Posts Tagged ‘at the races’

By Ray Paulick
Radio host Steve Byk, whose New York-based At the Races show has been bumped from Sirius/XM and has only been available online recently, had a meltdown Wednesday after veteran handicapper and author Steve Davidowitz called unbeaten, two-time champion Zenyatta “the best older racemare I have ever seen.”

Davidowitz spoke glowingly of Zenyatta’s victory in Sunday’s Vanity Handicap at Hollywood Park, though stopped short of saying he would bet her to beat top 4-year-old colt Quality Road in a head-to-head matchup. “There’s a very unusual dimension to her, and there are to all great horses,” said Davidowitz, the author of the recently revised handicapping Bible, “Betting Thoroughbreds for the 21st Century.” “They have something different.”

Byk wasn’t buying it, and as Davidowitz continued to sing the praises of Zenyatta, the radio host lost his cool, constantly interrupting Davidowitz and finally shouting at him. “The horse is three inches away from being Best Pal,” Byk shouted. “She’s about two inches away from being Best Pal or Lava Man. She’s been confined to California for her entire career. …You seem to think this is the greatest racehorse of all time. It’s laughable.”

Davidowitz kept his cool despite Byk’s interruptions and complaints that Zenyatta has only raced outside of California twice, and with those two exceptions (both at Oaklawn Park in the Apple Blossom) has run over synthetic tracks her entire career. “I described exactly what I saw,” said Davidowitz. “I trust my instincts.”

“That’s fine,” Byk shouted, “this series of these repeated performances on the same racetracks over the same bunch of rather ordinary fillies and mares.”

Davidowitz asked Byk about Zenyatta’s victory in the Breeders’ Cup Classic over males.

|”She beat a bunch of turf horses and a bunch of…they were ordinary grass horses,” Byk continued to shout. “Twice Over and Gio Ponti? She Beat Twice over and Gio Ponti! … This is crap, Steve, this is ridiculous. Run her outside of California. Steve, we’ll talk to you next week.”

And with that, the interview abruptly ended.

The radio show archive is here. The exchange takes place just before the midway point of hour two.

Byk’s show, formerly on Siriux/XM from 4-7 p.m. EDT, is expected to return to satellite with a new time slot, from 9 a.m.-noon Eastern.

By Ray Paulick
I was all set to name Satish Sanan the winner of the first annual John Mayer Foot in Mouth Award for comments he made on Steve Byk’s “At the Races” Sirius/XM satellite radio show last Tuesday from which he was quoted in a Bloodhorse.com article as saying Churchill Downs was the “worst” racing organization and each of the Breeders’ Cups at Lone Star Park and Monmouth Park was a “disaster.”

Then I thought I’d better listen to the show before throwing Sanan under the bus with Mayer, the pop star who made some outrageous remarks in a just-published Playboy magazine interview about former girlfriends Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Aniston, among other subjects. Since the interview was published, Mayer, a profilic Twitterer, said he has “been trying to prove to people I’m not a douche bag.”

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Sanan has to take that drastic of a measure.

He did, however, agree to send out a statement admitting that he “mischaracterized” the relationship between the Breeders’ Cup and Churchill Downs during the course of the interview, which mostly consisted of him responding to criticism from several callers who disagreed with the concept of a permanent site for horse racing’s championship event. The callers especially disagreed with Santa Anita Park being named the permanent site, a rumor that has been making the rounds after numerous trial balloons were sent out by Breeders’ Cup officials but as Sanan pointed out on more than one occasion during the show is a decision that has not been ratified by the board. His personal preference, he said, was for Santa Anita Park to be the permanent site. (Archives for Sanan’s weekly segment on the show, entitled “Our Industry,” can be heard here.)

The full board of members and trustees of the Breeders’ Cup met in Florida on March 3, the day after Sanan’s radio appearance, and the Bloodhorse.com article published that morning apparently caused Breeders’ Cup board chairman Bill Farish’s blood to boil.

Farish issued a testy statement by mid-afternoon:  “The Breeders’ Cup board is extremely disappointed with recent statements from board member Satish Sanan with regard to host sites and those views in no way reflect the official position of Breeders’ Cup, LTD. The Breeders’ Cup has longstanding and valued partnerships with Churchill Downs and the New York Racing Association. No final decisions have been made on host sites beyond 2010 and as we indicated in December the board is looking at a permanent host location as a potential option as part of our ongoing strategic planning initiative. We extend our sincere apology to Churchill Downs and the State of Kentucky. We look forward to our return to Louisville and Churchill Downs for the 2010 Breeders’ Cup World Championships.”

Only Tiger Woods has apologized to more people.

Sanan sent an email to all of the members and trustees on March 4, a copy of which was leaked (not by Sanan) to the Paulick Report.

It reads: “I want to take this opportunity to address and clarify a number of issues raised in Bill Farish’s memo and mischaracterization of my comments during my regular show on Tuesdays on ‘At the Races’ radio network. The facts are as follows:

Regards,
Satish Sanan”

Sanan said things on his radio appearance about Churchill Downs that almost certainly have been said privately by other Breeders’ Cup board members, but the horse industry is not used to someone who serves on some of these exclusive boards being as candid publicly as Sanan has been. Perhaps Farish is somewhat sensitive because his father, William Farish, is the former chairman of the Churchill Downs board, but he knows the attitude about the Breeders’ Cup represented by CEO Bob Evans and his top executives  in negotiations to be host site can be summed up as follows: “We don’t really care if we host your event or not.”

