‘It’s Not Just The Big Guys’: Historical Horse Racing Supports Small Kentucky Tracks, Horsemen

As both the Kentucky State Senate and Kentucky House Committee for Licensing, Occupations and Administration Regulations passed SB 120 this week, Turfway Park horsemen are making their case for the importance of protecting Historical Horse Racing. They say protecting HHR, as it is known, is critical to saving Kentucky jobs, including their own.

HHR's future in Kentucky is uncertain following an opinion issued by the Kentucky Supreme Court in September. At risk is a significant revenue stream that has produced some of the best racing purses in the country, prompted track owners to make considerable facility investments and bolstered a year-round racing circuit on which Kentucky horsemen have come to depend.

Trainer Buff Bradley, a Kentucky native, left the state 11 years ago to winter in Florida and then New Orleans because purses had gotten so bad at Turfway Park. After purses increased last year, he convinced owners to stick around Kentucky.

“I was hoping Kentucky was going to be a stronger circuit, with Ellis doing well,” said Bradley. “It really looked like Turfway was going to be on the rise with Churchill buying it and purses increasing. Now I'm rethinking, 'Uh oh. I came here and it might have been too soon,' because things aren't looking as well with Historic Horse Racing machines maybe not going through. That's going to be the big question.

“Kentucky can be a great circuit,” he said. “I know last year everybody was thrilled. You've got owners who see a rising Kentucky, even with Ellis Park and Turfway's purses being better, they can afford to stay around here. And they live here. If they can do that, they're going to go to the sales and buy more horses. If we can keep more horses around here, we can keep everybody busy – more jobs. There's a lot to it.”

Bradley employees 12 people in his 20-horse stable at Turfway.

“The money has made a big difference,” he said. “It's not like we're getting rich off this, but it makes it affordable for people to stay and to meet people to buy horses. It's become a year-round circuit in Kentucky, which is a big plus. Because you keep the people here. This is our home.

“If we don't have HHR, I can see racing really decreasing here in the state. Horse racing will go down to Keeneland and Churchill basically. I can't see how Turfway, Ellis Park – those two tracks for sure – and even Kentucky Downs could survive. We'd probably decrease the number of days even at Keeneland and Churchill. And when that happens, it's tough to get stables to come in because there isn't going to be much racing. They're going to go to New York and Florida, areas where they have racing throughout the year.”

Groom Toni Ouzts, who has two children with her husband, veteran jockey Perry Ouzts, is concerned that if the Kentucky House does not pass the HHR bill, life will be more difficult for them.

“I need this job,” she said. “It's my livelihood. It's my passion. I'd be lost without it. And my husband would be out of work, too, if we would not have Turfway Park.”

Asked about people who would say that HHR just makes rich people richer, she said: “No. This is keeping me in a job. It's keeping my husband in a job, people I work with every day. We work seven days a week. This is more than a job. It's everything. My sister and I work here 'rubbing' horses together. And even her husband works on the front side. It's giving everyone a job.”

When discussing the potential of Turfway likely shutting down unless the HRR bill passes, she said she is surprised that Turfway's existence is even in doubt and it makes her sad.

“It's scary. It really is scary.”

Turfway “gives so many people job,” she said. “So many people would be out of work. Just think of the hay and straw people, the feed man. There's so much involved in horse racing. It's not just the big guys.”

Trainer Jeff Greenhill left a career as chemical engineer in Alabama to go into horse racing. He's been training about 25 years, wintering at Turfway Park throughout.

“This is the place that the little guy survives — here and Ellis Park,” Greenhill said. “There are 1,100 horses here, and I've got 18 and I have eight employees. You can do the math: There are a whole lot of people here employed by the horse-racing industry. Unless purses stay at a reasonable level, I'm out of business or I'm moving to New York, Florida or Indiana.”

Veterinarian John Piehowicz, who has served clients on the local racing circuit since the early 1990s, also sees difficult choices ahead without historic horse racing.

“If SB120 isn't passed then I think this (Turfway Park) is done,” he said.

