In a piece published on the Paulick Report Aug. 16, I talked about what's right and what's wrong with horse racing. Today's Part 2 of that commentary is a little uglier.
In the midst of reading Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, I was struck by a simple fact: homo sapiens rose to the top of the food chain because of our unique ability to cooperate in numbers greater than a hundred. There is no other mammal that can maintain a colony, herd or otherwise cohesive group once their numbers exceed a hundred or so members.
Yes, the ability to communicate helped. But lots of species have a language of their own, some that we understand to some extent, others that we know nothing about.
Fire helped. A lot. As did the advent of farming. But our rise to the top of the food chain some 50,000 years ago occurred because of our unique ability to cooperate in large numbers. Quoted from Sapiens:
“Ants and bees can also work together in huge numbers, but they do so in a very rigid manner and only with close relatives. Wolves and chimpanzees cooperate far more flexibly than ants, but they can do so only with small numbers of other individuals that they know intimately. Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers. That's why Sapiens rule the world, whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.”
Until you get to the unique sapiens in American horse racing.
Everyone has a stake in this, and, to our credit, each and every individual has tried to get others to see things their way. We've even formed several organizations over the years that were intended to bring everyone to the table in the spirit of cooperation. Sadly, it seems that each new entity that is formed spurs the formation of another special interest group to protect their agendas and assets.
Disparate groups: can we learn from benchmarks?
We have national organizations such as the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), the Jockey Club and the Thoroughbred Racing and Protective Bureau (TRPB). And then a national owners' and breeders' group (TOBA), along with regional owners' and breeders' groups in every racing jurisdiction (CTBA, KTOBA, NYTB, etc.). We have a national horsemen's organization (HBPA) and then, of course, a regional HBPA in each jurisdiction. In 2019 we saw the formation of the Thoroughbred Safety Coalition, comprised of the Breeders' Cup, Keeneland, Churchill Downs, Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, New York Racing Association and the Stronach Group. I could go on.
All of these organizations have been formed with the intention of making horse racing better, getting people to the table, and/or protecting their own interests. To be sure, they have all achieved some minor or major successes. But we have not been willing to set our differences of opinions aside and agree upon a uniform set of rules and codes of conduct.
The Olympics and the International Olympic Committee
I've long been a fan of the recently-concluded Olympic Games as they embody all that I love about sports. If the Olympics — an international competition, currently comprised of more than 200 countries and numerous sports — has managed to achieve a consistent level of success through cooperation, how is it possible that we cannot do the same? We are only one country, one sport. Thirty-eight different jurisdictions. Thirty-eight different sets of rules.
The modern Olympic Games began in 1896 after the formation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894, and today, the IOC remains the governing body of the Olympics. In terms of growth, the 1896 Olympics consisted of 14 participating nations whose athletes competed in 9 different sports. Today, more than 200 nations compete in 35 different sports, and there is one set of rules for each discipline.
From country to country, these various disciplines were often played with at least slightly different rules and nuances. Yet, 200 nations have shown us that not only is it possible to agree on the rules of these 35 different sports, it's also possible to agree on how they should be adjudicated.
Example: drug use.
Therapeutic drug use has been a point of contention in both horse racing and the Olympics. The IOC handled it by allowing the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to create therapeutic drug use exemptions that are fairly straightforward. The three criteria that must be met to grant a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) are:
If we had kept it that simple when it came to the use of furosemide (commonly referred to by its trade name, Lasix) this would not have turned into such a contentious issue in U.S. racing. Three simple questions/criteria. Not really that complicated.
That's sort of how it started with furosemide. In nearly every racing jurisdiction in which it was initially permitted a trainer had to prove that the horse had bled via an endoscopic exam and a subsequent veterinary report or state veterinary observation that the horse had bled substantially enough to require furosemide. And then, somewhere along the way, the floodgates opened. By the time the Horseracing Safety and Integrity Act was passed, something like 90% of the horses competing in United States horse racing were competing on Lasix.
The arguments for and against are, quite frankly, pointless. Yes, some horses need it. Yes, the use of Lasix was wildly out of control. No, we could not agree in numbers in excess of a hundred about how this needed to be handled.
And that is really the point: can we finally agree to agree/disagree in numbers over 100? We are at a watershed moment in horse racing where we have to decide if we will cooperate. Organized horse racing has existed since the beginning of recorded history. Unsanctioned horse racing first sprang up in the United States in 1665 and in 1868, when the American Stud Book was first published, it became much more organized. Between 1665 and 1868 horse racing grew through cooperation, not division. The Breeders' Cup, the brainchild of the late, great John Gaines, was birthed into fruition through cooperation and has grown by the same means.
The Roman Empire reigned for 500 years and no one alive during that time could have predicted its collapse at its peak. Horse racing has been taking a steady downward slide from its apogee for at least the past 20 years. In 2000, $14,321,000 was wagered on horse racing in the United States. After a steady decline over the past 20 years, that number fell to $10,930,000 in 2020. Adjusting for inflation this is a 50% reduction in handle in 20 years. An unsustainable hemorrhage.
Getting back to the Olympic Games, without cooperation and the leadership of the International Olympic Committee and their agreed-upon set of standards, the Olympic Games would never have survived. They faced many challenges along the way, including two world wars, the Cold War boycotts, doping scandals, a terrorist attack in 1972 and the COVID-19 pandemic postponing the 2020 games. But they have managed to cooperate and, at the end of the day, rise above the mayhem.
