Posts Tagged ‘bob elliston’

KENTUCKY’S HORSE INDUSTRY CALLS FOR ACTION ON SLOTS

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

By Ray Paulick

There may not have been anyone at Wednesday’s press conference at Churchill Downs who understands horse racing’s need for slot machines or alternative forms of gambling better than Chip Woolley, the trainer of Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird.

Woolley didn’t hesitate when I asked him how slot machines have turned around racing and breeding in his native New Mexico. “I wouldn’t be here today without slots in New Mexico,” he said. “We were on the edge of extinction when slots were brought in to the racetracks.”

It was the slots-aided purses in New Mexico that gave Woolley’s friend, Mark Allen, and Dr. Leonard Blach, the confidence to spend $400,000 on the Birdstone gelding, who had been racing in Canada after being purchased for just $9,500 at the Fasig-Tipton October yearling sale. Allen and Blach thought Mine That Bird might be good enough to win the Sunland Derby, a $900,000 race at Sunland Park fueled by slot machine revenue.

The press conference, called by the Kentucky Equine Education Project, demonstrated the difficult plight of Kentucky racing today, relative to states that have added slot machines or casinos to their wagering menus. Purses in those states are superior to what is being offered at Kentucky tracks, which are losing racehorses, breeding stock and owners to other states.

Bob Elliston, head of Turfway Park, told the gathering that the Northern Kentucky track will have to “sit down with our horsemen and discuss major purse cuts” for its September meeting and the possibility of eliminating racing dates. Ron Geary, owner of Ellis Park in Western Kentucky, has already asked for a reduced racing schedule in 2009 and said this will be the track’s final season if the Kentucky legislature doesn’t do something to help the horse industry. Ellis Park is fighting to keep horses from going to Indiana Downs, which added slots just one year ago. “In their first year, they had $360 million in revenue from slots,” Geary said. “Ellis Park had $11 million for the same period from live racing and simulcasting.” If Ellis kept its original dates this year, Geary said, purses would total just $70,000 per day, compared with $155,000-$200,000 at Indiana Downs and $225,000 at Hoosier Park.

Other states are “outmaneuvering us legislatively,” Geary added.

Corey Johnsen, co-owner of Kentucky Downs, the all-turf racing track in southern Kentucky that will only race four days this year, said if the legislature leveled the playing field by permitting slot machines at the state’s tracks, “It will allow us to compete. We can be the best in the world.”

Bob Evans, CEO of Churchill Downs, which recently received permission from the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission to eliminate live racing on Wednesdays because of a shortage of horses, warned that the situation will get worse if something isn’t done. Evans said more Florida tracks will add slot machines, Maryland will be online soon with slots parlors, along with a huge slots operation at Aqueduct. “If we don’t do something in Kentucky – look out,” Evans said. “The proverbial barn door to the Kentucky horse industry will have been left open.”

Evans said legislators don’t need to reinvent the wheel, that they only need to copy from states where slots have helped the horse industry and government.”We are not asking for a government bailout,” he said. “All we want to do is invest $1 billion of our shareholders money and build gaming operations that compete successfully with other states.” The horse industry, he said, “is out of other viable options.”

Nick Nicholson of Keeneland said the press conference was called to crystallize this issue for the people of Kentucky and their legislators. “This has been talked about for some time. This proposal is an idea whose time has come.” The industry, he added, is as unified on the issue as it’s ever been.

“If no action takes place and we lose our racing circuit and the prominence of our breeding industry,” Nicholson said, “we don’t want anyone in this state to be surprised.”

Rick Hiles, president of the Kentucky HBPA, said that if two or three of Kentucky’s smaller tracks are forced to close, “it’s going to really hurt Churchill Downs.” The breeding industry also is going to be hurt.”

Following the press conference, Dallas Stewart and Bernie Flint, a pair of trainers from Louisiana where slots revenue have helped purses, spoke with Evans about the need for some help from the state. “It’s a shame to see a place like this cut back,” Flint said, as he looked up at the Twin Spires made so famous on the first Saturday in May by the Kentucky Derby. “ Flint blamed Kentucky Senate president David Williams for blocking the legislation and said he found it ironic that Williams is known to frequent out of state casinos, where he is said to be an avid blackjack player. “For him to put his foot in the door and block this is wrong,” Flint said. “He goes and plays blackjack in other states, yet says Kentucky can’t have gambling.”

