August 7, 2025 • 39 mins
On this week's Harness Racing Alumni Show, brought to you by the Meadowlands Racetrack…., we are joined by Standardbred Breeder, owner and the founder of Planet Fitness Health Clubs and You Fit Health Clubs, Rick Berks. Also with us is Gordon Banks, International owner and breeder along with professional horse racing analyst, Michael Antoniades. Our panel discusses promoting the sport, suggesting the idea of a Grand Slam Pacing Series, with a plan to establish a steering committee that will evaluate and implement innovative ideas, including currently identifying key industry leaders. This plan will explore finding funding sources, while implementing the start of a business plan. All on this week's take charge broadcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to this week's Harness Racing Alumni Show. I'm Freddie
Hudson and I'm here today with Trade Martin and Bob Marks.
This week's Harness Racing Alumni Show is brought to you
by the Metal Lands Racetrack, home of the Metal Lands
Pace and the Hamiltonian. Visit www dot Playmeetalands dot com.
(00:21):
The Harness Racing Alumni Show with your host Freddie Hudson
and Trade Martin, we have a special show for you today.
Joining us we have returning Gordon Banks and International at
Standerbred breeder and owner, Michael Antonatis, a professional analyst, and
Rick Burks, a Stantabred owner and breeder, founder of Planet
(00:46):
Fitness health Clubs and you Fit Health Clubs. Gentlemen, Welcome
to the Harness Racing Alumni Show.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Welcome you.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Okay, so today we're going to be talking about the
promotion of the sport of harness racing and the lack
of for why didn't you lead us in?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
You always put me, You always put me in a
bad position. But Rick and I have been talking for
a while about what might be able to be done
in this industry to try to get the sport more visible,
better promoted in a better relationship with casinos. Rick has
some great ideas and I think it's best that he
(01:32):
tried to explain his perspective. But everything is with a
positive outlook, trying to move this industry to a point
where it can succeed, because if nothing's done, I think
there's a general consensus if the industry has nowhere to
go but down. So Rick, I think it's really on
you to explain your thinking.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, I think you hit on it, and as you said,
we've been talking about it. But from what I've seen,
and I you know, I grew up in South Florida
and saw what went on with Pompado when the casinos
took them over. Took it over early on, and it
quickly became obvious that their mission. It took some time,
(02:18):
but we're not really partners with them. Their mission is
basically to get rid of us. And in a way
I can't blame them because we don't bring anything to
the party. We just have our hands out. We're a
very divided industry. We have facilities all over, but a
few of them ever worked together in unison, and we're
(02:42):
losing this facilities left and right, and I don't see
any end in sight that I don't see any organization
that should be leading our industry out of the wilderness
here have not either don't have a good idea what
(03:02):
to do, or what they've done hasn't worked, and I
think that's pretty obvious. My thought was when I look
around the thoroughbred industry, and I think some of the
guys were talking about it before we came on air,
but there's at least I think forty thoroughbred races in
the North America that are over a million dollar perse
(03:26):
and typically those are where they get their big crowds.
In Lexington, where I spent part of the year, everybody
knows Keelan it's open three weeks in the fall and
three weeks in the spring, and according to things statistics
I've read, they generate something like one point six billion
(03:47):
dollars in economic impact just in that short period of time.
In the standard bread business, we have, I think, correct
me if I'm wrong, three races that are arguably a
million dollars. Know. North American is at a different dollar
dollar value, but between the Hamiltonian, the North American and
the jug are the only million dollar plus races that
(04:13):
we have, and I think that it's pretty obvious those
are probably the best attending race attended races by the
public that we have and our own industry people who
are in the industry. And that's without even any significant
marketing going on in a modern way. And what I
mean by that is digital marketing, which that's what you
(04:37):
have to get into to be effective today. So what
Gordon I have been talking about is we've kind of
you know, you can go to in Lexington. I go there,
you can. I was shocked to find out when Pompino closed,
I bought a place up in Lexington. I was really
shocked to find out that very few people Lexington, whether
(05:02):
they're my neighbors. Wherever you go, you'd be hard pressed
to find somebody who knows that the Red Model exists
or that harness racing goes on there. Now, that's the
self proclaimed horse capital of the world, and the track's
been there one hundred and fifty years and it's owned
by substantially by harness industry people, and yet nobody knows
(05:25):
that we exist.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Now.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I think that's probably the same in other places a Saratoga,
for one, But I would be not be surprised to
find that's pretty typical. And the reason really more than
anything else, is that, from my perspective is the casinos,
the rassinos, they unmarket us into oblivion. You could have
(05:51):
walked around Pompino for days and never known that there
was racing on on right outside the back door, and
it was never an accident, it was that's in their minds. Again,
My opinion is they think that every dollar spent on
a horse racing bet is they would have made more
money if somebody put it in a slot. So from
(06:13):
the day that we do a deal with them at
every facility, it's that our days are numbered and they're
proving it. How many you know, you could list all
the tracks that are closed and that's going to continue
to happen. We're completely unknown. So I think the first
thing we really have to do as an industry is
unite behind something that to build our own fan base
(06:39):
back and we can't do therasinos are not going to
do it. And the rasinos run the tracks basically now
with the exception of I think Jeff Carrel's, but most
of them and they have no interest. Their interest is
in the other direction. So we basically, I think, have
(07:00):
to take the bull by the horn ourselves and find
a way to create some of our own fan base.