Horse racing cannot survive without leadership and cohesiveness either. The Horseracing Safety and Integrity Authority may not be the perfect answer but right now is not the time to let the unrealistic ideal of “perfect” get in the way of good. If we, the sport of horse racing and all of its participants, cannot cooperate we will fall the way of the wolves and the chimpanzees. Individually, we will survive. But our sport will not.
Donna Barton Brothers is a retired jockey, award-winning sports analyst, author, and chief operating officer for Starlight and StarLadies Racing. She serves on the executive board of the TAA and TIF, and is on the advisory boards of Boys & Girls Haven and the University of Kentucky Research Department's Jockey and Equestrian Initiative.
The post Brothers: Don’t Let ‘Perfect’ Get In The Way Of ‘Good’ National Leadership By HISA appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
The way someone talks about decoupling in horse racing will almost instantly tell the listener whether that person is for or against it. A panel at the Racing and Gaming Conference At Saratoga Aug. 16 struggled to agree even on how to refer to the money given to racetracks by casino companies – are they subsidies, or aren't they? And should they continue?
There was a time when casino companies and racetracks were competitors, but about 40 years ago when casinos began expanding, casinos made a deal with the racetrack ownership in the state where they wanted to build – allow us to coexist, and you can have a share of our revenue. Most of the time, that money goes into purse accounts and may sometimes be transferred to offset the use of a racetrack's physical plant, in the case of tracks that are host to casino games.
Marc Dunbar, a Florida-based shareholder of Dean, Mead and Dunbar, said he has worked for racetracks and casino companies alike and watched decoupling contribute to the end of greyhound racing in Florida. The shift was small at first, Dunbar said – at first, poker rooms were authorized to operate but only on live racing days, then on dark days. The same thing happened with simulcast – at first harness tracks had to race year-round in order to import signals year-round but over time they were able to cut back live racing by about two-thirds.
“Lawyers like me and others came up with alternative ways to race horses and still meet the statutory minimum,” Dunbar acknowledged. “Decoupling is here to stay.”
Once casinos no longer have to give a portion of revenue to purse accounts and their licenses are no longer dependent on the existence of live racing, they're able to shed live racing from their business plan. That's a good thing for many of them, because live racing isn't all that profitable. It was ultimately a partnership between animal rights activists and casinos that made Greyhound racing in Florida illegal, according to Dunbar, and he believes that partnership could happen again to eliminate live horse racing.
While those looking from the outside in call those payments from casinos to racetracks “subsidies,” that's not a comfortable term for those inside the racing industry who want to preserve that cash flow. Thinking about those legally-required payments as subsidies isn't a good look for the racing industry, according to Sharon Ward, policy and communications consultant and former director of Pennsylvania's Budget Office.
“Pennsylvania is not like New York,” said Ward. “There is no glamor, no parades, and no people in fancy dress. There are very few people taking their kids on a Sunday outing to the racetrack. It has a very different market. The allure that surrounds horse racing and has for a long time doesn't exist, certainly, in Pennsylvania. By every measure, it's declining.”
From the perspective of a taxpayer, said Ward, it's hard to justify allowing horse racing to continue getting subsidies from casinos, because they could rightly view that as money that would otherwise be paid to the state in taxes. Ward's calculations find about $15,000 in benefits per horse to owners through casinos, while state subsidy programs to college students only amount to about $5,000 per student. Even industry-generated figures totaling jobs and economic impact generated by racing pale in comparison to other industries in Pennsylvania, like tourism, which Ward says aren't given the same government-mandated cash flow. The fact that owners are among the direct beneficiaries of increased purses, and yet don't expect to make a profit on their racing stable almost makes the system more problematic, in Ward's view, as she likened it to the state diverting funds to someone to support maintenance of their sailboat or fishing equipment.
“Most businesses have to make a profit, and if they don't, they have to change their business model to make a profit,” said Ward. “Why haven't you? Or, I guess you have, by getting taxpayer subsidies.”
“What about the people you're taking this money from?” asked Joe Faraldo, president of the Standardbred Owners Association of New York and director of the U.S. Trotting Association. “What about those grooms, what about those guys who sell food outside the Plainfield Avenue gate at Belmont Park?
“There are guys in our industry that want to get rid of racing (these are mostly private track owners on the harness side) because if they get rid of racing, they get rid of a lot of the costs and a lot of the problems they have with racing. That's a horrible thing, and it's going on.”
Joe Appelbaum, president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association and NYRA board member, acknowledged that there is great variability from one state to the next as far as the health of their racing industries and the economic impact of those industries. He expressed frustration, however, that so much casino revenue had gone into purses over the years and not into developing new ownership or capital projects at many tracks.
Many of the usual arguments from the industry, like its ability to preserve jobs and green space in urban areas, aren't compelling to state legislators like they used to be, according to Dunbar. He said he routinely had Florida legislators ask him why The Stronach Group didn't give up on racing at Gulfstream and build condominiums on the valuable real estate there.
“We have to be real that we are going to go through a contraction in order for this game to survive another 100 years,” Dunbar said.
The post When It Comes To Decoupling, ‘Subsidies’ Is A Dirty Word For Some, The Perfect One To Others appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