Stewart spoke about how slots have turned around business at Fair Grounds in New Orleans. “It’s packed,” he said, “and it’s really helped racing. If these legislators knew how much the horsemen spend in a city like Louisville, with apartments, restaurants and everything else, they’d be crazy not to do something to keep us here.”

Gov. Steve Beshear, who was elected largely because of his position to bring additional gambling to Kentucky and his support of the horse industry, has talked about calling a special session of the Kentucky legislature to deal with the state’s budget crisis. House Bill 158 was passed by the Licensing and Occupations Committee but did not go to the full House for a vote during the Kentucky legislature’s 2009 regular session.

 

 

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ON A COMPUTER SCREEN NEAR YOU

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009
By Ray Paulick
Amidst all the gloom and doom in American racing today (and I don’t see any need to repeat all the problems here), there are some good things going on, some positive ideas being generated and programs launched at several tracks across the country. Several of those ideas recognize the power of the online community. Some initiatives are geared toward providing information or entertainment for veteran horseplayers while others are designed to market the sport to newcomers.

The New York Racing Association has embraced online video through one of the world’s most popular websites, YouTube.com (currently ranked third behind Yahoo and Google in traffic). NYRA isn’t the first racing organization to develop its own video channel at YouTube (Churchill Downs, for example, has both a corporate channel for viewing replays from its tracks along with a Kentucky Derby channel), but the in-house television crew for the New York tracks is producing some outstanding new content for the NYRA YouTube channel that can be entertaining or truly informative.

The best example of that is a relatively new program called “Trips & Traps,” hosted by morning linemaker Eric Donovan and in-house television handicapper Andy Serling. The professionally produced weekly show, launched in September, can help anyone looking for an edge in their betting but is especially useful for fans who are interested in learning how to watch a horse race. It focuses on problem trips that horses invariably encounter in a race, either due to bad luck, inexperience or questionable judgment by jockeys. Ultimately, Donovan and Serling provide horses to watch when they return in their next starts that might be worth a bet. They also point out the “traps” that horseplayers might want to avoid with some horses whose troubled trips could result in them being overbet next out.

Serling had a previous stint years ago on NYRA’s in-house simulcast show and was hired full-time by the association last year. A serious horseplayer who was never afraid to express his opinions – positive or negative –  about racing in general and NYRA in particular, Serling is enthusiastic about expanding NYRA’s online video presence. “It’s a very cheap way to promote the sport,” he said, “and it gives us an opportunity to give something back to the fans. I know that sounds corny, but it’s true. We’re trying to teach people and offer some insights. We’ve gotten great, great feedback so far.”

NYRA’s television department has also filled its YouTube channel with stakes races from the past and present and some offbeat biographical features on jockeys called “Jockey Video Cards.”  A good example of the style and content is the video profile of apprentice Jackie Davis, daughter of retired jockey Robbie Davis.

‘SHOWVIVOR’ AND SIEGEL AT SANTA ANITA

Santa Anita Park is fortunate to have the creative marketing talents of Allen Gutterman and a talented in-house television team that is part of HRTV, co-owned by parent company Magna Entertainment and Churchill Downs Inc.

The Southern California track introduced “Free Fridays” this year, a promotion that includes free general admission, $1 drinks and snacks and free box seats while they last. The early returns were favorable.

Gutterman is using Santa Anita’s website in a number of ways, including the return this Saturday of “Showvivor,” a popular online contest modeled very loosely after reality television shows such as “Survivor.” In a nutshell, “Showvivor” is a show parlay that challenges participants to be the last person standing after making one selection to finish in the top three each racing day. Click here for details.

Rather than putting extensive videos on Youtube, Santa Anita is adding content from HRTV onto its own site, using Jeff Siegel, a well-known Southern California horse owner and longtime public handicapper, as the centerpiece. Siegel’s Selections are available every racing day and on other days he can be seen on video previewing the week ahead, in addition to reviewing stakes races and highlighting potential future stars.

Other tracks are putting more and more content online, too. Churchill Downs recently revamped its Kentucky Derby website, adding fresh video, Derby contender profile and rankings, and news.

TURFWAY’S CHEAP DATES REVERSE TRENDS

Lost in the deluge of recent negative industry trends, including a steep decline in 2008 national pari-mutuel handle, was the news that Turfway Park in Northern Kentucky actually had a minor increase in daily average pari-mutuel handle – both on and off track during its holiday meeting. Turfway may not have the resources of NYRA or Santa Anita, but its marketing team, like those at many other tracks, have discovered the benefits of viral marketing through the online community Facebook.com or MySpace.com.Turfway has built a large following of Facebook and MySpace “friends” and regularly sends reminders to them about special promotions and discounts at the track, where admission and parking is already free.