Piehowicz says racing “is the one industry where trickle-down economics works. If you look around the racetrack here, there are a lot of people who depend on the horses, depend on the income – whether it's a Sunoco station around the corner where half the people who work here go and buy their snacks or the local community. When this place closes it's going impact more than horse racing in the state of Kentucky.”

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‘Your Guess As Good As Mine’: Announcer McNerney Gets Creative During Snowstorm At Turfway

Visibility became an issue during a snowstorm Saturday evening at Turfway Park in Florence, Ky. Track announcer Jimmy McNerney was unable to see the horses rounding the far turn in the fourth race due to the snow, and got a little bit creative with his race call.

“They continue to race around the turn, and your guess as good as mine with about a quarter mile to go,” McNerney said on the live feed. “Up top it's somebody who just leads somebody there in second, and a couple lengths back somebody is coming after a quarter in 1:13 and four. They run to the top of the stretch, it's absolutely wide open!”

Watch the race from far turn through the stretch run here:

McNerney laughed about the call when reached by phone on Monday, saying he'd received a lot of positive feedback from racing participants and fans.

You just try to pick them out, relay what you see, and when you can't see you just don't want dead air,” said McNerney. “I've always had some things in my head, especially if it was football or baseball season or something, but obviously there's nothing going on right now because of COVID, so that's just what came out!”

McNerney is also a jockey's agent, representing Turfway-based riders DeShawn Parker and Rafael Hernandez.

Saturday's race reminded McNerney of a similar issue with visibility at Turfway under retired track announcer Mike Battaglia. On Jan. 22, 2012, a dense fog covered the backstretch of the track, and Battaglia used the time to make up an advertisement for the track's gift shop.

Watch Battaglia's call here:

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Dale Romans Op/Ed: Historical Horse Racing a Game Changer

As a second-generation horse trainer and Kentuckian, my entire life has been spent in Thoroughbred racing. I've seen Kentucky racing at its finest, and I've seen how quickly out-of-state competition can render us increasingly irrelevant. Right now Kentucky is at the top. But it doesn't have to stay that way.

I currently have 50 employees and do business with more than 100 vendors in Kentucky alone. Without Historical Horse Racing (HHR) revenue supplementing the purses for which our horses compete, many of those jobs will have to leave the state, as will our business with all those area vendors.

People forget, but it wasn't that long ago that Kentucky racing was badly hemorrhaging amid regional and national competition for horses. As more horse owners and trainers opted to race at tracks with purses fueled by slots and casino gaming, Ellis Park's summer meet and Turfway Park's winter racing were on life support. Even legendary Churchill Downs and Keeneland struggled with a profound horse shortage. Our breeding farms suffered from an exodus of mares they'd previously boarded, leaving the Bluegrass for states with more meaningful incentives–supported by revenue from racinos and casinos– for horses foaled in those jurisdictions.

First introduced by then-struggling Kentucky Downs in 2011, Historical Horse Racing proved the game-changer for good, reversing the downward spiral for Kentucky's signature industry. HHR is not a subsidy for horse racing. It's an innovative, racing-based product that reinvests in our iconic industry. This is one of those win-win-win situations that has benefitted the whole state. It has sparked significant economic development and creates and preserves jobs.

Purses are the universal language of horsemen. We follow the money. And where our horses go, so go the jobs. American horse racing is not the sport of kings. It's the sport of thousands of stables operating as local businesses employing real people in communities across the country.

Horse racing is an extremely labor-intensive business; you're never going to automate caring for a horse. And that's a good thing. We want it to be labor intensive and give people the opportunity to work in our industry.

Because of Historical Horse Racing and combined with our quality of life and affordable housing, Kentucky is now the mecca for horsemen. Trainers and jockeys on both coasts are increasing their presence in Kentucky, if not making it their primary base. Ellis Park and Turfway's barns are full for their meets, as are area training centers. The horses occupying those stalls reflect added jobs.

Within the short period of time in which it has been up and running, HHR has completely changed the dynamics of racing on a national level, with Kentucky once more at the forefront.

