NJ GOV STRIKES DEAL TO INCREASE PURSES AT MONMOUTH
Recently elected Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey has put together a solution that will increase Monmouth’s purses to an average of $1 million a day while cutting weekly race dates from five to three.
"Only weeks ago, we were wondering if the end of horse racing in New Jersey was upon us," said Christie’s spokesman, Michael Drewnlak. "This keeps the horse racing industry viable."
Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think
Tags: bradford cummings, Chris Christie, Michael Drewnlak, monmouth park, New Jersey, NJ.com, Paulick Report
March 9th, 2010 at 12:24 am
Great idea. The Mid-Atlantic is saturated and this was a clear step that could maintain viability, even in light of the lack of slots gaming, and goes to show that some creative decision-making has a placein the sport. Slot machines alone don’t do it.
Monmouth can cut overhead with only three major race days per week, but increase quality in ways they haven’t had the opportunity to do in the past. Given the general state of NJ racing, a good call!
March 9th, 2010 at 12:52 am
How is cutting dates going to ensure the future viability of New Jersey racing? Average daily purses of $1 million just means that more money is going into the hands of fewer people.
And, if high purses ensure large fields, how come so many stakes races don’t come close to drawing full gates?
March 9th, 2010 at 4:57 am
This plan may or may not help Jersey, but it is a definite threat to Saratoga.
1) Average purse per race $10,000 higher than Spa.
2) Effective purses per race probably will be more than that, given adjustments for the respective stakes programs at each track and the higher cost of doing business in NY.
The impact of the higher purses will be felt in maiden, claiming, and allowance races far more than in stakes. It’s simple. If you are an owner not tied to the ‘prestige’ of winning at Saratoga, would you rather run for an $85,000 purse, or $70,000 purse?
March 9th, 2010 at 7:20 am
Give credit to anyone thinking and acting outside the box. The status quo was certainly not working in NJ and it is not working elsewhere in the industry. I now play Monmouth 3 days a week, not 3 times a year.
Next thing I’ll read about is the industry working together:)
March 9th, 2010 at 8:19 am
Does anyone reading this seriously think this will work? This will be NJ’s swan song. The AC Casinos are doing the happy dance.
1. Some simple math, cut days in half, triple the money? Where is the purse money going to come from? The national handle was down 9.8% last year, the third year in a row dropping, five out of the last six years, AND still dropping this year. IF the simulcast handle doubles, and Monmouth could get an industry leading 4.2% for its signal, each MILLION bet generates $21,000 in purses.
2. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Every horse and dollar gained in handle, will be at expense of another track. Horses, and betting fans for that matter, aren’t generated overnight. Once again, where are they coming from?
2. Larger fields? Where are the horses going to come from? Monmouth is making room for new “big time” trainers, at the expense of cutting stalls back on the horsemen who have supported Monmouth in the past. There are only so many stalls at Monmouth Park, if Monmouth thinks they will greatly enhance their field size at the expense of the surrounding tracks, they have instead started a ’shipping’ war at a level not seen before. Hal Handel has already said, leave NYRA for Monmouth, you won’t come back.
3. With half the opportunities to run, the pressure for trainers and owners to win will be doubled, many will fail financially, especially the little guys if they don’t win, and back to point 2, Monmouth is trying its damnedest to bring in the big sharks to eat the little ones.
4. Money cannot hide all the sins. This mentality that throwing insane amounts of money at the racing industries problems will only add fuel to the fire, until the fuel (money) runs out.
At the end of the this ‘Makeover’, the casinos will have enough ammo to put racing out of its misery. It will clearly show all the tea in NJ can’t keep this boat floating.
March 9th, 2010 at 8:22 am
The future has arrived.
March 9th, 2010 at 8:39 am
Great idea but what happens next year when there is no purse supplements? Now if the standardbreds can do the samething.
March 9th, 2010 at 8:44 am
Decisive, absolute, determined, constructive and resolute thinking. In horse racing. In New Jersey.
