Posts Tagged ‘richard fields’

By Ray Paulick
Richard Fields, the owner of Suffolk Downs in East Boston, Mass., is no shrinking violet when it comes to business. The one-time owner of the Catch a Rising Star comedy clubs became a real-life apprentice to Donald Trump and later trumped The Donald on a billion-dollar deal to develop the Seminole Indian tribe’s Hard Rock casinos in Hollywood and Tampa, Fla.

But by all accounts Fields is just an old softie when it comes to animals. He is a generous supporter of horse retirement and retraining programs, including the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation and CANTER New England. Under his urging, Suffolk Downs became the first track to establish a policy banning trainers whose horses ended up being sold or transported to slaughter plants. He’s also been a longtime supporter of the American Quarter Horse Association Foundation and many of its youth programs, through the Fields Family Foundation and Jackson Land & Cattle, his ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where Fields keeps some retired Thoroughbreds himself.

“I wish we had 10 track owners like him,” a prominent New York Thoroughbred horseman recently told me.

Fields bought Suffolk Downs in 2007 when it appeared the track might be on the ropes for the second time in 20 years. Suffolk was closed for more than two years until the late James Moseley took control and brought it back to life in 1992. During his all-too-short tenure as chairman of the board (Moseley died in 1998), Suffolk Downs enjoyed a revival, highlighted by back-to-back victories in the 1995-96 Massachusetts Handicap by two-time Horse of the Year Cigar. But the economics worsened following Moseley’s death, and Coastal Development, a company owned by Fields, bought controlling interest with the hope of bringing Suffolk Downs back to some semblance of its glory days.

The track opened in 1935 to more than 35,000 fans, and over the next 20 years, crowds upward of 60,000 showed up to see such racing stars as Seabiscuit, War Admiral, Whirlaway and Stymie. The Beatles came to Suffolk Downs for an infield concert in 1966 that attracted more than 25,000 screaming fans. A few years later, legendary Major League Baseball team owner Bill Veeck (as in wreck) took over management of the track, which by then was in steep decline, bringing his unique and sometimes outrageous brand of marketing to horse racing. (Veeck sent a midget to the plate as a pinch hitter when he owned the Cleveland Indians, had the first exploding scoreboard with fireworks at Comiskey Park in Chicago, dressed his 1970s version of the White Sox in shorts, and had the mother of all bad promotions in 1979, disco demolition night, which resulted in an inside the park riot and cancellation of the second game of a doubleheader ).

There are a couple of odd holdovers from Veeck’s short-lived management of the track: a huge, wood-paneled office he had built, complete with fireplace, overlooking the turf club dining room and racetrack. It currently sits empty, as something of a tribute to Veeck. Adjacent to the office is one-of-a-kind shower, with a dozen evenly-spaced water jets, that Veeck would use after making his morning rounds on the backstretch. (Veeck had a “peg leg” he removed for bathing purposes and apparently had difficulty using a standard shower.)

Back to Fields. He’s done more than demonstrate a real concern for the animals who are at the heart of this game. His humane policies on that front attracted the attention of horse owners Tracy and Carol Farmer and trainer Nick Zito, who cited Fields’ anti-slaughter position when deciding to race recently retired Commentator in the 2008 MassCap. In addition, while recognizing the importance of good corporate citizenship, Fields and his management team have instituted a number of outreach programs, headed by the Community Winner’s Circle, which recognizes individuals and groups who have dedicated themselves to worthy causes in the surrounding communities. It’s a special Saturday program that runs over the first two months of the meeting each spring.

Suffolk Downs is also the host of the Greater Boston Walk Now for Autism. In its first year in 2007, more than 16,000 walkers circled the dirt track, and the 2008 walk attracted more than 20,000 individuals raising money and awareness for the Autism Speaks charity. All told, the track supports nearly 90 charities.

Fields said his goal when he bought controlling interest of Suffolk Downs was to keep Thoroughbred racing alive in New England, and he injected new life immediately by increasing marketing budgets with an eye toward rebuilding the fan base. But he has bigger plans for the facility than simply offering live racing. He hopes to get legislative support allowing him to build a destination resort casino at Suffolk Downs, something that hasn’t been easy to accomplish.

The drive for a resort casino led to the formation of the Coalition for Jobs and Growth (click here for information). Among other things, the organization’s web site keeps an ongoing tally of how much money Massachusetts residents are gambling in the neighboring states of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Maine (the current amount exceeds $700 million for the year). Fields and his management team are hoping to convince legislators that a resort casino in the Boston area (as opposed to a racino or racing operation with slot machines) offers the best chance to greatly increase tax revenue to the state and revive horse racing at Suffolk Downs.

Is this native New Yorker (Fields was born and raised in the Bronx) practicing good corporate citizenship and providing a safer haven for horses merely as a means to convince legislators to pass the casino legislation? I don’t think so. But even if that was the case, he is giving horse racing a good name in New England, a major market that has a great and long association with the sport. It’s a market we can’t afford to lose.

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.