The gains were minimal (on-track betting was up 0.3% and all sources handle rose 1.8%), but we’ll take any good news we can find. Track president Bob Elliston said several factors helped Turfway Park hold its own, including an average field size of 10.4 horses per race (up slightly from the previous year).

For the last couple of years, Turfway has offered a promotion called “Dollar Friday,” featuring live music and $1 beers, hot dogs and bets. Cincinnati magazine, in its “best of the city” annual edition, rated Turfway’s Dollar Friday as the “best cheap date” in the area. “That puts us in the mainstream,” Elliston said, “particularly at a time when consumers are looking for value and affordability. We may have reached a tipping point through word of mouth on our Dollar Fridays. We’re seeing it continue to grow and grow. On the handle side, the per capita isn’t the same on those nights, but people are participating at the windows and the concession stand. And we made a conscious decision to explore the social networking avenues like Facebook and MySpace.”

Though there are major industry challenges these promotional or online marketing efforts cannot address, they can’t do any harm, either, and the sense is that the more that’s done in these areas, the more racetrack marketing people will learn how to use these new cost-efficient tools. 

I’m sure there are many other tracks using their websites or online social networking to effectively promote racing. Use the comment section below to let us know about some of the other good ideas and promotions that are taking place across the country.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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FORMER GOV TO MONITOR NEW NTRA SAFETY ALLIANCE

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

By Ray Paulick

The National Thoroughbred Racing Association announced a series of sweeping safety and integrity reforms and the hiring of a former governor and Bush administration official during a press conference in New York this morning.

The reforms, organized under the banner of the newly created NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance, touch on a wide range of issues that have been bubbling under the surface for years but came to a head this spring in the wake of the death of the filly Eight Belles in the Kentucky Derby, the revelation that Derby winner Big Brown won while racing legally on anabolic steroids, and a damning Congressional hearing that left industry leaders red-faced and fearful of federal action. The reforms and the creation of the Safety and Integrity Alliance evolved over the last several months from a series of closed-door meetings and a confidential discussion document circulated throughout the industry and published in the Paulick Report in July.

The Alliance, to be funded by the financially challenged NTRA, consists of racetracks, owners, breeders, horsemen, jockeys, auction companies, veterinarians, fans, regulators and breed registries. The NTRA has retained the services of former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, who also served as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services for President George W. Bush and made a brief run for the 2008 presidential nomination of the Republican Party. Thompson will be charged with independently monitoring the program and annually providing public reports on the progress the Alliance has made in meeting its goals.

Thompson, incidentally, attended the 2005 Kentucky Derby and later joined a West Point Thoroughbred partnership that owned Flashy Bull, who was unplaced in the 2006 Derby but subsequently won the Grade 1 Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs. According to West Point president Terry Finley, Thompson "loves the racing game" and is in a partnership that currently owns a West Point 2-year-old named Tapit’s Brew.

Click here to read the complete text of the NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance and Pledge.

For a list of tracks and racing organizations that have agreed to the pledge, click here.

Following is the NTRA’s press release on the formation of the Safety and Integrity Alliance and the hiring of Thompson as an independent monitor.

NTRA FORMS SAFETY AND INTEGRITY ALLIANCE AND ANNOUNCES SWEEPING REFORMS; TABS FORMER WISCONSIN GOVERNOR TOMMY THOMPSON TO PROVIDE OVERSIGHT
 
National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) President and CEO Alex Waldrop and Thoroughbred racing industry leaders outlined a series of industry-wide safety and integrity reforms at a press conference in New York today. The NTRA also announced the creation of a new Safety and Integrity Alliance, comprised of the largest tracks and horsemen’s groups in the U.S. and Canada, which will be responsible for implementing the reforms. The Honorable Tommy G. Thompson, former four-term Governor of Wisconsin and Secretary of Health and Human Services, will serve as independent counsel for the new NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance. Governor Thompson will conduct an ongoing review and provide an annual independent and public assessment to the Alliance.
 
