As the Triple Crown trail came to an end, with many tracks hosting important Kentucky Derby preps, and with Keeneland staging its Spring meet in its regular spot on the calendar, wagering on U.S. races exceeded $1.1 billion, according to statistics released Wednesday by Equibase.
Year-over-year comparisons are largely irrelevant, as the effects of the coronavirus really made their presence felt in April 2020. Keeneland was left no choice but to postpone its meet to July, racing at Santa Anita was dark into late May and in New York, it remained shut down into early June.
However, a side-by-side analysis considering pre-pandemic numbers reveals some encouraging trends. The handle on U.S. racing in April 2019 was $850 million, meaning that this year's figure represents an impressive gain of 30.4% as compared to two years ago. While the raw number of live racing dates compared to April 2019 declined by 10.29$ and the average number of races (-7.16%) and starts (-8.56%) were also down, average daily wagering last month was $3,953,797, an improvement of 45.35% over 2019, while the average purses per race day of $321,005 represented a gain of 16.2%.
Year-to-date wagering of $3.87 billion is better by 14.44% over 2019, with average daily wagering ($3,702,589) increasing by 26.49% over 2019. Average purses per day were ahead by 7.54% at $291,446.
The National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) 2020 Legislative Action Campaign (LAC) Annual Report is now available on the association's website and can be downloaded here.
The report reviews the NTRA's federal legislative activities in 2020 and the fundraising programs that support them. Specifically, the report includes:
A federal legislative summary of issues that are important to horse racing and breeding, including the latest on the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act, Sports Betting, Three-year Racehorse Depreciation, Immigration and other legislation;
A list of 2020 contributors to the NTRA's Legislative Action Campaign through the 1/4% Check-Off Program and other related NTRA fundraising programs;
Sale company calendars; and
Member discount information from NTRA partners like John Deere, Sherwin-Williams, Office Depot and Big Ass Fans
“We thank the buyers, sellers and consignors who supported our federal legislative advocacy in 2020 by participating in the 1/4% Check-Off Program through sales hosted by our partners at Keeneland, Fasig-Tipton, Ocala Breeders Sales (OBS), the Washington Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association (WTBOA) and the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association (CTBA),” said NTRA President and CEO Alex Waldrop. “We appreciate these sale companies for all they do to help facilitate the Check-Off Program and we also thank the farms, breeders and National Horseplayers Championship (NHC) Tour members who contributed through other fundraising programs. It was a difficult year in many ways but, once again, the industry rallied in support of our efforts on Capitol Hill.”
American Pharoah(Pioneerof the Nile), who became racing's first Triple Crown winner in 37 years in 2015, and trainers Todd Pletcher and Jack Fisher are the 2021 inductees into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame. American Pharoah and Pletcher were elected in the contemporary category and each in their first year of eligibility. Fisher was chosen by the Museum's Steeplechase Review Committee, which convenes once every four years.
Bred and raced by Zayat Stables, American Pharoah was a $300,000 buyback at the 2013 Fasig-Tipton Saratoga sale and broke his maiden at second asking in the GI Del Mar Futurity before adding the GI FrontRunner S. Named the Eclipse Award-winning 2-year-old male despite having to miss the GI Breeders' Cup Juvenile, the son of Littleprincessemma (Yankee Gentleman) launched his assault on the Triple Crown with towering victories in the GII Rebel S. and GI Arkansas Derby before taking the GI Kentucky Derby by a length.
The seven-length winner of the GI Preakness S., he led throughout to win the GI Belmont S., becoming the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978. He added the GI Haskell Invitational S. and rebounded from a runner-up effort in the GI Travers S. to demolish his rivals by 6 1/2 lengths in the GI Breeders' Cup Classic, closing his career with a record of 11-9-1-0 and earnings of $8,650,300. American Pharoah is now a leading sire at Ashford Stud.