Copyright © 2009, The Paulick Report

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 By Ray Paulick

Santa Anita Park will be the focal point of the racing world on Friday and Saturday with the 25^th running of the Breeders’ Cup world championships, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the nation’s tracks have gone into hibernation for the week.

It was the second time the event was held at Suffolk Downs following the successful debut last year when more than $1.3 million was raised and 15,000 turned out to take a couple of laps around the one-mile track. All proceeds from the event benefit Autism Speaks, the nation’s leading autism advocacy organization. A growing health crisis, autism is a complex brain disorder now affecting one in every 150 children by inhibiting their ability to commmunicate and develop social relationshiops, and is often accompanied by extreme behavioral challenges. A child is diagnosed with autism every 20 minutes.

Since becoming principal owner of Suffolk Downs last March, Richard Fields has elevated the profile of the track in both the racing and local communities through his support of events like Walk Now for Autism and the creation of a policy to prevent racehorses that compete at his track from being sent to slaughter.  Fields has been a welcome and positive addition to the industry.

In a press teleconference that included former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, whose Washington law firm has been hired to independently monitor the reform movement’s progress, NTRA president and CEO Alex Waldrop called the Alliance a “voluntary” organization. He suggested tracks that don’t conform to the Alliance’s Code of Conduct may be considered pariahs by horseplayers, who will bet their money at tracks that do comply. Waldrop also failed to substantively answer any questions about how the industry will pay for the reforms, even going so far as to say the NTRA has no idea how much the reforms will cost. Click here to read the teleconference transcripts.

HALSEY MINOR IS NOT GIVING UP ON HIALEAH PARK. Just because the technology entrepreneur has shifted his attention to MI Developments, the controlling shareholder of the near-bankrupt racetrack company Magna Entertainment, doesn’t mean he’s taken his eye off Hialeah Park, the dormant South Florida track he wants to buy.

Minor told the Paulick Report he intends to legally challenge the city of Hialeah’s right to turn over the deed for Hialeah Park to John Brunetti four years ago at the end of a 30-year lease agreement between Hialeah and Brunetti. Minor contends that Brunetti failed to live up to the terms of the lease by failing to offer live racing, not holding a pari-mutuel license and falling behind in his payments to the city. Minor thinks the city of Hialeah should enforce an eminent domain claim on the land. If not, he said he has a team of lawyers ready to strike.

Copyright © 2008, The Paulick Report

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There was a time when the New York Racing Association was accused of being both arrogant and complacent, when it was run like a country club by wealthy, old men, most of whom could care less about the concerns of the people who showed up to bet on the horses day after day.

Many of the same wealthy, old men still populate the board of trustees of NYRA and hold title to the cherished clubhouse boxes on the finish line at Saratoga and Belmont Park. The organization, however, has been run since 2005 by a far more dynamic leader than it had seen in its sleepy past: C. Steven Duncker, a former Wall Street financier and poker playing gambler with a sense of street smarts and toughness that he put to good use during the New York racing franchise renewal process that ended happily for NYRA. 

When the tandem of Duncker and the late Peter Karches took over the sinking NYRA ship in the wake of a federal indictment in late 2003, the franchise renewal was looming, and NYRA, careening toward bankruptcy, was becoming everybody’s whipping boy in state government. Among its harshest critics was Eliot Spitzer, the Democratic attorney general who had designs on the governor’s mansion and had said NYRA was a "disaster" and "indifferent to corruption." Even Republican Gov. George Pataki, who would be leaving office around the time the franchise was expected to be awarded in late 2006, had turned on the association. 

In the summer of 2004, Tim Smith, then-commissioner of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, was having high-level discussions to become NYRA’s president and CEO. Charlie Hayward, who had just stepped down as president and CEO of the Daily Racing Form when it was sold to a group of investors, was being recruited to head a new organization, the Friends of New York Racing, a study group with broad-based support that would make recommendations on the future of racing in the state and likely influence the franchise renewal process. 

Duncker, according to sources, fought the appointment of Smith as president, lobbying with Jockey Club chairman and former NYRA chairman Dinny Phipps to go in a different direction. Duncker played his cards correctly, and Smith was suddenly out of the NYRA picture, ending up as president of Friends of New York Racing. Hayward was named president of NYRA. 

The overlap between the Jockey Club and NYRA is unquestionable, with Phipps the most common thread between the two organizations. There is little doubt that he was intimately familiar with the mission and plans for the Friends of New York Racing, since the Jockey Club was one of its founding members. 

Smith soldiered ahead with Friends of New York Racing, writing a report in December 2005 that called for a complete overhaul of the racing laws in 2006 in anticipation of NYRA’s franchise expiration at the end of 2007. The recommendations called for, among other things, consolidation of the racetracks and OTBs and a restructuring of the franchise bidding process that would make it more open to outside groups. 

After Friends of New York Racing was dissolved, Smith eventually became an investor in Empire Racing, a rival to NYRA for the franchise that also had the support of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, Churchill Downs, Magna Entertainment, among others. The move by Smith led to public indignation by Duncker and Hayward, even though insiders said NYRA had once signed on to the idea of joining together with others to bid for the franchise. 

