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Pat Cummings Joins the ‘TDN Writers’ Room’ Podcast to Discuss the National Thoroughbred Alliance

In late October, prominent and outspoken owner Mile Repole announced that he was launching something he called the National Thoroughbred Alliance (NTA). Repole's goal is to shake things up in the industry and makes changes for the better. That will be the goal, too, of his right hand man, Pat Cummings, who came over from the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation to serve as Repole's executive director. On this week's TDN Writers' Room sponsored by Keeneland, Cummings was asked about the goals for the Alliance, how he can build consensus in a sport famous for infighting and how the group can make changes when it doesn't have any regulatory power. Cummings was the Green Group Guest of the Week.

Cummings, who describes the project as a work in progress, said one frustrating factor he has run into so far is that the fiefdoms don't want to make sacrifices for the greater good of the sport, a problem that has been around as long as the sport has.

“One of the things we found, and I think a lot of people would agree with this, is that if you started having a conversation with people in many different streams of the sport, the racing space, aftercare, the wagering side, when you're talking about kind of the big issues in racing, most people are going to agree about many of those things,” Cummimgs said. “And we've had some tremendous calls in the first couple of months with different organizations, leaders, individuals in every space of the business. And what we have found is that there's a tremendous amount of commonality. Our interests in improving the sport are shared. But when you start to poke into areas that directly impact certain individuals, the pushback starts to come and it's like, well, I agree on 90% over here, but on this 10%, which directly affects me, maybe I'm not so interested in changing all of a sudden, or maybe I don't want to go about rethinking the way in which my business generates revenue or how my members are impacted one way or another. So we are finding that there's a lot of openness to change, but there's a lot of potentially, you know, door closing that goes on when you suggest that change might need to affect everybody in some way, shape or form.”

Cummings said there will be eight key areas that the NTA will focus on.

“The way we see it, racing aftercare, education, sales, wagering, PR, marketing, breeding and then horsemen support rather generic catch all about the way in which we help not just owners and trainers individually, but their staffs and how they work and operate within our business,” he said. “If we have aligned that, there are these eight key areas that all need an element of focus and we have identified some opportunity areas within each of them.”

But without any authority or power, which rests now with the racetracks, racing commissions, HISA, The Jockey Club, horsemen's groups and others how can you usher in changes?

“I didn't have any authority with Thoroughbred Idea Foundation either,” he said. “But we inspired folks, we educated, we advocated and we did help get some things done and even some of those things that we did help facilitate getting done. They haven't always gone smoothly either, you know. So even when you do have that authority, it doesn't mean it's going to go off smoothly. When we set out five years ago and said, let's write a paper about breakage saying, 'Oh yeah, that's cute, that's nice and it's a problem and we need to fix it.' Well, yeah. So let's put a plan together to try and work on that. And we did. We had to get our law changed here in Kentucky. We tried to work with some other states. We realized some of those doors weren't open. We weren't able to work in New York, for example, on that particular topic. But maybe New York will focus on it in 2024. They've given some indications that there's a chance to do that. And if we saw New York adopt pending breakage in 2024, that be a huge win that I never saw coming.”

Also on the show the hosts discussed the Coolmore Stallion of the Week, Jack Christopher. By Munnings, Jack Christopher was 5-for-5 around one turn, including three Grade I wins, in the Woody Stephens by 10, the Allen Jerkens by 1 3/4, and the Champagne by 2 3/4 lengths–all that after his eight-plus length 'TDN Rising Star' debut at Saratoga.

Elsewhere on the podcast, which is also sponsored by Elite Power, WinStar Farm, the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, 1/ST Racing, the KTA & KTOB, West Point Thoroughbreds, and XBTV.com, the team of Randy Moss and Bill Finley took a look back at 2023 and a look ahead to 2024. The consensus was that 2023, for numerous reasons was not a good year for the sport. To make things better we offered solutions for 2024. Finley advocated for the SafeSTRIDE technology, which has proven it can cause a significant cut in breakdowns to become a regular fixture at the track. “What are we waiting for?” he said. But Moss warned that as long as breeders don't focus on soundness and durability and continue to breed to fast horses who had brief careers and soundness issues, then nothing would change. The team also took a look at their Eclipse Award selections, and they largely agreed on all the categories. The exception was the Filly & Mare Sprint, where Moss is casting his vote for Echo Zulu (Gun Runner), while Finley and Zoe Cadman said they voted for Goodnight Olive (Ghostzapper). All three also cast their votes for Bill Mott for champion trainer.

Click here for the audio-only podcast and click here to watch the podcast.