The reform initiatives are the broadest and most comprehensive in the sport’s history, including:
  • uniform medication rules for each racing state
  • ban of steroids from racing competition
  • out-of-competition testing for blood and gene doping agents and pre-race testing
  • uniform penalties for all medication infractions
  • mandatory on-track and non-racing injury reporting
  • mandatory installation of protective inner safety rail
  • mandatory pre- and post-race security
  • adoption of a placement program for Thoroughbreds no longer competing
 
The reforms were approved by the NTRA Board of Directors, representing North America’s leading racetracks, owners, breeders and horsemen, at a special Board Meeting in September and communicated via e-mail to fans just prior to the press conference. Waldrop, joined by NTRA Executive Chairman Robert Elliston, Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association Chairman Alan Foreman and Governor Thompson, unveiled an ambitious timetable for implementing reforms, calling on NTRA Alliance member organizations to adopt house rules to enforce the measures until individual states and regulatory agencies can catch up via statute and regulations.
 
“Our industry is taking strong, positive steps to ensure the safety and integrity of our sport,” said Waldrop. “Despite challenges and significant short-term and long-term costs, there is an unprecedented level of commitment among Thoroughbred racing’s leadership to see these measures through.”
 
Governor Thompson—currently a partner in the Washington, D.C., offices of the law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld—will lead a team that will independently review, monitor and assess the program and provide annual public reports of the industry’s progress toward achieving its goals in the area of human and equine health and safety. 
 
"Our first priority is to insure the health and safety of the athletes and horses in the racing industry,” said Thompson. “On its own initiative, the NTRA has taken a great step forward in committing to reforms and the creation of an important new body to oversee implementation of the reforms. I will take my independent oversight role seriously and work to assure transparency in this process.” 
  
The NTRA Safety and Integrity Alliance will be a standing organization whose purpose is to implement safety and integrity reforms. The Alliance also will function as a certification/accreditation body for the purpose of recognizing and incentivizing compliance by all stakeholders. Reforms will be undertaken using a phased approach that begins immediately—in some cases, under a House Rules format—and transitions to a broader strategy that relies on licensure requirements, continuing education programs and the state regulatory process.
 
“The health and safety of all participants in Thoroughbred racing – both human and equine – have always been top priorities at Churchill Downs, the home of the Kentucky Derby, and all of our company’s racetracks,” said Robert Evans, President and CEO of Churchill Downs, Inc. “We know that the job is never done where safety is concerned. We fully support the NTRA’s development of safety and integrity standards and the annual certification of tracks that meet those standards. On the issues of safety and integrity, we believe we must hold ourselves to only the highest standards. Our customers do.”
 
Virtually every leading racetrack and horsemen’s association in North America, representing some one million industry participants, has pledged its support to the Alliance and the reforms. Waldrop indicated that, in the coming weeks, the Alliance will be broadened to include other racing organizations, individuals and fans; and that additional reforms, including wagering integrity issues, will be addressed by the Alliance.
 
"The horsemen are the people who are ultimately responsible for the day-to-day care and safety of the Thoroughbred,” said Alan Foreman, Chairman of the national Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. “As such, the health and safety of our horses and the integrity of our sport are our highest priorities. We are committed to seeing that these reforms and standards are implemented across the nation."
 
The reforms include improvements to medication and testing policies, guidelines for injury reporting and prevention, safety research, providing a safer racing environment, and post-racing care for retired race horses. They are drawn from the recommendations that have emerged over the past several months from The Jockey Club’s Thoroughbred Safety Committee and Welfare and Safety of the Racehorse Summit, Breeders’ Cup Limited, the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association’s Graded Stakes Committee and the long-standing work of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium and the Association of Racing Commissioners International, among others.
 
“Fortunately, we have the excellent work of many industry organizations to build on, allowing us to focus on implementation, oversight, measurement and transparency,” said Waldrop. “The reforms and the plan for implementation have been conceived by those who have pledged to operate at a higher level of integrity.”
 
The NTRA is a broad-based coalition of horse racing interests consisting of leading thoroughbred racetracks, owners, breeders, trainers and affiliated horse racing associations, charged with increasing the popularity of horse racing and improving economic conditions for industry participants. The NTRA has offices in Lexington, Ky., and New York. NTRA press releases appear on the NTRA web site, NTRA.com.

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JOCKEY CLUB: ALL ABOUT CONTROL

Friday, August 15th, 2008
By Ray Paulick

One of the staples of the Jockey Club Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining to Racing, to be held this Sunday in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., is a report on the activities of the Jockey Club, whose primary responsibility to the industry is registering Thoroughbreds and approving the names horses are given.