And we're going to have to do it in market
by market because we're so divided. But if we could
unite around and I don't mean independent of the USCA
or the Hamiltonian Society, I mean in conjunction with them,
(07:21):
but I don't see them producing a plan that would
get us there. And so just imagine if we had
a million dollar race, two million dollar races in Lexington
and we marketed it properly. We'd fill that place up
and people would know we were there. That doesn't exist
(07:45):
today and most of our markets, so we have a
vehicle to do it. We would we prove it every
year by the crowds we get for the few million
dollar events that we have. And so that some of
our gordon I have been talking about is creating what
(08:05):
we call I think it came up on Freddie Show
a couple of weeks ago about a Grand Slam event. Well,
we took four of our big events and made them
just like a pacing Grand Slam. And some of this
I'm making up as I go along. I mean, because
none of this has been decided by anything but I'm
(08:26):
just for purpose of a conversation. If we had a
purpose a pacing Grand Slam that we marketed as million
dollar races, four million dollar races, and then the Breeders' Crown,
which is also a million dollar plus race. So if
you had the North America and the ideos, the Pace
and the Jug and then the Crown, you could create
(08:46):
five million dollar races. We're gonna we need in some
of these we are already in, you know we're talking about,
but we're trying to create an event that people would
we want to fill the stadium. I mean, having peral
racers or you know, all these kinds of races don't
matter if there's nobody in the stands or they only
come for that. To me, throwing rubber ducties in the
(09:09):
cars is what you do when you're entertaining between races,
not to get people in the stands. So that's kind
of the gist of what we were talking about. How
do we create something an event like that we market
as one ongoing event where we can pick up market,
where we can pick up radio or radio even I
(09:30):
guess in some local markets radio too. But TV start
digitally marketing this as a big event and our goal
is to create awareness and build a fan base market
by market. Now, if you you know, I could I
go back to Thoroughbred. That's pretty much to me how
they do it. When you go to Thoroughbred tracks during
(09:52):
other than when there's these big events, they're not really Besides,
the simulcasting rooms are not well attended, but they live
off these great, big events. And uh, you know, that's
kind of the gist of what Gordon and I have
been talking about. Jordan want editing here.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I'm going to throw this in. Basically, what you're saying
is that we the harness racing industry has to promote
ourselves to exist and to survive and to get the
sport back on track. Also, I'm just going to point
out that this is pretty speaking, by the way. Also,
I'm going to point out that the Thoroughbreds they did
a tremendous amount of market research and they basically copied
(10:34):
that plan. It's already there and all we have to
do is copy it and adjust it to harness race.
It has already been done for us. So and that
was a big money thing that they did. Michael, did
you want to say something in here?
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Yes, I want to echo your sentiments. If you go
back forty years, there was a horse spend the Buck
that instead of going from the Triple Crown went to
the Jersey Derby I believe it was a Garden State
and chase some bonus. And because of that, Therbot Racing
(11:09):
got together and said, we can never let this happen again,
so they created the Visa Triple Crown Bonus. It was
a five million dollar bonus if you won the Triple
Crown events, and there was also points for each event,
which got everything back on track. Because in the mid
eighties the middies was the greatest time and there was
the worst time. But around the eighties you had all
(11:30):
those farms in Kentucky that had trouble. They had to
build the sport basically from scratch again. So what did
they do? You know, the Derby became this magnificent event.
John Gaines came up with the Breeders Cup, a year
end championship, and that did not have three year old races,
(11:51):
you know, because John Gaines wanted to see the three
year old's race against the older horses, which is still
to this day is the big to do. Somebody got
together and said, we have an empty space in the winter.
So instead of having just a don handicap for five months,
you started having Dubai, you started having the Pegasus, and
(12:14):
Churchill created the road to the Derby. Now, all of
a sudden, your first five months are filled up. So
by the time the Derby happens on the first Saturday
in May, people have been watching these horses for two months.
So yes, as Freddy said, everything all the components. If
(12:36):
you watched Saratoga Saturday last year, they did twenty six million.
They had a lot of short fields, but their record
is forty million. For Whitney Day. They did almost fifty
million in a year where horse racings not having the
greatest year, but the third and here's why you're on
the right track wreck because the third bread, the big event,
(13:00):
vents drive everything. Not only did they do fifty million,
but the early pick five pool was over a million dollars,
the late pick five pool was over a million dollars,
and dell Bar's late pickfive pool was a million dollars.
So from a gambling standpoint, the thoroughbreds have the product.
