stephen cook | Horse Racing Free Tips

It's no secret the COVID-19 pandemic has proven disruptive and dangerous to the business and sport of horse racing, but some international authorities say some good things have emerged from this unprecedented time.

In the first digital presentation released Monday as part of the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA) annual conference, a panel of racetrack officials and racing authorities gathered to talk about the challenges and lessons from the pandemic so far. This year's 54th international conference is being conducted virtually for the first time, with conference materials being released gradually over the next two weeks. This year's focus will be on COVID-19 and its impacts on racing. In most years, the IFHA conference is held on the day after the Group 1 Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe at the France Galop offices in Paris.

Readers are familiar with the challenges faced by American racetracks starting in March and April, as some had to shut down, close to fans, or delay major races. In other countries, cross-border travel restrictions caused significant headaches even when racing resumed.

Andrew Harding, executive director of racing at the Hong Kong Jockey Club, said that organization was particularly taxed, as racing in Hong Kong relies much more heavily on horse movement than in other countries. It's also a lot more concentrated population of participants, with a much smaller pool of jockeys, stewards and trainers licensed to keep horses running, so Harding and his colleagues knew they had to be as strict as possible with biosecurity measures.

“If one of [the stewards] were to become infected, in normal circumstances they'd all be sitting in the same room together. In one fell swoop, we'd lose all our stewards,” he said, pointing out that would be the end of racing while officials were quarantined.

Hong Kong jockeys were divided into four clusters and had their jockeys' quarters separated to keep riders in bubbles. Stewards were also given separate rooms to minimize the risk of disease spread. Additionally, licensees were required to provide Hong Kong racing officials with a daily log of their temperatures. Jockeys were required to provide officials with an activity schedule so they could be advised what their potential risk for exposure might be, and to provide a guide for contract tracing should a COVID-19 positive occur.

In the United States, many racing fans have become frustrated by what seems like an uneven application of government regulations to different businesses. For a period of time this spring, Santa Anita Park was closed to fans and required jockeys to live on-site to reduce exposure, while crowds of people poured into the Los Angeles County Arboretum across the street. William Derby, chief executive and clerk of course at York Racecourse, told panelists the same is true in England, where he's aware of nearby bars and pubs beginning to bustle while fans are still not permitted at the track. In fact, York had to erect 3.5 kilometers of fencing to keep people away from the racecourse despite it being on public land. Still, Derby pointed out, local and national governments are overwhelmed, dealing with basic safety questions for hospitals and schools, and patience is key.

“Sport takes its place in the queue, despite the fact [racing] is a very important employer; 18,000 jobs in the UK rely on it,” he said.

Still, some good things have come out of the pandemic. Stephen Cook, director of content for IMG Productions, said that as soon as racing fans were barred from coming to the track, his team had to think of ways to recreate the experience for them remotely — including filming horses whenever possible in their stable yards and in workouts to create a sense of familiarity before they headed to the track.

“It's helped us jump probably a couple of years ahead on something we'd be behind on if this hadn't happened,” said Cook.

Of course, racing was one of very few live sports that was able to carry on or return quickly after initial shutdowns in the spring. Olivier Delloye, CEO of France Galop, said that after racing resumed in France, it took just five weeks for handle to regain its 2019 averages. From early June until now, wagering has consistently been up 10 to 20 percent over last year.

“We didn't expect that,” Delloye said. “We were all worried that even if the betting shops would reopen, even if people were opening new digital accounts, people would think of many other things than going to bet on horse racing.”

The panelists are certainly not seeing a cloudless sky ahead, however. Delloye and Derby both worry tremendously about ownership retention, as owners have been hit particularly hard in the wallets by the spring shutdowns. For Cook, questions remain about whether racing will be able to capitalize on its time in the spotlight and turn temporary interest into long-term loyalty once the virus is controlled and other sports return. In the more near term, Harding worries about how many racing authorities can outlast the ongoing disruptions COVID-19 is causing.