Next: Blizzard conditions in hell.
March 9th, 2010 at 9:08 am
Apparently many commentators are having trouble seeing the forest through the trees. This is where racing in the U.S. is headed, and the change has been badly needed for a long time. Dilution of the product has been THE major problem for decades. There is no other major sport that has anywhere near the dilution of racing. Can you imagine, for example, an league in which there were 200 teams, and only one excellent player for every couple of teams? Or minor league baseball succeeding like the major leagues? In every sport around the world, including horse racing, concentrated quality of competition attracts fans (and bettors). Period.
This type of concentration of quality will attract bettors who had been totally indifferent to Monmouth in the past, and within the context of the current economy, handle will rise sharply. Why do you think that Keeneland and Saratoga do so well? Short meets, and a high concentration of quality. How many racing days do they have in Japan and Hong Kong, where handle dwarfs that of the U.S.? A tiny number compared with the U.S.
The ones complaining, such as JtS above, live in a fantasy world in which all of the current breeders and trainers can be saved while the industry undergoes urgently needed reform. But that CANNOT happen. Further attrition amongst racetracks, breeders and trainers is a certainty if the sport is to survive and thrive again. Just deal with it, especially as it is a microcosm of the broader economy.
It is true that the economy will continue to work against the racing business for some time. But the notion that the industry should sit tight, and rely on slot money until things get better, is ignorant to the extreme. Only bold, radical moves such as this one have the potential to reverse the industry’s awful, downward trajectory, and the impact of this creative move will certainly reverberate throughout tracks around the country.
Bravo, NJ!
March 9th, 2010 at 9:46 am
Is this where racing is headed? Lets see what happens first. I cant believe people planning on spending time at Saratoga are going to switch to Monmouth because they arent running Mon-Thurs in New Jersey.
Lets see what quality the races are. There are only so many good horses, and they all need time between races. This $5 million race for mares cant even draw a deep field
March 9th, 2010 at 10:08 am
#10 above..First of all, the $5M race for mares, I don’t believe, was open to ALL mares…it was to be by invitation per what I’ve read about it. I wholeheartedly agree w/#9. Let’s not make slots the cornerstone of racing success, because it isn’t. We need to cut race days throughout the country, and go back to the way it used to be…back when racing wasn’t a year-round sport. Back when Thoroughbreds had the endurance and stamina to run more than 5 or 6 races a year! This gives our atheletes a rest….both horse and jockey, and it’s much more exciting for the racing fans…when it’s in your face every day, with mediocre talent and purses, it’s not nearly as much fun or enjoyable. I believe NJ is on the right track….now we need to get other tracks/states to begin thinking along those lines. Less is definitely more! It’s also nice to see NJ “Just do it!”…insteand of scratching their heads and whining and complaining about their tale of woes…..good for NJ! Now perhaps NY, MD, CA, and KY can take the lead from NJ and get their acts together before it’s too late.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:11 am
#10 above..First of all, the $5M race for mares, I don’t believe, was open to ALL mares…it was to be by invitation per what I’ve read about it. I wholeheartedly agree w/#9. Let’s not make slots the cornerstone of racing success, because it isn’t. We need to cut race days throughout the country, and go back to the way it used to be…back when racing wasn’t a year-round sport. Back when Thoroughbreds had the endurance and stamina to run more than 5 or 6 races a year! This gives our atheletes a rest….both horse and jockey, and it’s much more exciting for the racing fans…when it’s in your face every day, with mediocre talent and purses, it’s not nearly as much fun or enjoyable. I believe NJ is on the right track….now we need to get other tracks/states to begin thinking along those lines. Less is definitely more! It’s also nice to see NJ “Just do it!”…instead of scratching their heads and whining and complaining about their tales of woe…..good for NJ! Now perhaps NY, MD, CA, and KY can take the lead from NJ and get their acts together before it’s too late.
