David Siegel | Horse Racing Free Tips

TrackMaster’s David Siegel To Retire At The End Of 2020

David Siegel, who since 1996 has served as president and chief executive officer of TrackMaster (an Equibase Company) and was instrumental in the company's development of a comprehensive line of Thoroughbred and Harness handicapping products, will retire at the end of the year.

The announcement was made today by Jason Wilson, president of Equibase, and Ian Highet, chairman of the Equibase Management Committee. Siegel will be retained as a consultant for 2021.

“Whether under the TrackMaster or Equibase brand, a wide variety of products and services have been introduced for the betterment of racing, and Dave has played a key role in the creation of nearly all of them,” Wilson said. “He has most recently been integral in the expansion of our automated tracking strategies, and his overall contributions have been invaluable. His daily presence will be sorely missed.”

“We are very grateful for Dave's contributions in both Harness and Thoroughbred racing, and we are grateful that we will be able to continue working together, albeit on a reduced scale, for a while longer,” Highet said.

Siegel graduated Union College (Schenectady, N.Y.) summa cum laude with a degree in economics and mathematics and received his MBA from Stanford. He joined TrackMaster as vice president of marketing in 1993, the same year the company launched its service as the first electronic distributor of handicapping products using Equibase data. Siegel was named president of TrackMaster in 1996, and the company was acquired by Equibase four years later.

Under Siegel's leadership, TrackMaster has had an exclusive handicapping data agreement with the United States Trotting Association (USTA). He also managed the company's transition from a proprietary device-centric sports provider to an internet-based enhanced-data provider. Siegel was also integral to the development of the Equibase Speed Figure; TrackMaster Speed, Class and Power Ratings; the automated morning line used in more than 50% of Standardbred programs; and most recently Horse Ratings, a device used for more efficient and fair classification of harness horses.

“Dave has truly been an innovator with respect to the creation of the automated morning lines and Horse Ratings, which have been important for some racetracks to use in writing innovative condition sheets,” said USTA Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Tanner. “The partnership between the USTA and TrackMaster has been a win-win for both organizations, and that is a credit to Dave. His leadership will be missed, but we are happy that he'll stay with us as a USTA director.”

TrackMaster, a wholly owned subsidiary of Equibase Company LLC, provides a full range of handicapping products for the three major racing breeds — Thoroughbred, American Quarter Horse, and Standardbred. Equibase Company is a partnership between subsidiaries of The Jockey Club and the Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America and serves as the Thoroughbred industry's official database. Through its website and mobile applications, Equibase offers a comprehensive array of free statistical information as well as premium handicapping products and reports in support of the North American Thoroughbred racing industry.

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USTA’s Williams: Time Has Passed For Standardbred Industry To Get A ‘Place At The Table’ With Federal Bill

U.S. Trotting Association President Russell C. Williams submitted the following letter to the editor to the Paulick Report this week. Williams wanted to share his thoughts on a letter we published Oct. 16 from USTA director David Siegel. Siegel urged the Standardbred industry to “extend an olive branch” to supporters of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020 with the hope of active participation in any forthcoming federal racing authority.

My friend David Siegel urges the Standardbred industry to be practical and sit down with the federal bill's key supporters to influence its direction regarding Standardbred racing. This is one of several calls for us to come to the table. All of them suffer from a fundamental misunderstanding of how laws work.

Passing a law is completely different from, say, issuing an invitation to discuss a plan to strengthen integrity, something that never happened in this case. If the bill passes, it will become a federal statute. “Place at the table” platitudes like David's ignore that with a statute you can get what is provided in the statute, and you cannot get what is not provided. For a negotiation to have any meaning at this point, it would have to be possible for the bill's language to change before it becomes a statute. Our experience over more than three years demonstrates that this is impossible.

A good example of how the bill leaves nothing to be discussed at any table is its special approach to race-day Lasix. The key supporters selected this particular therapeutic medication and explicitly banned it. A remarkable gauntlet of language in the bill makes even the slightest modification of the ban impossible to achieve. There is, therefore, nothing to negotiate regarding the race-day Lasix ban, enshrined as it is in the language of the bill itself. This exemplifies the fallacy in the “be practical and negotiate” message.

The same goes for all the other ways in which the bill is unacceptable. Since we were first inserted into the bill without our knowledge or consent, the Standardbred industry has repeatedly explained our objections to it, every one of which would require changes to its language. The key supporters have consistently set their faces against even a single change. Thus, a one-sided negotiation has already been going on for more than three years, during which our concerns have been completely disregarded.

The United States Trotting Association is not alone in objecting to the language of the bill. The National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association represents 29,000 Thoroughbred people who are not in racing for the silver cups. Like most USTA members, most of them make their living in racing and, like us, they object to the language of the bill. The American Quarter Horse Association has 221,000 members, and they also object to the language of the bill. None of us is interested in an opportunity to sit down now, at the Children's Table.