'”As hard as it's been in the UK and France, there are some countries where they haven't been able to operate in a manner that's profitable,” he said. “How long that's sustainable is troubling to me. That will have an impact globally.”

Hong Kong has no breeding program of its own, so potential future impacts of the current economic downturn on the international foal crop is another long-term concern.

All in all, Keeneland president-elect Shannon Arvin said she looks to the future with a mixture of realism and optimism, uncertain of what comes next, but hopeful racing's new lessons will carry it through.

“We don't know how long this will last,” she said. “Somebody asked me this morning, 'Will we have fans back in April?' I don't know the answer to that.

“I think there are definitely silver linings to the pandemic, and I think we need to keep looking for them. I think the perseverance that so many in our industry have shown and that resiliency is shining through ad showing us the silver linings. Winston Churchill said, 'Never let a good crisis go to waste.' I think about how the Keeneland sales actually started, which is during World War II, because we weren't able to ship horses up to New York so we started our own sale. Now of course, that's such a critical part of our business as well as a key piece of the industry and the marketplace. I'm excited to see what innovations come of this.”

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The 54th International Conference of Horseracing Authorities began on Monday in a virtual format, with a series of videos to be released over the first two weeks of October. The conference organized by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities is traditionally held in Paris, France on the day after the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, but the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a virtual format this year.

The first panel was entitled ‘Sustaining the Business of Racing and Sports in the Midst of a Global Pandemic and Economic Uncertainty.’ Hosted by media personality Rishi Persad, it featured Shannon Bishop Arvin (Keeneland Association), Stephen Cook (IMG), Olivier Delloye (France Galop), William Derby (York Racecourse) and Andrew Harding (Hong Kong Jockey Club).

The panelists set the scene by describing some of the less visible challenges they have faced throughout the pandemic. Delloye took it back to the early days of the pandemic when the covering season in France appeared under threat.

“At some stages we were very worried that the covering season would have to be put to an end,” he recalled. “And of course in March it would have been a disaster for the whole industry. That would have cost the whole industry fortunes for many years. There was a lot of discussion and negotiation with the government to ensure the basic [elements] of our industry were not jeopardized.”

Derby described the challenges of operating on public land.

“It’s been a huge undertaking for all racecourses,” he acknowledged. “A unique circumstance of York is that the centre of the racecourse is a public area of land so we had to put up 3 1/2 kilometres of fencing to allow people access to the centre of the course but to keep them away from the racing surface so we could keep up with the protocols of behind closed doors racing.

“We, like a lot of people, had lots of different operating plans depending on what the government would be announcing going forward like welcoming back crowds under pilot schemes, which then didn’t happen at the last minute. So there’s been a huge amount of aborted work to try and anticipate what might happen in this fast-evolving situation.”

Arvin said Keeneland has faced similar challenges in being a cherished element of the local community in Kentucky.

“Our plans have been responsible and well thought out, we’ve submitted them in advance to our government authorities so that they understand we’re being responsible,” she said. “Keeneland is a place that is generally open to the community. We have a lot of people that come here to walk their dogs and enjoy coming to watch the horses work and the sales have always been open to the pubic. So it was a difficult decision for us to have to close our grounds.

“I would say all the tracks in Kentucky have done a great job communicating with each other, with government authorities and the racing commission. We were able to have our race meet in July with the cooperation of Ellis Park because everybody realized it was in the best interest of everybody for Keeneland to be racing those days.”

Derby described some of the challenges racing in the UK has experienced as a crossover between the sports, agriculture and hospitality industries which has been ultimately forced to identify as a sport only.

“We have to stick with one department to speak with government and that has been DCMS [Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport] for the UK,” he explained. “They wouldn’t be one of the biggest departments unlike in France with the department of agriculture, so we have to fight for time with the minister and time with the senior government, and obviously they’re dealing with a pandemic which we have to understand. They’re dealing with schools re-opening and hospitals, so sports takes its part in the queue.