This provides a huge boost for the entire economy of Kentucky, not only horse racing. Just ask the mayors and county judge executives in Henderson and Simpson counties what HHR has meant for their communities. Historical Horse Racing has brought entertainment dollars back to Kentucky, with HHR operations themselves employing 1,400 people in six cities. Our racetracks have invested nearly $1 billion the past 10 years in capital projects with another $600 million planned.

Make no mistake, that will change for the worse if the Kentucky Legislature doesn't act to protect HHR. It needs to follow the simple blueprint the Kentucky Supreme Court provided to address its constitutionality concern.

It is not hyperbole to say three of our five Thoroughbred tracks will close without HHR: Ellis Park, Turfway Park and Kentucky Downs. Harness racing will be history. Jobs will evaporate, millions of economic development and tourism dollars lost.

Whether you approve of alternative gaming or not, it is right here in our market–just across the border in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, West Virginia and not far away in Pennsylvania. The majority of Kentucky's population can get to a casino to gamble within 30 minutes.

Kentucky's horse industry has a $5.2 billion economic impact and employs 60,000 people directly or indirectly. The commonwealth's racetracks pay more than $100 million annually in state and local taxes. Out-of-state money flows into Kentucky's coffers as a result of horse racing and its economic driver, HHR.

Do we want to needlessly sacrifice that?

It's important to have a year-round, consistent racing circuit in Kentucky. Without HHR, Kentucky racing will be an afterthought in a very quick period of time. Legislators must ask themselves: Can we afford that?

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What’s in a Name: Motherly Instincts, Little Gems of Wordplay from Mamas’ Names

BLACK MAGIC WOMAN, 1-7-21 winner at Gulfstream. Dam: DAZZLING SONG. BLACK MAGIC WOMAN is a 1968 song which became a world-famous hit in a 1970 Santana arrangement, even if it was a Fleetwood Mac number originally. 6th-Gulfstream, $40,000, Msw, 1-7, 4yo/up, f/m, 1m, 1:36.42, ft, 3 3/4 lengths. BLACK MAGIC WOMAN (f, 4, Uncle Mo–Dazzling Song, by Unbridled’s Song). Lifetime Record: 4-1-0-2, $41,360. O-Bass Stables, LLC; B-Ramona S. Bass, LLC (KY); T-Todd A. Pletcher.

HYPOTHETICAL, 1-7-21 winner at Meydan. Dam: PEUT ETRE, French for ‘perhaps’, ‘probably’ (literally: ‘it may be,’ without the necessary pronoun, which makes it an adverb). 5th-Meydan, Hcp., AED105,000, NH/SH 4yo/up, 1600m, 1:38.03, ft. HYPOTHETICAL (IRE) (c, 4, Lope de Vega {Ire}–Peut Etre {Ire} {GSP-Fr}, by Whipper) Sales history: 550,000gns Ylg >18 TATOCT. Lifetime Record: 5-2-0-0, $33,277.  O-Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohd Al Maktoum. B-Knocktoran Stud (Ire). T-Salem bin Ghadayer.

SCALES OF JUSTICE, 1-9-2021 winner at Turfway. Dam: BALANCE. Fairness has its roots in equilibrium and symmetry, from times immemorable. 5th-Turfway, $31,190, Msw, 1-8, 3yo, 1m (AWT), 1:39.09, ft, 1/2 length. SCALES OF JUSTICE (c, 3, Uncle Mo–Balance {MGISW, $1,048,491}, by Thunder Gulch). Lifetime Record: 2-1-0-0, $20,340. O-Andrew Warren & William K. Warren, Jr.; B-Cloros Bloodstock (KY); T-Michael W. McCarthy.

BRASSY, 1-9-2021 winner at Tampa Bay Downs. Dam: CHEEKY CHARM. Connection believed to be self-evident, as it is said of some truths. 8th-Tampa Bay Downs, $21,500, Alw, 1-9, (NW1X), 4yo/up, f/m, 1mT, 1:37.05, fm, nose. BRASSY (f, 4, Medaglia d’Oro–Cheeky Charm, by A.P. Indy). Lifetime Record: 5-2-0-0, $48,286. O/B-Godolphin (KY); T-Eoin G. Harty.

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