March 9th, 2010 at 10:34 am
Jeremy,
Absolutely correct.
The saturation of racing in NY exists to: 1) provide revenue to the state and OTBs, 2) give owners and trainers with bad horses an avenue for paying the bills.
The current structure in NY is like it would be if every major league baseball team contined play after the world series, and used players from the lowest minor league levels while the major leaguers are taking the winter off. Imagine that business model.
March 9th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Despite the lack of press and a limited signal distribution the thankfully-you-can’t-kill-it Atlantic City Race Course even in 2009 with its very short meet (six days) was getting full fields of 12 horses for the six races carded per day. Cut back on the number of races, the fields will increase and with it wagering options.
March 9th, 2010 at 11:42 am
I haven’t been this excited in a long time. I’m already impatient to see the calendar, and am emailing friends about the possibility of spending a long weekend, or two, at the Jersey Shore! Haven’t wanted to do that since I was, well, younger!
Of course it’s risky as hell. But, especially with the disarray in NY, this just might work. And at the least, this summer of racing in the Mid-Atlantic should be great fun.
March 9th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Personally, while I understand its the right thing to do, I hate it. I liked sneaking out on a Tues afternoon and go with my 81 y/o pop to the Big M to see the flats. He’s disappointed, and while I do love Monmouth, it still an all day thing from North Jersey.
But they needed to do something I guess, and this is something.
March 9th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
Responder #5 is spot on right. I have spent my life supporting my family in this game only to see it being “regulated” to the precipice of extinction. Slower or “cheap” runners are no less a betting commodity than the marquis names. So to the smaller outfits, whose trainers actually recognize the horse when they walk into the barn.
What N.J. does not realize is that the sole purpose of a player to bet on a race is to CASH his ticket whether it be a maiden claimer or the Haskell! Less is not more here!!
March 9th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
I don’t lke the idea of cutting days, but the money sounds good.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Without a “league” commissioner, duplication and saturation will continue. You wouldn’t see any ash and trash football or Nascar team allowed to ramble without oversight or regulation that is the horse racing game today…but maybe that is the point. The game isn’t about sport or the horse industry any longer. It has turned into bet on anything, at any time at any cost (cheap claimers, overlapping races in a high tech, info immediate century and all about gambling with tooooo much take out and nothing back, starting with the folks that put on the races in the first freaking place getting nothing).
I commend NJ for seeing the forest AND the trees. With a little luck and the continued stupidity of MEC and MD state house trolls…NJ will get the Preakness!
Still pissed about GW in the BC at MONMOUTH though…yeah, I get it..crap happens. Let’s just not institutionalize it.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Mousse –
“Slower or “cheap” runners are no less a betting commodity than the marquis names.”
You are utterly, and quite spectacularly wrong. If you were correct, then the handle generated by smaller venues such as Philadelphia Park and Mountaineer, etc., would match or exceed those of major tracks, which of course they don’t.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
JJ:
Excellent point.
March 9th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
As a resident and ardent supporter of the New Jersey live racing product
my main concern is that this “solution” is a one year plan.
The $1 million / day purse structure during the main summer meet
utiliizes half of the subsidies from the casinos.
There will be no casino subsidies next year. What then ?
March 9th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
MP is my home track. To see this will bring a nice change. I do forsee more of us in the stands and even some new ones joining the party.
The lesser horses will have options in Philly, Penn Nat, Mountianeer, Charles Town, insert MD track as well.
The fact that NYRA is already taking the position that if you run at MP you can’t come back…That is one of the things that is wrong with racing as a whole. The ‘toga trainers would ship down the MSW horse hoping to steal the condition and the purse. Now NYRA says they can’t do that. Tell it to someone who cares! ‘Toga history and blah blah.
Where would you run your MSW horse? ‘Toga for 45k of MP for 75k? Ask the owner who is paying the bills!
