Posts Tagged ‘NTRA’

By Ray Paulick
I hate to rain on Equibase and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s bad news parade, but there was some good news in horse racing’s monthly economic indicators released on Thursday.

Average daily handle for the month of February increased by 4.80% in comparison to 2009 figures. Average daily purses were up by 4.29% in February. Year-to-date figures for average daily handle are virtually dead-even (down 0.14%), as is the number for average daily purses (plus 0.81%).

Those are signs, like the few glimmers of hope in the general economy, that our worst days may be behind us.

Why, then, did Equibase and NTRA only report the bad news, that gross wagering and purses were down double digits? The business figures compiled by Equibase make things look terribly bleak: gross handle down 13% in February and purses down 13.43% from 2010, and year-to-date figures down 12.51% and 11.67% in those respective categories.

They include the total number of racing days for February and for the year to date, which show drastic declines of 16.99% and 12.38%. We are not going to increase gross handle with we run nearly 17% fewer race days. Those gross numbers do not tell the complete picture, and an organization like the NTRA should be doing a better job of interpreting its own economic indicators.

The good news about February and handle comes on the heels of Fasig-Tipton’s successful sale of 2-year-olds in training at Calder race course in South Florida.

There has been severe weather this year in many parts of the country, reducing the number of race days because of cancellations. But some tracks are simply running fewer live dates, a trend that we’ll see more and more of going forward.

The days being dropped intentionally by racetracks are going to be weekdays when handle and purses are lower, so it’s logical to expect average daily numbers to increase when weekend cards represent 50% of the week’s action on a four-day racing week instead of 40% on a five-day week. Del Mar saw its average daily numbers increase last year when the Southern California track dropped its Monday programs.

So, part of this increase in average betting and purses for February is likely due to the loss of more weekday programs than weekends. The message here is that less can be more.

Call me a contrarian, since other publications focused on the negatives—the drop in gross purses and handle. However, I’m willing to take any scrap of good news I can find these days.

Copyright © 2010, The Paulick Report

Savvy businesses recognize value. Advertise in the Paulick Report.



Sign up for our Email Flashes to get the latest news, analysis and commentary from Ray Paulick

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

Savvy businesses recognize value. Advertise in the Paulick Report.



Sign up for our Email Flashes to get the latest news, analysis and commentary from Ray Paulick

By Ray Paulick
Jess Jackson could have waited until Friday night at 9 o’clock or so to send out a press release anouncing his regrets for not pointing Rachel Alexandra to the April 3 Apple Blossom at Oaklawn Park. Oaklawn owner Charles Cella had proposed increasing the Apple Blossom’s purse to $5 million if Jackson’s 2009 Horse of the Year and the unbeaten two-time champion mare Zenyatta were both in the starting lineup for the race.

That’s what the president of Toyota did—schedule a press conference for 9 p.m. on a Friday night–to respond to mounting public outrage over safety problems with cars produced by the world’s leading automotive manufacturer. Spin doctors always advise their clients to put bad news out late on a Friday to get the lowest possible publicity and media coverage.

But not Jess Jackson. He had the courage to send out a press release at the end of the business day on a Wednesday, when most racetracks East of the Mississippi were closed due to blizzard conditions. His press release was very clever, too, utilizing an old-fashioned smokescreen—a grand proposal for a three-race series between the two distaffers—to obscure the fact Rachel Alexandra would skip the Apple Blossom. To make matters worse, he made trainer Steve Asmussen the fall guy who had to deliver the bad news: ““Out of respect for the level of competition and the importance of this race, I have told Mr. Jackson it was not in the best interest of the horse to race on April 3,” Asmussen was quoted as saying in the press release. “Getting to this level of fitness after a six-month layoff takes time.  If all goes according to schedule, and we do not have any further weather delays, the earliest we could have a prep race would be the middle of March. It is then not fair to Rachel to ask her to race again three weeks later.”

I could be wrong, but I think that’s the most Jackson has allowed Asmussen to say since the California winemaker bought Rachel Alexandra after her victory in the Kentucky Oaks last spring.

But the confusing part of the release was Jackson’s statement that the proposed racing series between Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta has been “in the works for several weeks.” If that’s the case, why did Jackson indicate even the slightest bit of interest when Cella proposed the Apple Blossom purse increase?

Also, why is Jackson suddenly relying on the National Thoroughbred Racing Association to put something together? The NTRA owns no racetracks, has no authority over tracks, stakes schedules or race conditions, and doesn’t even have any juice left with television networks.