“He's certainly among the all-time greats. I don't think there is any question about that,” Baffert said. “He did everything so effortlessly and with such class. The way he moved, his mechanics were absolutely flawless. He also has such a wonderful personality. Pharoah is really a sweet and kind horse and he loves humans. I went and saw him the other day [at Ashford] and he looks as good as he's ever looked, if not better. Winning the Triple Crown with American Pharoah was the greatest sports moment of my life. It was so emotional and such a terrific thing for racing. He deserves all the accolades he gets.”
WATCH: American Pharoah wins the 2015 Belmont S. to secure the elusive Triple Crown
Pletcher Also a No-Brainer First-Ballot HOFer…
A native of Dallas, Texas, 53-year-old Todd Pletcher went out on his own in 1996 following a six-year stint as assistant to trainer D. Wayne Lukas. He won his first race 25 years ago and owns records for career earnings ($405.7 million) and Eclipse Awards (seven) and is the seventh winningest trainer of all time with 5,118 trips to the winner's circle. He has saddled two winners of the Kentucky Derby (Super Saver, 2010; Always Dreaming, 2017) and has won the Belmont S. on three occasions (Rags to Riches, 2007; Palace Malice, 2013; Tapwrit, 2017). Just last Friday, Malathaat (Curlin) became Pletcher's fourth GI Kentucky Oaks winner, joining Ashado (2004), Rags to Riches and Princess of Sylmar (2013).
Pletcher is responsible for 11 champions and has been leading trainer at 60 individual race meetings, including 17 at Gulfstream Park, 16 at Belmont and 14 at Saratoga. According to data from Equibase, Pletcher has saddled the winners of 708 graded events, including 166 Grade I races.
“I'm really humbled to be elected to the Hall of Fame. It's an incredible honor and something that doesn't happen without having great support around you,” Pletcher said. “I've been extremely fortunate to have a great team to work with and my family has been there every step of the way. There have been so many great owners who have trusted me with their horses and those horses have meant everything to me. Along with my family and team, I had amazing opportunities to learn from the likes of Wayne and Jeff Lukas and working winters alongside Kiaran McLaughlin, who taught me a lot about horses and also how to work with owners and communication skills. It really was a stroke of good fortune to come up with people like that around me.
“Training horses is all I ever wanted to do,” he added. “I remember being 11 or 12 and telling my mom I wanted to train and she said it was wonderful. From that point on with her endorsement I never thought of doing anything else.”
Fisher Also Gets the Nod…
Jack Fisher, 57, a native of Unionville, Pennsylvania, won his first race as a licensed trainer in 1988 at Middleburg and has been a perennial leader at the top of the National Steeplechase Association standings for two decades. He won his first trainers' premiership in 2003 and has since led the pack 12 other times. In 2004, he was the leading trainer by earnings for the first of nine times. Through May 4, Fisher has sent out the winners of 593 steeplechase races and ranks second in all-time earnings with more than $17.8 million (behind only Hall of Famer Jonathan Sheppard).
Fisher is the only trainer in steeplechase history to exceed $1 million in earnings in a single season, a feat he has accomplished five times. Among the horses he conditioned were Eclipse Award winner and Hall of Famer Good Night Shirt, a 10-time NSA graded winner, and additional Eclipse winners Scorpiancer and Moscato.
“I've always loved being around horses. It's been my life,” Fisher said. “I was terrible in school and didn't want to be there. I loved riding and I love training. I learned a lot from my father (trainer John Fisher) and from guys like (Hall of Fame trainers) Mikey Smithwick and Tommy Voss. They were examples to me of the work it takes to be successful and also how they built a good team. You can't do it alone.
The class of 2021 will be enshrined along with the 2020 inductees–trainer Mark Casse, jockey Darrel McHargue, horses Tom Bowling and Wise Dan, and Pillars of the Turf Alice Headley Chandler, J. Keene Daingerfield, Jr., and George D. Widener, Jr.–Friday, Aug. 6, at the Fasig-Tipton sales pavilion in Saratoga Springs at 10:30 a.m. The ceremony will be broadcast live on the Museum website at www.racingmuseum.org. An announcement regarding public attendance at the ceremony will be made at a later date.