The time for harness racing to have been offered a place at a table was before we got shoehorned into a done deal of someone else's making. That would have been a good faith moment in which to discuss a legislative approach that would credibly allow for the profound differences in the breeds, account for the still-unknown costs that a new federal regulatory tier will rain down on us if we tolerate this legislation, and preserve to us the decisive voice in our own destiny that we deserve to keep.

Fortunately, we have other, eminently practical ways to prevent the federal bill's key supporters – no, let us call them what they are: its elite supporters — from imposing their notion of a future on us.

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Horseracing Integrity And Safety Act: A Standardbred Supporter’s Practical View

There has been much publicity about the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020 (HISA). As a United States Trotting Association (USTA) director and active participant in the racing side of the business as an owner and a driver, and also as an executive in a business that touches upon both Standardbred and Thoroughbred racing, I have paid close attention to the long-term efforts by both breed organizations to get uniform rules and uniform enforcement along with the creation of disincentives for participants to cheat.

In sum, all of these efforts have failed. Focusing on harness racing, my true passion, anyone who does not believe that the industry is experiencing rampant cheating is living in a dream world. Cheating occurs at a variety of levels, but I will focus on cheating that involves medication, which affects all facets of the business.

HISA has been passed by the House of Representatives in a unanimous (voice) vote, and it is extremely likely it will have a similar outcome in the Senate. No matter where we as harness racing supporters stand on the legislation, it is time to accept it, look at its potential benefits, and work hard to get as much representation as possible and as loud a voice as possible for our Standardbreds. Recent letters by Russell Williams and Joe Faraldo, the USTA's president and chairman, respectively, were not very cordial with regard to their Thoroughbred counterparts. They threw some pretty sharp daggers, perhaps some deserved, but for sure not all. With regard to comments about coming to the table, I know first-hand that at least on one occasion, it was the USTA that put forth ultimatums in order to even sit down.

Nevertheless, all of that is water under the bridge at this point, as are the monies spent by the USTA to fight the bill. In business, we call these sunk costs and fretting whether or not it made sense to spend the money will bear no fruit. What makes sense is to look at life under the legislation and to extend an olive branch to its supporters and try to reap the benefits of the bill, even though it might fall short of a utopian situation for harness racing.

I personally know a number of the key figures involved. I have nothing but respect for the skills and intellect of Joe Faraldo and Russell Williams. I also know that Jim Gagliano (president and chief operating officer of The Jockey Club) is a very reasonable man. And while I don't personally know Meadowlands racetrack owner Jeff Gural, I do believe that he is genuinely interested in bringing better integrity to our game. I also know with 100% certainty that all four of these men have this in common – so things start with much common ground. And while the USTA clearly lost the “war” over the legislation, I do not believe that the supporters have any inclination to stick it to the USTA. In fact, I believe quite the contrary; they would support different rules for breeds that have profound differences in how they race. But to get to that point, the USTA must make the proper overtures to work together now within the confines of the legislation.

Medication (and other abuse-related) reform is badly needed in our game. Cheating abounds in harness racing, a great deal of that falling within the spectrum of medication abuse. Most state racing commissions have done a terrible job in weeding out cheaters and horse abusers. I base that on what I have seen with my own eyes and countless written accounts of cheaters being allowed to continue to participate. And the failure is not just at the level of the commissions, but also at the track level, where known paper trainers or “beards” abound and other violations take place, where asserting private property rights, even with due process, could be exercised to exorcise the problems. But most tracks choose to look the other way. This goes on at nearly every harness track in the country.

Therefore, I urge Russell Williams and Joe Faraldo to reconsider their position and lead the membership in a pivoted direction given likely enactment of this legislation. There is still time to sit down with the key supporters of the bill, before or after its passage and influence its direction with regard to Standardbred racing. I further ask that they put aside any personal issues with others that may be on the opposite side of this debate and view this with the great practicality and professionalism that I know both are capable of, no matter how they might perceive various supporters to behave – in other words, take the highest road. I encourage them to rethink the cost-benefit of any further spending in opposition to the bill before or after its inevitable passage and embrace the possible positive outcomes the bill could mean for harness racing. Furthermore, I encourage them to do their best to exert whatever influence they might have so that our Standardbreds can get the most favorable treatment possible if our breed ever becomes subject to this legislation.

David Siegel is a USTA board member from District 3. He is a Standardbred horse owner and a professional harness driver with over 500 wins. He is also the president of TrackMaster. TrackMaster is a longstanding partner of the USTA for the development and distribution of electronic harness racing handicapping information, automated morning lines, and horse ratings used for race classification. TrackMaster is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Equibase Company. Equibase Company is a partnership of The Jockey Club and the TRA (Thoroughbred Racing Associations of North America), whose diverse membership includes ownership entities of both thoroughbred and harness tracks. The views he expressed here are his own.

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