Posts Tagged ‘monmouth park’

By Ray Paulick
One of the most interesting and encouraging developments of the young 2010 racing season was the recent announcement in New Jersey that Monmouth Park will slash the number of racing days but increase daily average purses to $1 million—the highest ever in the United States for a regularly scheduled race meeting. A daily average of $1 million is roughly triple the daily purses offered in previous years at Monmouth Park.

Most weeks, Monmouth will run Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, offering 12 races per day, rather than a more traditional Wednesday-Sunday schedule. A weekends only fall meeting at Monmouth will replace the previous Meadowlands Thoroughbred meeting.

Click here to learn more about the 2010 Monmouth Park schedule and here for the stakes schedule.

How to pay for this? A large chunk of the money, $20 million, comes in the way of a subsidy from the New Jersey casino association, a deal that expires this year. The hope of New Jersey Sports and Exposition and Monmouth Park officials is that higher quality racing with bigger fields will substantially increase handle. Average daily handle in New Jersey has dropped from $5 million to $3.2 million over the last five years.

Longtime Monmouth Park executive Robert J. Kulina, the track’s vice president and general manager, talked with the Paulick Report about how he is planning to put Monmouth Park back on the map of major league racetracks.

This is a pretty dramatic step. Reminds me of the lyrics to Neil Young’s “My My Hey Hey”—“it’s better to burn out than to fade away.” Is that that the scenario you felt as though you were facing with New Jersey racing?
You’re the second one to mention that great song. It’s true. First of all I don’t think any other state would have had the horsemen that allowed us to entertain this concept. It’s almost been two years we’ve been working on this.

It boils down to a couple of things. Everybody in the industry understands what we are doing is not working. I liken our industry to Detroit, where the auto industry is almost gone. They had a monopoly, we had a monopoly and it’s not working. This is the last year of our purse supplement (from New Jersey casinos). We needed to come up with a model to show the racing can be successful and give us a vehicle to ask for future funding for purses. If we went with the same day-in and day-out cards, the reality for additional funding would be more doubtful. It’s a big picture thing. Dennis Drazen (former New Jersey Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association president), myself and John Forbes (current NJ THA president), we talked about any number of dates scenarios. Finally we decided we wanted to cut it to the point where there would be were no excuses left; it’s  the least common denominator, with the hope being that in the future we can add. I am very appreciative of the horsemen. There was a lot of hard work on their part.

Did you look outside of the United States? This looks an awful like what Japan or Hong Kong is doing.
There are no geniuses here.  Less is better. We looked at foreign models. We added the fall dates to see if there would be any life at Monmouth that time of year. It’s been 30 years or more since we raced that late at Monmouth. For one year, it’s something we had to do, but there are a lot of negotiations, a lot of issues that still need to be resolved.

You’ve said you need to double handle to sustain these purses of a million a day. What are the realistic chances of that?
That’s not what I said. My projections were soft, 20% to 25% increases. What I tried to allude to is that Saratoga is still the best in the country. We looked at the model–$13 million in daily handle at Saratoga). We are at $3.2 million. Somewhere I said can I grow toward that Saratoga number. Can I double my number this year? I don’t know. We made very soft projections just to maintain where we were: 20% increases on live handle, 20% on transmission of races, and that’s adding two or three races per day, ans assuming our field size will increase from under 7.5 horses per race to 8.75 or maybe nine. We think we’ll sell more races to California. Philadelphia Park won’t be running on Sundays, so how much can we pick up there? It’s a big gamble.

In 1970s when I was racing secretary here and New York was dark on Tuesdays, I’d put an overnight stakes on Tuesdays and we were doing $3 million a day in handle just in that building.

One thing that’s important to understand is that I want the other guys to have a good product, because I’m selling bets on it. I want racing across the country to be strong and good and competitive. I think one of our problems is that we are trying to become a slot machine in our wagering mentality.