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What Was Your Favorite Moment Of 2023: Pat Cummings

As 2023 draws to a close, the TDN is asking industry members to name their favorite moment of the year. Send yours to suefinley@thetdn.com

“The best moment from 2023 was the confirmation that the state of New York would be loaning NYRA nearly half a billion dollars to build a modern Belmont Park. I'd rate this occurrence as possibly the most positive development in the sport since the founding of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance. The seeds of this were planted in the years before VLT revenue started flowing in New York and it was decided NYRA wanted a slice of that revenue to go to a capital expenditure fund instead of just diverting it all to purses. That foresight was so very necessary. The future of the sport in New York is bright and that's monumentally important for every other stakeholder in the sport.”
-Pat Cummings, National Thoroughbred Alliance

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Repole Announces Formation of National Thoroughbred Alliance, Hires Cummings as Executive Director

Owner Mike Repole's efforts to form a group that he hopes can help solve some of the sport's problems and create growth in an industry that has been in a downward spiral for decades took a step forward Thursday with Repole announcing that he has formed what he is calling the National Thoroughbred Alliance (NTA). Pat Cummings, who has headed the Thoroughbred Idea Foundation, has been hired as the alliance's executive director.

Repole said he picked the name because he thought using the term alliance sent a message that the organization would be inclusive and because he is an admirer of the original NTA, also known as the National Thoroughbred Association. That organization was founded in the early 90s by Fred Pope and Repole's NTA shares some of the same goals of its predecessor.

“I've reached out to Fred and had a couple of great conversations with him,” Repole said. “What Fred's vision was 30 years ago for the sport was amazing and is a lot of what we need today.”

Repole said he will fund the new organization himself and said he is prepared to spend “millions” to see it succeed.

Even though he is among the most successful owners in the sport and a major buyer each year at the sales, Repole has been open about his frustrations with the industry and his fears that it isn't that far removed from extinction.

“Yes, we have survived, but that still means we've gone from 35,000 mares to 18,000 mares and all these tracks have closed,” he said. “You can call that survival and we have survived over the last 30 years. But there's no way racing will exist in another 15-20 years if we don't make changes now. It's easy for me to say I'll be out of the game in five years because everybody's going to be out in 10 years because it probably won't exist in 10 years.”

Repole said much of racing's problems can be attributed to the fact that no one involved in the industry seems to have a vision or strategy about how to grow the sport as a whole. It is vital, he said, for groups to put aside their self interests and begin to make decisions that will benefit the entire industry.

“This is a sport that has gone from growth to stagnant to now a massive decline,” he said. “How do we now go from keeping the status quo to improvement and then growth? Every successful business has a vision. There isn't anybody that has a vision for this sport. On top of vision, there is also no strategy. You can survive with strategy and no vision. You can't survive with no vision and no strategy.”

Repole is aware that his organization will launch with a distinct disadvantage, in that it will have no power to make any changes on its own and will be trying to make fixes in a sport filled with individual fiefdoms that traditionally look out for nothing more than their own special interests. The key to making progress, Repole said, is getting the various stakeholders to realize the sport will be better off overall if people are aligned and united and that a thriving sport is good for all involved.

“This is about unity, this is about improvement, this is about trying a different take to get everybody to work together,” he said. “This isn't going to be the Mike Repole vision. It's going to be a shared vision. This is a vision of listening, of talking to others. Maybe when they share their vision, which might be selfish, and we then tell them why the other nine spokes on the wheel won't work, we're hoping they'll say 'Now I get it. This doesn't work for the industry.' Once there's an understanding of what's working and what's not working, then we can figure out what we need to do better.

“Over the next 12 months we're going to see who cares about the industry and who cares just about themselves. Getting this sport united and aligned with a vision of what we want this sport to be is going to be so important.”

Repole said the first step toward getting industry leaders unified is to get them all in the same room.

“We need to bring people to the table,” he said. “If you get people together they will help each other. 'How did you handle that problem?' 'Well, this is what we did.' 'What worked here?' 'How did you do this?' The formation of great ideas happens with brainstorming.”

Repole said he had never met Cummings before he began to go to work on forming the NTA, but added that he was immediately impressed by his knowledge and enthusiasm.

“Pat has the compassion and the inspiration to fix this but obviously not the resources,” Repole said. “He's not one of the top owners or someone who invests a lot of money in the sport, which makes it tougher. But he still has the energy and passion. We hit it off right away. He's the perfect guy to lead this initiative.”

Repole's one-hour conference call with racing reporters was part doom and gloom, with just enough optimism sprinkled in that it's clear Repole is very dedicated to this project and passionate about racing's future.

“It's time to turn racing from the Flintstones to the Jetsons,” he said.

But he was not able to offer a lot of specifics concerning the formation of the alliance and just how it could twist enough arms that the changes Repole says the sport desperately needs can come to fruition. He's confident he can figure that out.

“When you're building this new brand or entity, you don't really know what you need or who you need until after you get started,” he said, referring to his creating and then selling the brands VitaminWater and BodyArmour.

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