“The horse is the sport. The horse is the product. And the owner owns the product. Let me say this again. We own the product. Not the race track.” – G. Watts Humphrey, Jr., 1994 Jockey Club Round Table
“It's time now that the owners take back this game.” – Mike Repole, 2023 television interview
Here we go again.
It's been more than 30 years since Lexington advertising executive Fred Pope ran a series of commentaries in horse racing publications asking the basic question, “Whose Game Is It?” As an advocate for owners, Pope was clearly in the camp that said the game belonged to the people who owned the horses.
Pope created an entity known as the National Thoroughbred Association and with the support of the late John Gaines enlisted more than 100 owners, each contributing $50,000 in seed money in 1996 with the goal of creating a “major league” of Thoroughbred racing. Pope modeled the NTA after the PGA Tour, an entity controlled by the Tour players, who hired professional staff to negotiate television contracts and tournaments throughout the country on their behalf. The idea was for NTA owners to band together in similar fashion, creating a circuit of the best horses and the best races.
But there was a small problem in handing over to a group of horse owners the right to negotiate simulcasting and purse contracts. The Interstate Horseracing Act, passed into law by Congress in 1978, said interstate wagering – then in its infancy but now accounting for nearly 90 percent of wagering – could only be conducted with the consent of the host racing association, which must have a written agreement with the “horsemen's group.” The law defines “horsemen's group” as the “group which represents the majority of owners and trainers racing” at a given track that wants to accept interstate wagers on a race.
Having Congress tinker with the Interstate Horseracing Act is akin to playing with matches in a fireworks factory. Not a good idea.
The NTA never got off the ground, in part because the late Ogden Mills Phipps, then chairman of The Jockey Club, believed in consensus building with other organizations, including racetracks and existing horsemen's groups. Thus, the NTA morphed into the National Thoroughbred Racing Association and attempted to build a “league office.” But even the NTRA, with all the constituency groups involved, lacked the clout to set policy and negotiate purse contracts or anything of game-changing significance. It turned out to be another toothless tiger.
So Mike Repole said he wants to create a new organization of leading owners and trainers, but unless it can be proven it represents a majority of horsemen in a given state, this new entity would not have the authority to negotiate purse and simulcast agreements with a racetrack.
Thoroughbred owner John Ed Anthony spoke at the same 1994 Jockey Club Round Table as Watts Humphrey. He was concerned then that casinos would lead to the end of horse racing. Anthony wanted racetracks to decide: Are they going to promote casino gambling or horse racing? Either way, he said, owners would need a place to race their horses.
“In some areas,” Anthony said, “we may have to race in an open field and view the events from tailgates and the backend of pick-up trucks. But we will control our industry.”
Repole outlined his goals and some action items for the new organization he is proposing on the former Twitter social media platform now known as X.
It's time!!!!!
Racing needs change NOW. We need a NEW association led by the owners and trainers of this game that we all love and are passionate about. We need to turn selfish into SELFLESS and each do our part for the future of this great sport that is in poor health.
The…
— Repole Stable (@RepoleStable) October 9, 2023
Some might say Repole is a walking contradiction. During a nationally televised interview with Nick Luck at Keeneland last weekend, Repole said this of racing: “There isn't anything in the sport that is good right now.”
Yet, as Luck pointed out, Repole had just purchased, in his name or in partnership, some 43 yearlings at the Keeneland September Sale for more than $16 million.
Why, he was asked, make such an investment if the sport is going in the wrong direction?
“I'm a big idiot just like every other owner in this game, because we take this,” Repole said. “We take this from Churchill, we take this from other tracks, we take this from other associations. It can't happen anymore. If we want this sport to move forward, the only way is if the owners just take over control.”
Repole specifically mentioned Churchill Downs, where he's directed his ire for more than a decade. In 2013, when he had runners in both the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby, he complained that “they give you nothing” in terms of seating and he had to spend a small fortune to get family and friends accommodations in what was then a new section of Churchill Downs called the Mansion. “It's cheaper to buy a mansion than be in the Mansion,” Repole told the New York Daily News.
Ten years later, in a statement published in Thoroughbred Daily News, Repole said “the way owners get treated (at the Kentucky Derby) is an embarrassment. We buy our own tickets, and if you want more than 10-15 people, you have to buy your own seats. I have to run second in the Kentucky Derby just to break even.”
As Repole then pointed out, he hasn't come close to running second, and the regulatory veterinarian determining that Repole and partner Vincent Viola's pre-race favorite Forte be scratched on the morning of this year's Derby was only salt in his wounds.
Repole and others have made good points that the Kentucky Derby purse should be higher than the $3-million it's been since 2019. It didn't even get to $1 million until 1996, 15 years after the inaugural Arlington Million and a dozen years after the Breeders' Cup first offered $10 million in prize money in seven races, including the $3 million Classic.
Churchill Downs officials know they have the rights to the race that virtually every horse owner wants to win, so higher prize money will do nothing to attract better horses. In other words, they'll raise the purse when they damn well feel like it.
Maybe John Ed Anthony had it right. Horse owners itching to prove they have the best 3-year-old may want to band together and start looking for a racetrack to lease on the first Saturday in May or find an open field to run their horses against one another. They can save money by foregoing the Churchill Downs Mansion and luxury suites and enjoy the races from the back of a pickup truck.
At least they'd be in control of the game.
That's my view from the eighth pole.
The post View From The Eighth Pole: Can Horse Owners Really Take Control Of The Game? appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