If anything, Jackson should be asking the Breeders’ Cup—not the NTRA–for assistance in putting the series together and promoting it, since racing fans hope the two fillies will remain sound throughout 2010 and eventually go head-to-head in either the Breeders’ Cup Classic or Ladies’ Classic this fall at Churchill Downs. A series of races betweem the two leading up to the Breeders’ Cup would be in that organization’s best interests, and the Breeders’ Cup does have stronger ties to ESPN for broadcast opportunities.
 
Finally, if the proposal by Jackson was genuine, why on earth were Jerry and Ann Moss not even mentioned in the press release. As Zenyatta’s owners, I think they might want to have some say in this proposed series.

Sorry, Jess, but I’m calling your bluff.

Copyright © 2010, The Paulick Report

Savvy businesses recognize value. Advertise in the Paulick Report.



Sign up for our Email Flashes to get the latest news, analysis and commentary from Ray Paulick

Today, Jess Jackson released the following press release proposing a three race series between Rachel and Zenyatta. This proposal comes on the heels of Rachel’s connections informing Oaklawn Park that they are unable to commit Rachel to the Apple Blossom.

Read the release below and let us know what you think.

The owners of Horse of the Year, Rachel Alexandra, today called for a  racing  series between now and November in which the two phenomenal female race horses will meet.

“The fans have spoken. The media has spoken. Everyone wants to see Rachel race against Zenyatta - including me,” said Rachel Alexandra co-owner Jess Jackson.  “In fact, I want it to happen several times this year. We have been in discussions with Alex Waldrop, President and CEO of National Thoroughbred Racing Association, with the hope of coordinate training schedules, racing schedules, purses and all ancillary factors, so that we can all agree upon three dates and three venues for what will be a racing series to rival the Triple Crown.”

The proposal, in the works for several weeks, comes as Rachel Alexandra’s connections informed Oaklawn Park race track that she would not compete on April 3rd, the announced date of the Apple Blossom Invitational.  “Out of respect for the level of competition and the importance of this race, I have told Mr. Jackson it was not in the best interest of the horse to race on April 3.  Getting to this level of fitness after a six-month layoff takes time.  If all goes according to schedule, and we do not have any further weather delays, the earliest we could have a prep race would be the middle of March. It is then not fair to Rachel to ask her to race again three weeks later,” said 2010 Trainer of the Year, Steve Asmussen.

The track had offered a $5-million purse if Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta met on that day.  Rachel’s connections had requested a week delay in order to have Rachel race at Oaklawn Park against Zenyatta but track officials told Jackson today that would not be possible.

“Hopefully, these discussions will take place at earliest possible time so that we can announce something that will give the fans a season to remember,” Jackson added.

Rachel Alexandra, the reigning 2010 Horse of the Year, became the first filly to win the Preakness since 1924, beating a field of world-class males, including Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird. She went undefeated throughout the 2009 campaign, defeating world-class colts three times.

By Ray Paulick
A potential April 3 matchup at Oaklawn Park between Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra and unbeaten, two-time champion Zenyatta may be the best news racing fans have heard in a long time. Oaklawn Park owner Charles Cella announced the Grade 1 Apple Blossom Handicap would have its purse bumped from $500,000 to $5 million if both horses run, and the race would be lengthened from 1 1/16 miles to nine furlongs. It would change from a handicap to an invitational if both participated. If either fails to enter, the Apple Blossom would revert back to a $500,000 race.

Left unaddressed in the press release from Oaklawn Park was whether any network television plans for the race have been formulated beyond TVG and HRTV. April 3 is a busy day on the racing and sports calendar.

NBC will be televising two important races for 3-year-olds late that afternoon, the Wood Memorial from Aqueduct and Santa Anita Derby from Santa Anita Park in Southern California. Would NBC try to squeeze the Apple Blossom into the same broadcast, and would Oaklawn Park agree to share such a marquee event with two prep races for the Kentucky Derby?

The NBC deal was done with Churchill Downs, not the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, which formerly was responsible for much of the horse racing industry’s television exposure, primarily on the ESPN family of networks. The NTRA, while no longer in the television business and Oaklawn Park no longer a member of the NTRA, have assured the Paulick Report they will aggressively work with all parties to promote this event. According to Keith Chamblin, “The NTRA has and will continue to do everything it possibly can to maximize the promotion and television exposure of a showdown between Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta.”

Post time for the Apple Blossom could be a tricky decision, too. If the race is run after 6 p.m. Eastern Daylight Savings Time (Arkansas is in the Central time zone), it could go head to head with the first of two Final Four games in the men’s NCAA basketball tournament from Indianaapolis, which will be televised on CBS that evening. If it is run between 4:30-5:30 p.m. Eastern, it could butt heads with the Wood Memorial and Santa Anita Derby.