“We got back early racing behind closed doors which was vitally important for the sport but in the UK restaurants and bars have re-opened, and in the York city centre not more than a mile away there is a busy, vibrant feel to the bars and restaurants, but we have huge restaurants on the racecourse that we have not been able to re-open so that’s been a frustration, it feels like a contradiction and a slight unfairness.”

In identifying the greatest challenges that still face the racing industry in the midst of the pandemic, the retention of owners and fans were a common theme.

“Taking care of owners, and keeping as many owners as possible on board [will be the greatest challenge],” Delloye said. “We’ve all witnessed the damage of the pandemic on owners and the yearling market is evidence of this. These people need some visibility on when they can enjoy going back racing.”

Derby added, “Building on Olivier’s point, I think relevance as the world emerges from the pandemic and people get busier and maybe get out of the habit of watching or betting on racing. It’s ensuring that racing seizes the opportunity that has presented itself this summer of limited other sports and people at home.”

Cook, who brought an outside perspective to the panel as the director of content for IMG Studios, said, “my job is all to do with revenue and profitability, and it’s not going to be just the average person on the street that will have less to spend off the back of this, but federations and broadcasters themselves are going to be looking to cut their cloth accordingly. So I think for us it’s a need to continue telling great narratives, great stories, and hope that when crowds do return that the broadcasters and federations will have the money to spend again on the product.”

Harding took the focus of looking at the health of some of the smaller industries that provide a backbone to the larger racing nations.

“I think the greatest challenge globally will be how long it takes for us to get back to normal and whether in some jurisdictions that’s going to be too long,” he said. “As hard as it’s been in the UK and France there are some countries where they just haven’t been able to operate in a manner that is profitable. How long that’s sustainable is something that is terribly troubling. That will have an impact globally in terms of things like the foal crop. That is something that has an impact on Hong Kong. We don’t have a breeding industry, everything that races here is imported, so we do depend on a strong racing ecosystem in other countries.”

Reflecting on what silver linings have emerged from a terrible situation with the pandemic, Arvin reflected on innovations that can emerge in times of crisis.

“Somebody asked if I was an optimist. I think I’m a realist with an optimistic spin, and I think there are definitely silver linings to come out of the pandemic and I think we have to keep looking for them,” she said. “I think the perseverance that so many in our industry have shown and that resiliency is shining through and showing us the silver linings. Winston Churchill said, ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ and I think of how the Keeneland sales actually started, which was during World War II because we weren’t able to ship horses up to New York so we started our own sale and now it’s such a critical part of our business and a key part of the industry.”

Derby and Harding each touched on the opportunity to get racing into the national spotlight.

“I think from our perspective it’s been that focus on the horse and really using digital platforms and getting behind the scenes access to the racehorses that are at the heart of our business,” Derby said. “We did a big project building up to our flagship meeting, meeting the horses in the yard, traveling with them to the races, seeing them unloaded, really trying to get the fans to see the characters and unearth the personalities both human and equine. I hope we hold onto that going forward, the behind the scenes access.”

Harding added, “as an Australian and as part of the international federation what I see is that globally it has given racing a monopoly on attention. I certainly know that was true in Australia-for a long period it was the only sport you could watch. The viewer numbers went up and people that used to like racing remembered why they liked it and people that hadn’t previously taken an interest in it were exposed to it.”

Cook described how the pandemic and other sociopolitical issues in 2020 have allowed an opportunity to reassess how businesses are run.

“I think it’s helped us reset the dial a little,” he said. “It’s enabled us to look at the structure of our business and ask, ‘are we doing things the right way?’ There have been lots of other things happening around the world while this pandemic has been going on. The Black Lives Matter movement has helped us look at, ‘are we as diverse and inclusive as we should be as an organization?’ Probably not, and we’re going to work on that. We’ve also looked at sustainability. We’re part of an initiative called Green To Screen that looks at our carbon footprint. All these things that get put to one side when you’re on the wheel of making television day in and day out.”

The next video in the International Conference of Horseracing Authorities series, to be released on Tuesday, will feature the conference’s keynote address from Pete Giorgio and Alan Switzer from Deloitte.

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