Have you put more into the marketing budget?
We’re doing a lot of new things. We’ve had success adding events the last few years. We’ve had a crab cake event, we’re adding a jazz and blues festival, adding a burger event with the Newark Star-Ledger on Memorial Day weekend. We are doing more food events, adding a second music event. We’ve reintroduced the Monmouth County Hunt meet and believe that can become a big event. These things take two or three years to build. There are 16 weekends during this time and we’re trying to create an event every weekend. There is a lot of excitement among people who are lapsed fans. The upside can be big; I remember what it’s like to have 17,000 here every Saturday.

In addition we are real close to getting the Haskell televised on ABC, a one-hour show. You know we have a record of trying to be aggressive with our 3-year-olds.

What’s the impact on the stakes program?
Mostly minor things. Our graded stakes are right at $5 million, pretty much the same as before. We’re bringing the Meadowlands Cup to Monmouth and running the Pegasus as a Haskell prep. Our overnight stakes, something I created a long time ago, will start at $100,000. We are really focusing on the high end.

I have a great relationship with the horsemen, and they bought into the concept. We’re now trying to work on the purse schedule. Part of the plan is to put meaningful money back to last place. Right now we are talking about $2,000 for the last-place horse. That’s a lot of money. Too many small owners can’t make it, and just because you’re small doesn’t mean you’re not good.  If you can run a horse, and you perform, the $2,000 helps pay some of the training and offsets part of your losses. We’ll try to stop people from abusing the system by running just for $2,000.

You can’t finalize your purses until you write the condition books. We’re still working on it, but the purses are going to be very good at all levels. The first condition book is almost finished. It’ll be on our website soon.

What’s been the immediate reaction?
The stall applications look like when I started in 1977 as racing secretary, and it’s a who’s who of American racing. There are a lot of interesting things going on.
 
The comments on blogs from different people have been very encouraging. The game needs to do something different, and a lot of people are wishing us good luck. Hopefully, we can find something that works. There’s a lot of hope and enthusiasm out there.

Copyright © 2010, The Paulick Report

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PRESS RELEASE

HASKELL INVITATIONAL TO ANCHOR RECORD $12.1 MILLION IN STAKES PURSES FOR 2010 MONMOUTH PARK MEET

Oceanport, N.J. – With the $1 million Haskell Invitational on Aug. 1, leading the way, Monmouth Park will offer a record $12.1 million in stakes purses for the 2010 racing season, which gets underway on Saturday, May 22. A total of 90 stakes races are on the calendar, 16 graded and 74 overnight events.

In addition to the record stakes schedule, Monmouth Park will offer record purses in 2010. In what’s being called the “Million Dollar Meet”, Monmouth will race primarily on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through Labor Day - a calendar that spans 50 live racing days. Overnight purses, when coupled with stakes events, are expected to be $1 million for those live programs, with stakes races starting at $100,000. By comparison, stakes at Monmouth Park in 2009 started at $60,000 with a total of $9,170,000 paid in stakes purses.

“What we’re offering this year is a new approach to racing,” said Bob Kulina, vice president and general manager of Monmouth Park. “This stakes schedule, along with our new race meet, is certainly attracting the interest of new horsemen from across the country.

“Our goal is to deliver the public what they’ve asked for - quality, competitive racing with big fields. We believe this new schedule should help us achieve that goal.”

Returning for the third time to the stakes calendar is the $250,000 Monmouth Stakes, which will carry a Grade 3 status for the first time when it’s renewed on June 12. The turf test, which serves as a prep for the Grade 1 $750,000 United Nations on July 3, was captured by champion Big Brown in it’s inaugural running and last year saw fan-favorite Presious Passion go wire-to-wire.

Other notable changes include the addition of the Grade 3 $200,000 Pegasus Stakes for 3-year-olds. Set for June 19, the mile and a sixteenth Pegasus will be run six weeks before the mile and an eighth Haskell. Also added to the schedule is the $300,000, Grade 2, Monmouth Cup (formerly the Meadowlands Cup), to be run on Oct. 9, for 3-year-olds and up.