How this plays out next year I do agree is a crap shoot. But if you don’t take a chance and live with what you have, in this industry you are out rather quickly.
March 9th, 2010 at 4:11 pm
As I said in my blog last week, this is a brave, outside-the-box plan, and I hope it works. We desperately need to shrink the industry, maybe to something like 15,000-20,000 foals per year, and whatever number of races that would support, probably half of what we have now.
The Hal Handel - P J Campo head-in-the-sand position of punishing trainers and owners for going where the money is makes no sense. People with horses that can make money elsewhere will do so, and the quality of New York racing in the summer will look more and more like Aqueduct in the winter — a card full of $15,000 N2L claimers.
Let’s see — I have three NY-breds. Two of them can stay in NY to keep PJ and Hal happy — at least until they win their N2X allowances, but the 3rd, who’s a turf sprinter and who’s already run through his NY conditions, will go where the money is, as will my VA-bred three-year-old and any other non-NY-breds that I buy this year. How exactly does that help NYRA?
March 9th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Governor Christie stated today - too late to make this edition - that he’s offering a 15% rebate program to all correspondents who refrain forever from employing the inane cliche, “inside/outside the box,” the usage of which is equally as brain-dead as Monmouth having run a five-day/week racing program for the past decade.
March 9th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Steve Zorn #19 wrote:
We desperately need to shrink the industry, maybe to something like 15,000-20,000 foals per year, and whatever number of races that would support, probably half of what we have now.
_________________________
Agreed. But that reduction should start at the state-bred breeding programs.
I see no reason why state-breds should constantly race under the “shelter”
of state-bred races for inflated purses.
A reduction in the number of state-bred races at all racetracks
would go a long way towards promoting a higher quality racing product.
Problematic are states such as Indiana and New Mexico with their slots infused purses.
If your state-bred is that good it should be racing in open company !
Imagine how enriched the fields would be in California if they eliminated
California Cup Days, Gold Rush Day 1 Gold Rush Day II, Sunshine Millions, etc.
These state-bred horses are very capable of competing against open company. Let them !!
March 9th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Adjust the tax base for equines through their life time of owner committment, not just breeding and 2-5 yo races.
Maintain open spaces and encourage owners to run their horses in later years AND care for them beyond the track or breeding shed with a tax benefit…not the crap profit concept for racing (breeding, short race life and dump). You get it, great! That you don’t and effectively contribute to racing’s problems (crap races and over breeding to include high breakdowns and mystery disapperances of equines) in some form are doomed. Our government contributes to this via tax laws.
And the industry will do what?
March 9th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
NJ still hasn’t really started testing for steroids, have they? Didn’t the horsemen file petition in the courts to prevent steroid ban enforcement?
If this is the case, horses from non-steroid states are not going to go in there and beat the “juicers”, just no way to do so.
March 9th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
Horses raced year round 30 years ago. There are still many sound horses making 12 or more starts a year. My stakes winning stallion raced year round in Florida and had 16 starts per year at 3 and 4. New York stakes winner Say Florida Sandy had 21 starts at 4 and retired sound after 98 starts. Too many people are breeding unsound horses that their trainers know cannot last long. They try to keep them sound enough to to win a stakes race or 2 and then retire them to produce more unsound horses when they get injured. They race them infrequently because they are fragile or they are afraid that they are fragile. Soundness used to be considered an important criteria in choosing a horse. People who bred to race usually wanted a sound horse who could be making money for years. Too many commercial breeders and ignorant buyers listening to agents who care not about their success have led to more people buying “here today gone tomorrow” horses. The buyers are told that those high priced equines have “residual” value as breeding stock. Two Storm Cat colts were recently for sale on http://www.tbredsforsale.com for $10K.How is that for residual value? Generations of horses have been bred with no concern whatever for the long term best interests of the horses. At least Sheik Mo has had some of his high priced unsound horses gelded instead of standing them at stud when they did not turn out good. It is a shame others have not gelded their unsound stallions. Some of these horses go to stud after 3 starts unplaced won 0,etc. and some have won 1 stakes race with only 5 starts or 6 starts. Way back when the Arab people started their selective breeding of the horses that became the ancestors of the modern Thoroughbred soundness was considered the most important criteria for any stallion after that came speed and then stamina and he was then judged by how well he passed those traits on. Arromanches was only stakes placed but he was a sound horse with lots of fans. Lots of people like horses who race for years including me. There were more races and more horses 30 years ago and I cannot remember anybody saying that they needed more quality and less quantity.