Was there anything to be gained by trashing Churchill Downs, Lone Star Park, and Monmouth Park? No, there wasn’t, and I’m sure Sanan has said other things he’s regretted during the many hours he has spent communicating with racing fans and horsemen on the “At the Races” show. In the heat of the moment, I think Breeders’ Cup chairman Farish was just as much out of line, overreacting publicly to what Sanan was quoted in a news article as saying.

This industry needs people with the candor, the fresh perspective and the creative business acumen that Sanan has brought to Breeders’ Cup and other industry organizations, including the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders’ Cup, where he is member of a committee addressing issues related to structural changes and horse racing’s broken business model.

The candor sometimes gets him in trouble. “There is a group of people particularly pissed off at me,” he said on the radio show, “not as to what I’m trying to achieve or what the group is trying to achieve, (but about) what I had said about the alphabet soup organizations…People are taking it personally, some of the officers of some of these organizations. Candidly, the old saying in business is if you are trying to solve a business problem, generally speaking people who are part of the problem are people who are going to object to it.”

It’s that kind of candor and blunt talk that doesn’t endear Sanan to some people, but I get the feeling he doesn’t really care about that. We haven’t gotten very far in this business by having boards who rubber stamp cautious executive decisions, discourage open dialogue, and keep electing the same people year after year after year.

Copyright © 2010, The Paulick Report

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By Ray Paulick
A Paulick Report reader commenting under the pseudonym of “another young owner” made the following observation in connection with yesterday’s article that surveyed top executive salaries at 18 industry non-profit associations: “Over $3.75 million a year and our industry has never been worse off… we have some great leaders!”

Actually, the aggregate of the 18 salaries was $3,911,096 and didn’t include bonuses, retirement plan contributions or other benefits.

But the point made by “another young owner” was not lost on me. When you consider that executive salary should only be a small fraction of an organization’s expenditures and that there are many more associations and businesses not included in our survey, it makes you wonder: What exactly are we getting for all that money?

Do we really benefit from and need a TRA and an NTRA, a TOBA, an HBPA and a THA, a TOC and a CTT, a Jockey Club and a Jockeys’ Guild? For the ultimate absurdity consider that we used to have two national organizations for racing regulatory bodies—neither of which really had the authority to do anything.

Perhaps when racing was healthy—a regional or local sport that didn’t participate in interstate commerce–there was little need to consolidate some of these redundant organizations. But today, as revenues are in serious decline among racetracks, horse owners, breeders and in virtually every other industry sector, the status quo will not work.

But don’t take it from me. Owner and breeder Satish Sanan, a no-nonsense businessman who has closely examined racing’s organizationally littered landscape, believes the industry will continue in a downward spiral unless it commits to changing its structure.

Sanan, a weekly guest on Steve Byk’s satellite radio show, “At the Races,” has been speaking out in his regular “Our Industry” segment about the need for a new structure. (Click here to listen.) Yesterday, in reaction to the Paulick Report’s salary survey, Sanan said: “If you look at the so-called alphabet soup organizations from TOBA to NTRA to horsemen’s associations, the THA, and the (Thoroughbred) Owners of California, you can add all that crap up, and collectively we are spending millions of dollars. Each one is doing one or two good functions, but not seriously impacting the growth of the industry. It goes back to, do we need this kind of structure and what the hell is it doing for our industry? We need a single structure and in that structure we have got to find a way to generate more revenue, put more money back into the business, hire the best talent.

“When the NFL and NBA created leagues, they brought people in, paid them millions of dollars, and put governance and structure in place and marketed the hell out of their sport and nobody complains about that because they bring in hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. Unfortunately, there is not an organization with the exception of maybe individual racetracks that are customer focused, customer centric, customer-service centric.”

Sanan said Breeders’ Cup–where he is on the board of directors and has led a strategic planning committee that is set to announce its final recommendations at a board meeting on Thursday—is the only association on the horsemen’s side of the industry that has focused on revenue growth. “I do not know of another organization that is tasked with growing the business,” he told Byk.

“The leadership of our industry should be thinking like a think tank and working together, talking about how do we transform this business, how do we go back to how this business used to be, how do we attract new owners, keep the existing owners, keep the existing horseplayers, have them bet more and make it more attractive to them and market the sport so we can attract new ones. I’m at a loss as to whose job it is and who thinks about these things on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Can you name somebody? I (expletive deleted) can’t.”

Byk couldn’t either.

“We have got to streamline our industry,” Sanan continued. “There should be one horsemen’s organization, not 15. Period. There should be one panel that focuses on nothing but all the issues that are integrity-related: safety, medication, tote and wagering, and build confidence so we can attract new people. We need the best of minds with the most creative and innovative marketing programs to attract new horseplayers, new fans and market the hell out of the sport. Shoot, if this was my company I would be doing it.”

And that begs another question: Whose company is it? Who will take the lead here? Which organization will dissolve or be willing to merge with someone else. Which alphabet soup executive will focus more time on doing what’s right for the greater good of the industry instead of fighting to maintain whatever small chunk of turf he controls? Many of these executives are bright people, but the absence of a common-sense structure and industry-wide collaboration is a lethal combination.

There are too many chefs cooking our alphabet soup, and no one is buying it.

Copyright © 2010, The Paulick Report

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