Of course, the Jockey Club wants to do much, much more than that, and its executive team, led by president Alan Marzelli, has focused on building the organization’s “family of companies” to include the collection and commercial sales of racing, breeding and auction data, the sale of handicapping information, software development, and technology services to racetracks, farms and other businesses in the industry. Either Marzelli or chief administrative officer James Gagliano will report on Sunday that every branch of the company is doing an outstanding job.

What you won’t hear in the report is how the tentacles of the Jockey Club and some of its individual members strategically reach into various organizations and businesses in an effort to exert control throughout the Thoroughbred industry.

To quote from the book, “The Right Blood: America’s Aristocrats in Thoroughbred Racing,” by Carole Case: “This is a story about money and power, and about a particular group of rich and powerful Americans—the men (and a very few women) of the Jockey Club. With its founding in New York City at the turn of the twentieth century, the Club took the reins of Thoroughbred racing in the United States, and it has never entirely let them go. For more than a century, then, the Jockey Club has dominated horseracing in this country.”

For better or worse, the Jockey Club, which has been ruled since 1982 by chairman Dinny Phipps and vice chairman William S. Farish, has considerable power over the Breeders’ Cup, Keeneland, National Thoroughbred Racing Association, the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and its American Graded Stakes Committee, Bloodhorse magazine, and the New York Racing Association, among others.

Here’s a quick rundown.

– William Farish’s son, Bill, is the board chairman of the Breeders’ Cup, which before its governance was changed a few years ago, had been tightly controlled by the senior Farish and his longtime friend and horse business partner G. Watts Humphrey. The battle over control of the Breeders’ Cup board has been detailed by previous articles in the Paulick Report..

– The senior Farish replaced Ted Bassett in 2006 as one of the three trustees who oversees Keeneland’s operations. Keeeland’s president, Nick Nicholson, is a former executive with the Jockey Club. There is some speculation that one of the senior Farish’s goals is to expand Keeneland to the point where it can bid to become a permanent host for the Breeders’ Cup, making it the Augusta National of the racing industry.. An expansion is on the drawing board now, with Keeneland making a possible Breeders’ Cup bid as early as 2011.

– The NTRA board is populated by several Jockey Club members, including Humphrey and Robert Clay, plus Jockey Club president Marzelli, and three racetrack executives — Nicholson of Keeneland, Bob Elliston of Turfway Park (owned in part by Keeneland), and Charles Hayward of the New York Racing Association, which has been controlled by Phipps for more than 30 years. At one point, the NTRA and Jockey Club shared office space in New York.

– The Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association has had some semblance of independence from the Jockey Club in recent years, through its chairman, Bill Casner, who is not a Jockey Club member but has been asked to speak at Sunday’s Round Table. Casner was recently succeeded by Reynolds Bell, currently a steward of the Jockey Club and a bloodstock agent whose major client is Farish’s Lane’s End Farm. Dell Hancock, whose family’s Claiborne Farm boards the Phipps family mares, served as chair of the American Graded Stakes Committee until recently being succeeded by Peter Willmot. Steve Duncker, currently the board chairman of NYRA, was a previous Graded Stakes Commiteee chair.

– Stuart Janney is chairman of Bloodhorse magazine, whose board also includes Bill Farish, G. Watts Humphrey, D.G. Van Clief, and Antony Beck—all Jockey Club members with the exception of Beck, who is very close friends with Bill Farish. Janney is a Jockey Club steward, a cousin of Dinny Phipps, and chairman of Bessemer Trust, the company founded by Phipps’ great-grandfather. He succeeded Humphrey as chairman, who in turn succeeded Bayard Sharp, Farish’s late father-in-law.

– The New York Racing Association’s close relationship with the Jockey Club is no secret. Its tracks serve as playgrounds for many Jockey Club members, most notably Dinny Phipps, who has the most desired finish line boxes at the NYRA tracks. The Jockey Club even has offices at the New York tracks. The Jockey Club once officially ruled New York racing, but lost its official control when a horseman named Jule Fink went to court after being denied an owner’s license. NYRA’s board is populated with Jockey Club members, and its chairman, Steve Duncker, like most chairman before him, is a member of the Club as well.

The tentacles clearly reach into breed associations, regulatory agencies and other organizations throughout racing and breeding.

What isn’t clear is why the Jockey Club, led by its chairman and vice chairman, wants so desperately to control the industry, and what they plan to do with that control.

Copyright © 2008, The Paulick Report

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