Federal attorneys want the National Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA)'s anti-constitutionality lawsuit thrown out of court, arguing that the HBPA's allegations of injury regarding the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) “are entirely threadbare” because no rules, regulations or fees have been established by the not-yet-in-effect regulatory body.
“Plaintiffs jumped the gun bringing this constitutional challenge,” the federal government stated in an Apr. 30 motion to dismiss filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. “Their complaint questions the validity of a law that currently subjects them to no obligation or penalty.”
The filing continued: “Neither the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) nor the [HISA] Authority have even proposed rules that they could endeavor to enact. There has been no proposal for rules regarding permissible and impermissible drugs; no proposal for rules regarding racetrack safety; and no proposals for rules regarding enforcement procedures or penalties…There has not even been a rule crafted to govern how the Authority is to 'propose' any rules to the FTC–which is all fitting, given that HISA is only four months old.”
In March, the HBPA, with the support of 12 of its state chapters, sued 11 individuals in connection with their official capacities related to the FTC and HISA's not-yet-active Authority. The HBPA claimed that the law, “unconstitutionally delegates to a private entity the legislative authority to regulate” the sport, and asked the court to “declare HISA unconstitutional and preliminarily and permanently enjoin Defendants from implementing and enforcing the law.”
The feds have responded that the HBPA has it wrong: The bill that got signed into law in December “merely creates a framework for the FTC, with the subordinate aid of the 'private, independent, self-regulatory, nonprofit' HISA Authority to enact future standards and rules.
“Congress established this framework because it concluded that, in the absence of independent national oversight and uniform drug and safety standards, the horseracing industry was failing to adequately protect its participants,” the filing stated.
“But, recognizing that rulemaking in a new area should proceed carefully and with proper deliberation, Congress provided that no regulations governing the conduct of horseracing can take effect before July 1, 2022. Regulations the FTC enacts under HISA may (or may not) impact Plaintiffs in the future. But there is not even a proposed regulation for Plaintiffs to complain about today.”
The filing continued: “Plaintiffs thus fail the most basic requirement for invoking this Court's jurisdiction: they cannot establish that they have been harmed in any concrete way by the law they protest. Nor can Plaintiffs establish that their challenges to the statute are ripe for judicial review.
“Adjudicating the merits of Plaintiffs' legal claims now would require the Court to evaluate HISA's framework in the abstract, unaided by any concrete facts or history of agency action. There is no justification for the Court treading this path under any circumstances, and it is doubly improper when Plaintiffs are asking this Court to resolve constitutional claims.”
The federal attorneys also argued that the HBPA's suit fails to support its central claim that HISA unlawfully delegates legislative power to the FTC and the private Authority.
“HISA is far more detailed than the statutory schemes that the Supreme Court has sustained against delegation challenges over the past 80 years,” the filing stated. “And both the Supreme
Court and courts of appeals around the country have repeatedly confirmed that private entities can properly provide extensive assistance to federal agencies, so long as those agencies retain
final decision-making authority and control, as the FTC does here.”
The feds asked the judge to toss out the lawsuit, either on the grounds of the alleged lack of subject-matter jurisdiction or, in the alternative, for the HBPA's supposed failure to state a claim.
“At best, Plaintiffs' complaint could be read to suggest that the Plaintiffs might be subject to some rules they dislike in the future…The Plaintiffs' challenge at this point therefore amounts to nothing more than a request for an advisory opinion on the constitutionality of HISA. This Court is not empowered to provide that, “The Plaintiffs may be able to show a concrete injury from HISA on some future occasion when a specific rule affects their interests,” the filing summed up. “Until then, however, the Court lacks jurisdiction to entertain their claims.”