Needless to say, with the Final Four games scheduled that night, horse racing will have a difficult time getting much coverage in the mainstream press around the country. But if Oaklawn Park can pull it off, it will be a huge day for the Arkansas racetrack, and existing fans of the sport will have got what they wanted.

Copyright © 2010, The Paulick Report

Savvy businesses recognize value. Advertise in the Paulick Report.



Sign up for our Email Flashes to get the latest news, analysis and commentary from Ray Paulick

By Ray Paulick
When the committee that doles out Eclipse Awards of Merit or Special Eclipse Awards announced the other day that Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation founder and longtime chairman Monique Koehler would be a recipient of a Special Eclipse Award next month, my first thought was, “What took so long?”

But then I remembered this is an industry predicated on past performances, and the past performances suggest that recognition of people and organizations dedicated to the health and welfare of retired racehorses comes reluctantly and over time.

I first became aware of the TRF more than 20 years ago, some five years after Koehler started the organization in 1982. I was working for a Thoroughbred publication and was asked to come up with a list of potential story ideas to be used for upcoming features. I called some friends in different parts of the country looking for ideas and one of them told me about this fascinating operation based at an upstate New York prison that took in retired racehorses and stabled them at the prison, where inmates would care for them. It was a proverbial win-win situation: good for the horses, good for the rehabilitation of the inmates.

When I suggested to the editor that a feature on the TRF be considered, I thought for sure I’d get two thumbs up. I was stunned when he told me, “Oh, we can’t do that. We don’t want people to find out what really happens to all those horses when they’re done racing.”

It was my first exposure to one of the sport’s dirty little secrets, that ex-racehorses often wind up in a slaughterhouse somewhere, destined for a dinner plate overseas, or perhaps as food for a dog or other animal. Turns out the glue factory was more than a cliché.

Monique and the TRF’s longtime executive director, Diana Pikulski, have fought hard for the organization’s mission to be recognized, much less accepted, in the Thoroughbred media and by the industry they have done so much to help. As the TRF grew, admitting more horses into a prison program that expanded to other states and to satellite farms, the struggle became an economic one of how to feed and care for the thousands of Thoroughbreds retired from the racetrack each year.

Gradually, they picked up important advocates, like the late John Hettinger, whose money, influence and outspoken passion for the cause advanced the TRF and its mission. Many similar organizations popped up around the country, but the TRF to this day remains the largest national charity devoted to helping retired Thoroughbred racehorses.

Critics, including, ironically, the American Association of Equine Practitioners, an organization also devoted to the health and welfare of horses, have pooh-poohed the TRF and similar organizations, saying their efforts to save horses represent a drop in the bucket when compared to the total number of unwanted Thoroughbreds. But should the fact that not all Thoroughbreds can be saved from slaughter or neglect prevent rescue and retirement organizations from saving those they can, and often placing them in second careers as performance or pleasure horses?

I don’t think so, and I believe the AAEP has been on the wrong side of this issue for many years. (Disclosure: I served on the AAEP board of directors in a non-veterinary “industry seat” for three years where I tried to be an advocate for rescue/retirement groups. I currently am a member of the TRF board.)

The efforts of Koehler, Pikulski, Hettinger, web publisher and horseman Alex Brown and many others have raised awareness to this issue, and some of racing’s largest institutions now recognize that supporting racehorse retirement is not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do for the industry’s tarnished image among the general public.

Along the way, trainers like Nick Zito, Todd Pletcher, Gary Contessa and the late John Russell stepped forward as advocates, along with owners and breeders like Gary Biszantz, Madeline Auerbach and the late Trudy McCaffery (there are many more who have stepped up). Numerous breeders and stallion farms have supported fundraisers through the donation of stallion seasons.

Richard Fields, the majority owner of Suffolk Downs, showed tremendous leadership when instituting a policy at the New England racetrack banning trainers who dump horses into auctions where the animals usually are destined for slaughter. Churchill Downs and Magna Entertainment developed policies and positions of support for racehorse retirement, and most recently the New York Racing Association adopted a policy and pledged funds to assist the retirement of horses. The Jockey Club has taken a strong position of support, and that was a most significant development.

There are holdouts, including the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, whose silence and lack of leadership on the issue is a sore spot with many people. But as Monique Koehler knows more than anyone else, these things take time.

So rather than criticizing the committee that took more than a quarter of a century to recognize Monique Koehler for starting a national movement that represents so much that is good about the people in this industry, I say “thank you” to the organizations that voted her this award: the Daily Racing Form, National Turf Writers Association and even the NTRA.

More importantly, if they could talk, the thousands of horses that have been or will be saved as a result of Monique’s tireless dedication and advocacy would say thank you as well.