The 2010 racing meet spans 71 days, beginning with the May 22nd-23rd weekend. The racetrack will then offer live programs on May 29, May 30 and Monday, May 31 (Memorial Day). Following the Memorial Day card Monmouth will be open for live racing on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays through Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 6. In addition, the track will host live racing on Monday, July 5 (4th of July Holiday). A fall meet will get underway on Saturday, Sept. 11, and run through Sunday, Nov. 21. Racing in the fall will take place on Saturdays and Sundays.

As Michael Veitch of The Saratogian says, Monmouth’s new purse structure implemented by Governor Chris Christie may prove to be the biggest challenge to New York racing in a long time. The push to reduce race days but increase average daily purses to $1 million will force NYRA to compete with the New Jersey track for top horses in the region.

Veitch continues to make the argument that despite Saratoga’s prestige and relatively high purse money ($730,000), many horsemen will be drawn to the $100,000 overnight stakes and the $75,000-$80,000 maiden special weights for 2-year-olds.

Is this a legitimate concern? Will Saratoga become less competitive due to the innovation of their neighbor to the South?

Read it at The Saratogian

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

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."

Read it at the NJ.com

Then come back to the Paulick Report and let us know what you think

- Bradford Cummings

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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Rachel Alexandra absolutely destroyed her  male opposition in Sunday’s $1,250,000 Haskell Invitational Handicap at Monmouth Park, coming from just off the pace of Munnings, taking command on the turn for home, and romping home to a six-length victory for Calvin Borel, who is now a perfect-eight for eight on the Medaglia d’Oro filly now carrying the colors of Jess Jackson’s Stonestreet Stables and trained by Steve Asmussen.

Rachel Alexandra paid $3 to win as the 1-2 favorite.

As expected, Munnings, coming off that impressive win sprinting in the Tom Fool, went right to the front under John Velazquez and set fractions of :22 4/5 for the opening quarter mile, :46 2/5 for the half-mile and 1:09 4/5 for six furlongs. Borel had Rachel Alexandra just off his right hip, and Summer Bird was close behind in third, along the rail. Papa Clem raced close up in fourth.

On the turn, however, Borel let Rachel Alexandra extend her stride and she was quickly in front. When the field hit the top of the stretch, it was really only a matter of how big her margin of victory would be. She galloped to the wire in yet another incredible performance that may be the equal of her 20 1/4 Kentucky Oaks victory (her last start for trainer Hal Wiggins and breeder Dolphus Morrison, after which she was purchased by Jackson and Harold McCormick) or her 19 1/4-length victory last time out in the Mother Goose. This was her second victory over colts and geldings, following her one-length Preakness win over Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird.

Jess Jackson said he didn’t know where Rachel Alexandra would go next either, saying, “We’ll see how she comes out. Her next race will be decided by us when she tells us.” Jackson did say the Breeders’ Cup at Oak Tree on a synthetic track is not an option, though he does want to face the unbeaten, reigning filly and mare champ Zenyatta. “We’re not going to the Breeders’ Cup,” Jackson insisted. “I’ve said that from the beginning and I mean it. I’d like it on a neutral course and I don’t like synthetic tracks.”

While there is plenty of racing remaining in 2009, Rachel Alexandra has clearly becoming the pro-tem leader in the race for Horse of the  Year. She has won all seven of her starts this year–four of them Grade 1 and two Grade 2–and is now 10 for 13 lifetime.

The Haskell topped a big weekend for Asmussen and Jackson. On Saturday, Asmussen saddled Soul Warrior to an upset victory over Mine That Bird in the West Virginia Derby at Mountaineer Park and took the Jim Dandy at Saratoga with Jackson and Gulf Coast Farm’s Kensai. Kensai looks to be the favorite for the Travers Stakes at Saratoga later this month–unless Jackson and Asmussen opt to run Rachel Alexandra. That seems unlikely, however, since the filly may be better at 1 1/8 miles and the Travers is run over 1 1/4 miles, longer than she’s ever been.

Rachel Alexandra, produced from the Roar filly Lotta Kim, became the second filly to win the Haskell, joining 1995 winner Serena’s Song.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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