Tag: The Paddock

Fred Pope took exception to my View From the Eighth Pole last week in which I said the Interstate Horseracing Act (IHA) of 1978 made it difficult for an owner's group he created – the short-lived National Thoroughbred Association – to get off the drawing board and become a reality.

The column was written in the wake of Mike Repole's remarks on a racing telecast that “it's time now that the owners take back this game.”

If only it was that easy.

Pope is the Lexington advertising executive who worked with the late John Gaines to model a “major league” of horse racing after the PGA Tour, an entity run by professional golfers. Pope said he had the support of more than 100 owners who each put up $50,000 in seed money and “controlled more than 6,000 of the best horses in training.” He said NTA had another 25,000 non-paying supporters, many of whom were owners or breeders.

Yet it failed.

“The IHA was never a problem of any kind with implementing the NTA,” Pope wrote in an email after publication of my commentary. “In the same way the IHA was never a problem implementing the Breeders' Cup. You just signed a contract with the host track, which included all the rights and permission of that track. Think about it.”

If only it was that easy.

One racetrack giving up one day of revenue a year when the Breeders' Cup began in 1984 (expanded to two days starting in 2007) is one thing. Multiple tracks leasing their facilities and giving up revenue any number of weekends throughout the year is entirely something else.

The NTA failed, Pope said, because the late Jockey Club chairman Ogden Mills Phipps flipped Tim Smith, who was hired to help launch the NTA but wound up as the commissioner and CEO of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, which included racetracks, horsemen's groups, and other racing organizations.

In theory, the NTA was a way to skirt the federal law governing interstate simulcasting, which gave control to the tracks and the horsemen's group that “represents the majority of owners and trainers” racing at the track.  But as Mark Twain wrote, “How empty is theory in the presence of fact.”

A Dumb Question, But A Serious One

Repole has not gotten into details for how the new owners (or owners-trainers) organization he wants to create would work, but he isn't the first person to call for change in how racing is run. I'm very interested in how he proposes to pull this off.

All of the major league sports – NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, PGA, etc. – run themselves as owner-driven entities that hire professional staff, led by a commissioner. The leagues set the rules, hire the umpires and game officials, contract with drug-testing and integrity agencies, and negotiate television and licensing deals. They don't just run their sports, they self-regulate them. They are not regulated at the state or federal level.

For nearly a century, horse racing has been regulated at the state level. More recently, the Wire Act, Interstate Horseracing Act, and Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act have brought federal regulations or oversight to the game.

The reason for all this regulation, I've been told by people much smarter than me, is that you can gamble on horse racing. The states felt a need to oversee the integrity and fairness of the participants and racing itself because people were betting real money on the outcome.

Horse racing for many years was the only legal form of gambling outside of the state of Nevada. Five years ago, the Supreme Court opened the floodgates for sports betting. As a Kentuckian, I can bet on baseball, football, basketball, and hockey, among other sports, in addition to horse racing.

I'm not aware of state regulatory boards for any of these other sports, even though there is legal gambling on them in a growing number of states. There may be state gambling commissions, but they are regulating the betting companies – not the sports leagues or their games.

Here is the dumb but serious question: Why should racing continue to be saddled with state regulatory oversight?

Racing is not currently in position to self-regulate the way major league sports do. However, if the Repole plan – or someone else's  – can fashion a blueprint similar to MLB, NFL et al and create a sustainable league office, there's no reason horse racing should be shackled with government regulation, either at the state or federal level. It should be treated like every other major sport.

If only it was that easy.

That's my view from the eighth pole.

The post View From The Eighth Pole: In Horse Racing, Change Never Comes Easy appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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I understand Mike Repole.  Mike might not understand me.

I used to have great difficulty accepting a situation for being the way that it is, if it wasn't the way I wanted it.  I don't always like the fact there are situations not the way I want them.  I understand Mike Repole.  Mike has some good ideas as they relate to the horse business in North America. Frustration brings forth ideas from winners like him.

These ideas when put into action will either solve a problem or take you away from realizing something more important, or that's what happened with me.  Sometimes, the truth is hard to swallow.  Life doesn't always go my way.  I've primarily learned this as a result of my involvement in the horse business and also being absolutely broken by alcoholism and drug addiction.  The horse business is the greatest game in the world for a guy like me to learn life's lessons.  By Grace, I'm not broken anymore whether life goes my way or not.

I live in the greatest country in the world.  We are a capitalistic country, for now, and I pray for America to remain a capitalistic society.  We have free enterprise.  We have local, state, and federal laws, rules, and regulations that are suppose to be for everyone who are involved in the activity to which the particular laws, rules, or regulations apply. And private businesses and companies make their own rules and guidelines within the bounds of local, state, and federal rules, regulations, and laws.  We have too much government in my opinion, and that's a difficult fix, too.

The American horse business has been a transaction or sales oriented industry since the mid-1980s and began losing focus then of long-term consequences from not being process oriented and process focused.  Anyone can play in the horse business. That doesn't mean, however, anyone can always win at whatever facet they are involved in, yet they can try their best. Mike Repole tries his best. He appears to me to be that type of person. Most horse owners I know have that characteristic. They are winners. And most winners hate to lose. That's who makes up the horse business.

My experience is that men like Mike Repole either get deeper into the horse business at this juncture, or they get out.  I got in from the womb, I got out from not being able to handle some difficult truths, and I got back in because of the horse.  The horse, to me, is the greatest animal in the world.  Jesus is coming back on a horse and there are few more important truths than that, whether you believe it or not. Back to the matter at hand.

I hope Mike stays in and works on fixing the existing process and not just creating another facet to add to our existing mess.  Less will be more.  How does one fix the mess that is the horse business in America?  First accept where we are playing.  We are playing in a capitalistic, free-enterprise country.  While I'm not nuts about what Churchill Downs' focus is, which to me is, to brand and monetize the Kentucky Derby, and make money regardless of other people's dissatisfaction about what and how they do what they do. You've gotta hand it to them – they do it very well and they make no bones about it.  Mike Repole doesn't appear to hesitate to state his position, either.

Mike obviously isn't satisfied without being uber successful at and in everything he does. The horse business is the greatest equalizer and educator of the human ego.  Mike knows he won't win them all.  He's realizing and obviously aware this game is multi-faceted and not his own single-focused private enterprise.  The horse business needs winners like Mike Repole; however, like most everybody else in the horse business that doesn't mean it will all go your way when even the stage is set just the way you want it.  You win some on the track … you lose more.  The horse business needs winners like Mike Repole to stay in the game to help set the stage for a better future.

Finn Green, Frankfort, Ky

An active fourth-generation horseman, Green provides consulting and management services to thoroughbred industry participants through his deWaal Thoroughbreds, LLC.

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“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.

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