March 9th, 2010 at 9:18 pm
The New Jersey plan is really a great idea in principle. Monmouth’s purses will be insane; they’ll get big fields and the quality of racing will improve, and with that they will get more racing fans to the track. Maybe they can install lights for Friday night cards at Monmouth; that would put them over the top. They would, however, be better served running their planned Monmouth fall meet at the Meadowlands. Monmouth is a summer destination track; aside from the Breeders Cup meet they had in 2007, it’s not the ideal place for a fall meet. Being that it’s a short train ride from Manhattan and has an indoor grandstand, Meadowlands remains the ideal spot for a fall meet.
As for NYRA, I would hope that they’d wake up and institute a similar plan for Aqueduct and Belmont (not Saratoga, because they can run six-day race weeks and be successful). The Monmouth meet won’t hurt Saratoga too badly; however, it’s going to decimate Belmont. Nobody’s going to the track on a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon to watch $15,000 claimers, and they’re especially not going to do it in the winter. NYRA needs to compact their racing at Aqueduct and Belmont to three days a week so they can boost their purses to stay competitive. They also need night racing, but that would require an act of the ridiculously incompetent state legislature and the governor, so that means we’re not getting that for at least a decade.
March 10th, 2010 at 2:11 am
As usual in these arguments, everyone is only concerned with protecting their own part of the bigger picture. The same thing happens here; lobbyists blow in the ears of decision makers, come to that the decision makers often have their own axe to grind.
Racing might be better served if it were run by someone who didn’t know anyone involved but had some concept of consequences. If that had happened forty or fifty years ago then perhaps they’re would have been no OTB and no medication - at least we got the second bit right, but that was probably pure luck! Whether we’ll ever find anyone strong enough to bang a few heads together now I doubt!
To be fair, everyone has had some high old times in the expanding market, but, as so often happens, when things are going well “there’s no need for Plan B”.
In the short term America, according to Jockey Club figures, could shed about fifteen thousand races and still maintain the race to racehorse ratio that we have in Europe. It could shed over 30,000 and still be better off than Ireland in that respect!! Doing that might at least ensure full fields and maximise betting revenue; gambler being gamblers it’s quite possible, particularly in light of fuller fields, that they would bet the same amount on 35,000 races as they do on 50,000.
One thing that I would strongly advise is that you keep away from internet betting. When anyone in the country can become, effectively, an unlicensed bookmaker who can bet against just one horse in a race - rather than taking bets against the whole field as a regular bookmaker or the Tote does - the temptation to hanky-panky is likely to prove irresistable.
March 10th, 2010 at 11:20 am
It costs the NJSEA over $1.2MIL to ship horses back and forth from Monmouth to the Meadowlands during the fall meet and it costs another couple of million to turn the track over for thoroughbreds and back for standardbreds. The cost is too prohibitive to continue doing this. Yes, the on track attendance is going to drop during the fall meet, but it wont be much worse than the 3000 people that went for night racing at the Meadowlands.
March 10th, 2010 at 8:37 pm
If higher purses guarantee larger field sizes, then why doesn’t Santa Anita have a larger average field size than Turf Paradise?
March 11th, 2010 at 12:17 am
Because California doesn’t traditonally attract a lot of out of town horses. If Monmouth could steal Keenland/Churchill type horses they will come out ahead. This makes racing on the shore a weekend event which it always was anyway.