A third major player for the franchise, Excelsior Racing, also emerged. Excelsior was led by hotel and casino developer Richard Fields and assisted by a team of high-profile names that included retired Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey. A fourth bidder was Capital Play, a group affiliated with legal bookmakers in Australia. 

An ad-hoc committee was appointed to review the applications of the bidders and make a non-binding recommendation to the state legislature and governor in late 2006.

Bennett Liebman, executive director of the Government Law Center of Albany Law School and a former member of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board, said he thought NYRA was a long shot to get the nod from the committee. "I would not have anticipated NYRA getting the franchise, considering the way Spitzer treated them when he was attorney general," Liebman told the Paulick Report. "The committee judged NYRA as having the most modest proposal, ranking them third of the three groups (after Capital Play was knocked out for getting their application in late)." 

But Duncker had an ace in the hole, and he was letting everyone know it was there. His power play was the land on which the three NYRA tracks reside. Spitzer, who was elected governor in a landslide as the renewal process was winding down, had said in Saratoga Springs during the campaign that the land was owned by the state of New York - not by NYRA. "We own the land," Spitzer said. "I don’t care what they say. They’re not going to use that as leverage. They are a state entity, created by the state. They’re a pawn of the state. They’ve been told that repeatedly and they should be tossed out on their ear if they don’t understand." 

That didn’t stop Duncker, called a "jihadist" by one of his rivals, from threatening to blow up any deal that didn’t involve NYRA. Duncker is alleged to have said he would sue the state, saying the racetrack properties were owned by NYRA, and tie up the franchise renewal in court for years. He also said NYRA had copyrights on all of the historic races, including the Belmont, and if the franchise was awarded to anyone else they would not be entitled to use the names of such races as the Belmont Stakes. At the same time he was threatening a lawsuit, Duncker lobbied with Spitzer’s office, trying to convince his aides that the NYRA of 2006 was not the same old NYRA that had jumped the tracks legally and financially a few years earlier. As proof of that, a court-appointed monitor had reported that NYRA had cleaned up its act, leading to the dismissal of the federal indictment. Curiously, that same monitor, Neil Getnick, was later hired by NYRA in a controversial no-bid deal. 

When all was said and done, Duncker, who had retired from Wall Street in 2001 at the age of 43 and was taking no salary to head NYRA, helped get the association a 25-year renewal. In exchange, NYRA has received bankruptcy bailouts from the state and gave up its claim to the land, which Duncker told the New York Times earlier this year was worth $1.5 billion.
Spitzer, who would later resign from office following a sex scandal, was singing a different tune when the franchise was renewed to NYRA: ""The only thing that remains of NYRA today that was there when I began to investigate is the name." he said. It didn’t help matters for Excelsior when Spitzer was investigated for riding on Fields’ private jet during the time he was attorney general. Excelsior backed away from its bid when it was clear NYRA was going to get the renewal. 

The deal has not been finalized, and NYRA has had to get a half-dozen extensions from the state since Jan. 1 to continue to operate. It has not yet emerged from bankruptcy, and Hayward has said the association may run out of money as early as next month. Union workers are unhappy because they haven’t received raises in several years, and critics are beginning to question some of NYRA’s recent moves. 

"There have been a series of missteps," said one longtime NYRA observer, who was particularly critical of the hiring of Gavin Landry as vice president of sales and market development. Landry struck a deal with the New York Post to make it the "official" newspaper of NYRA tracks, which hasn’t gone down well with one trustee of the association. "For what?" he asked of the Post deal. "The guy thought he could buy out the press, and (Post racing writer Ed) Fountaine is more critical of NYRA than ever."
Fountaine, in fact, has led a chorus of criticism over Landry’s creation of "NYRA Nation," a fan club whose benefits (a membership card, welcome letter from Hayward, e-mailed newsletter, lapel pin and opportunity to participate in contests) are meaningless to many horseplayers who are more concerned with reducing the takeout.

Landry also brought in a horse mascot during the Belmont meeting and named it Auggie, in "honor" of the founder of the track and one of the original movers and shakers of New York racing. Is that really how August Belmont would like to be remembered? 

The most serious criticism involves the bankruptcy proceedings. "They are spending money like drunken sailors," said one horseman who said he has knowledge of NYRA’s finances. "Charlie Hayward is playing a game of ‘chicken’ with the state, even though he has no tools left in his tool box. They gave away the land and don’t have that anymore, and don’t really have an advocate in state government. It’s time for them to stop running it like a country club." 

During the franchise renewal process, NYRA officials never put forth a vision publicly for what it hoped New York racing could become. The association’s life and death struggle seemed to be more about retaining control of racing than improving the economic conditions for owners or making the consumer experience better for the fans. 

NYRA won the battle, but what do its leaders plan to do with the spoils of their victory? 

By Ray Paulick

Copyright ©2008, The Paulick Report

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