The best way you can thank Monique is by supporting the TRF through a donation. Click here to learn more about the organization and here to make a donation.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

Sign up for our Email Flashes to get the latest news, analysis and commentary from Ray Paulick

Liberation Farm celebrates the many horsemen and horsewomen who strive each day to make things better for horses and those who work with them.  To learn more about Liberation Farm, click here.

By Ray Paulick
Ten years ago many of the grand poobahs of American racing gathered in Tucson, Ariz., for the University of Arizona Racetrack Industry Program’s 25th annual Symposium on Racing. There was great anticipation of the event, in large part to get an update on the fledgling National Thoroughbred Racing Association’s efforts to organize a “league office” and provide national leadership for an industry that had none in areas like marketing and television. The NTRA had commenced operations a year earlier, in 1998.

There’s something about this game that brings out the knockers (no, Tiger, not that kind), and the NTRA was under intense criticism at the outset in many different quarters from people who thought a) their chief executives didn’t know enough about horse racing; b) they were paid too much money; c) the “Go Baby Go” catchphrase developed by New York advertising agency Merkley Newman Harty was mindless; d) their first-year marketing campaign featuring Lori Petty (aka “Tank Girl”) was horrible; and e) horse racing’s television ratings and the economics of the industry weren’t getting any better and the NTRA had already been in a business a whole year!

Oh, for the good old days!

Pari-mutuel handle in North America during the NTRA’s first year in 1998 hit an all-time record, of $13.8 billion, and it increased for the next five years, peaking at $15.9 billion in 2003. At the end of 2009, total handle in North America will be less than what was generated in 1998.

In 1999, when chief executive Tim Smith delivered a state of the NTRA address at the Symposium on Racing he spoke about increased television exposure, including a new series, NTRA Champions on Fox, and additional programming on the ESPN family of companies that would bring the total number of hours of televised racing on network and cable (excluding TVG) to 137, an increase in 40% over two years.

Nearly $30 million was spent on national and local advertising using NTRA-branded material in 1999. Inserts promoting major racing events were placed in Sports Illustrated and USA Today. There were NTRA “fan guides,” racetrack customer service training coordinated by NTRA, new events like the NTRA All-Star Jockeys Challenge, in-depth market research and increased lobbying in Washington, D.C.

Thoroughbred racing, for a brief period, was playing offense, an unfamiliar strategy for this industry. Sure, a few years earlier, the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America (a trade association of tracks, not to be confused with the NTRA) hired an outsider, sports marketing executive Brian McGrath, to come in and play the role of “commissioner,” but his tenure was over almost as soon as it began.

Why is it this industry so often says it needs outside expertise, then bludgeons whoever is brought in under that guise because “he doesn’t understand racing”?

Today, while its top executives are back at the Arizona Symposium on Racing, all the NTRA can do is play defense, a glorified game of whack-a-mole. There’s no talk about growing the sport and its business anymore but of how to stop the bleeding. Racehorse injuries and fatalities here. Tote credibility problems there. Threats from Washington, D.C.  There is no such thing as NTRA marketing or television anymore. The organization’s skeleton staff in Kentucky and New York is stretched to the bone, and its budget has been continuously reduced, now standing at about $10 million, a fraction of what it was 10 years ago.

What happened?

The organization’s fate was sealed when Frank Stronach, not long after he started buying racetracks, declared he didn’t need the NTRA for his Magna Entertainment to succeed (how’s that working out?). Stronach petulantly threatened to drop out of the NTRA and joined with other short-sighted track-owning malcontents that forced NTRA executives to spend most of their energy keeping the coalition from crumbling. That’s not a formula for success.

Any chance of building the NTRA into some semblance of a “league office” finally ended when the Breeders’ Cup, which signed a joint operating agreement with the NTRA in 2001, ended its relationship five years later.

I’m not even sure why we have an NTRA any more. Its area of interest almost completely overlaps with the aforementioned TRA, with the lone exception of lobbying federal politicians to maintain tax breaks for horse owners (something, incidentally, the racetrack organization TRA should care about, since it needs horse owners to race at their tracks).

At that 1999 Arizona racing symposium, Smith introduced the NTRA’s second-year ad campaign, one that featured the actor Rip Torn talking to chunks of turf and statues of jockeys like a crazy person. Torn hasn’t had the best of times since then (witness his two arrests for suspicion of drunk driving), and neither has the original Go Baby Go girl, Lori Petty (she had some driving problems, too).

But both Torn and Petty have survived the ups and downs of life, something I can relate to as well. I’m not sure we’ll be saying the same thing of the NTRA, which could be Gone Baby Gone before we know it.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

Savvy businesses recognize value. Advertise in the Paulick Report.

Sign up for our Email Flashes to get the latest news, analysis and commentary from Ray Paulick