact even better news came out of the National Conference of State Legislators held in Louisville (re. Bloodhorse). Seems a proposed interstate compact for racing and wagering is thought to be a viable means of promoting uniformity and fighting off threats of federal intervention. Moreover, it may have some support industry wide. Normally, an industry agreeing that federal regulation isn’t exactly a good course wouldn’t be news but in this business consensus on anything is noteworthy. Here is hope this can be the impetus for some much needed fundamental reform.
July 28th, 2010 at 10:10 am
#5 Progressive nailed it. No more preaching to the choir. Cultivate a new following.
July 28th, 2010 at 10:37 am
Bravo Noelle! We are not going to attract new fans when they learn of the drugs these horses ‘need’ (or their trainers and vets think they need - which, as Noelle points out, are drugs not needed anywhere else but in this country.) From drugs run break-downs, cruelty, ugliness and loss of confidence and integrity. Get rid of them and we can start talking about attracting new fans and putting this industry back on a firm footing. I won’t even attempt to guess how horses with infirmities and injuries masked by drugs, and legal drugs masking illegal drugs, are affecting the future soundness of the thoroughbred in this country.
As for Mr. Anonymous’s confidence, bravo too - but remember that New Jersey is running on subsidies from casinos and the NYRA is surviving on State loans in the hope that slots will one day arrive to subsidize racing.
July 28th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Horse racing has been around for thousands of years. No matter what happens, we will always have some form of horse racing.
July 28th, 2010 at 11:01 am
Let it be said racing is bleeding. If something isn’t done over the next 20 to 25 years it will bleed out to a shadow of yesteryear. All bloggers have their hot buttons. Some focus on the drug thing; others track surfaces; promotion, the lack of it, get some going; some lament over government oversight and onerous laws; others point to an eclectic group of players with separate agenda as the problem. For me, this business needs to aggregate resources and influence, develop a plan and actually do something. Bogglers can talk until space is exhausted and it won’t change anything they’re about unless someone or something gets key stakeholders on the same page. Good luck on that one.
July 28th, 2010 at 11:31 am
#5 did nail it!!! look forward to day of first Paulick Post, sometime before year 3000–so and so has placed a horse racing video add in another medium besides a racing site!
Otherwise this OP seems another thinly disguised effort to support shrinking, and putting those on the horse side excepting a few deep pockets out of the sport. The handicappers will be in Shangri La. The many on the horse side will be peddling vacuum cleaners..
The shrinkers and contracters fail to appreciate that every regional track can take advantage of the internet, and that racing can build itself instead of shrinking to the relevance of the WWF or NASCAR.
July 28th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Banning drugs and shrinking racing is the only viable solution.
July 28th, 2010 at 11:54 am
Good article, gives one more data to consider. But please, don’t oversimplify the situation.
I once had a friend that owned a very successful and profitable, high end resturant. He hired a financial Whiz to make it even more profitable. The Whiz focussed on departmental profitablity and hammered on the idea that every department must be profitable and contribute its share to the business. Unprofitable departments should be shutdown or radically changed.
Turns out after the Whiz’s analysis, that food was a loser, low return on investment, and required expensive personnel. The Whiz pointed out that the departments to focus on were High end wines, flamed desserts and single malt scotchs.
Oh…. and the credit card machine.
The thoughtful resturant owner realized that without ambience and good food, there would be no fancy wine, no single malt scotch, no flaming desserts and darn little credit card machine usage.
Whiz, with no skin in the game…. Thanks but no thanks.
How about a world series ….without a season leading up to it?
Only high end racing?..Where will we learn that they are high end? What will we do with the 25,000 foals that are not high end? Check it out, lots of those low end horses were bred in KY on high stud fees and went through the Keeneland sale…many for 6 figures.
July 28th, 2010 at 12:10 pm
Mac, yes racing will always be around. However, it cannot survive much less thrive in its present state of moral and physical decay. Only public pressure will force change. Free-flow of information and bloggers who cannot be censured by the industry are crucial to force change and save racing from itself, since the industry refuses to address its self-inflicted destruction, become transparent, non-toxic and adequately police itself.
July 28th, 2010 at 7:23 pm
Very uplifting article. I would think that the major problem with horse racing is not the product but the people distributing and marketing the product. They do a lousy job, thus losing their share of the market.
July 29th, 2010 at 8:27 am
Tidewaterhorse, the problem with marketing horse racing is that it is about gambling, and gamblers who have to overcome a high learning curve to become even an adequate handicapper, have no reason to start up because there are no visible winners because takeout is so high.
That is why horse racing can’t grow.
July 30th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
I believe every sport competes for fans. MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, NFL are all TEAM sports. Horse racing competes primarily with MMA, Tennis, Golf, etc. If a top-name-nationwide-network would showcase G1 and G2 stakes races on a weekly basis it could spark the interest of many. Thoroughbred tracks that have their 1 big stakes race night could grow a fan base significantly with a Saturday night special on primetime tv. For example, Pro football is HUGE on sunday, but nothing tops MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL! Almost always a sellout and very good ratings. I don’t have the “holy grail” to save horse racing from perish but I think we are getting close!