(13:22):
They they're much better at putting on the events. And
let me talk to you one thing and then I'll
open it up. It The Arkansas Derby draws sixty five
thousand people. There's a block long line to get a
tip sheet. The Derby we know does one hundred and
fifty thousand people opening day at Delmar, which they limited
(13:43):
to twenty one thousand people. They could hold more, but
they're limited to twenty one thousand. They were charging seventy
three dollars to get in and they had twenty one
thousand people. This is how far we are from where
they are. This took them forty years and they have
(14:05):
totally re did the sport. We need a complete reboot
and got Rick and Gordon, your two people. That would
be a good place to start. Need their race everything
we know because what we know doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, will Michael, you silenced us all.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Both the combination is silencing because it's so true. I mean,
everything that Rick said is right, everything that was said
after is right. And I mean I was recently at
the Idios and the people of the Idios and the
race office were incredibly nice. So I don't want to
say anything disparaging, but they were talking to me about
how thirty years ago they used to have thousands of
(14:53):
people on the infield around the racetrack and above the racetrack,
and how now they have no one there, And I
was interested to see it was true. They for a
big event. They had a fair number of people there
in terms of making it feel crowded for the grand stand.
But they could have had so much more done. They
could have taken another ten thousand people and had a grandstand.
(15:15):
But they don't promote it. I stayed in a hotel
that was two miles away from the racetrack. They didn't
even know about the race. There's no promotion in what
everything has been said so far. The key is promotion
having a vision. You have to have a vision to
make other people steve the vision and act in a
way that you're hoping they will. We do nothing, We
(15:35):
have no coordination. We don't use television at all. We
spend money in disjointed ways. We have major industry players
having you know, personal dislikes to limit what can be
done in all sorts of ways. We just don't have
leadership that can self promote. The key in what Rick
(15:58):
was postulating was that this industry could self promote. It
needs to do that, but it needs to coalesce and
have a one vision and one objective, and it can
a lot can be done, but it has to be
done in a new way, and it has to be
done in the beginning.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Now, if I think Freddie, can I jump in here
and just say in marketing these I think that in
my experience that digital marketing today is the most effective
by far away of doing it. We're past the days
(16:38):
of direct mail pieces and not that that still doesn't happen,
or billboards, which are very expensive again still happens, but
the backbone of marketing today is digital. And it's from
my perspective that I think works to our advantage because
you can market to the people, very specifically to the
(17:01):
people you want to. So it's just picture, We're going
to have create a big event and take one of
these billion dollar races too, and I'm gonna use elections
for no particular reading except that I started talking about it.
But if you had a good marketing budget and a
good marketing plan, and you started digitally marketing, and everybody
(17:24):
within fifty miles of Lexington who buys a halter, a bridle,
a boot, anything related to horses at all, or for
that matter, gambling, and you started just like you see
yours on your social media these when you've searched something,
things pop up like how did they know I was
looking for a refrigerator? You know? It's that's what digital
(17:45):
marketing does and can be very specific specific. There's two kinds.
It's paid search and pay search to social that we
don't need to get into, but you can be very
effective on who you want to market to. So imagine
if we had a big event, and people love big
events even though they don't know anything about it. They
love to come out to big events. And North Americans
(18:07):
a great example. I've been there a few times, not
as many times as a lot of people, but you
sit out in the I sit out in the stands
and listen to people talking, and it doesn't take long
to figure out that these people don't really know anything
about harness racing. They want to see the million dollar race.
It's a big event. And now when you go to
these small markets, which is where we live, think about
(18:31):
we're all outside of the meadowlands, but most of our
markets are all smaller markets, and a big event like
that in a small market is a big event, a
big event, and a big market is just another event.
So the combination of people in small markets will drive
much farther distances because it's easy to travel twenty miles
(18:55):
miles in rurally than it is in the city obviously,
so you can expand where you can market to. But
the we can take the things that people may think
as negatives, like being a small market, and the fact
that we haven't done any of this digital marketing in
a coordinated way, especially around a sequence of events, means
(19:19):
that all that opportunity is there. We just need to,
you know, figure out a plan to do it, market
the whole thing and you I think you'd be amazed
at how bigger crowds could we get there. Now what
happens people go, well, what's that? What does that mean?
You know, so they had big one, a big event.
How's that going to help us? Well, because that I'll
go back to digital marketing. If I if I send
(19:42):
you a digital market something digital marketing that says we're
having a million dollar race at the red mile. Here's
your free paths. You know, sign up here, you know,
download this. Now you capture all their information for future marketing.
You start building a big market pool of people you're
going to market to, and it keeps growing. And that's
what goes on in the rest of the world outside
(20:04):
of ours, including throwbrids. They capture a ute and it
keeps a growing number of people. So that's how you
keep doing it. Now, how does that affect the mesino? Well,
obviously bringing people out there. When we're doing this marketing,
we give them a get with the casino and try
to get them. What if we get ten twenty thousand people,
(20:24):
we want you to give them a pass for twenty
dollars slot play to get them into the casino. Now,
some percentage I don't know what, but some percentage of
those people we show them a good time will come
back that the casinos know how much that means to
them to get people through that door. They can tell
you to the dying probably what every customer is worth
(20:47):
to them. So we keep building this and again, market
by market in time you're going to start when you
start having these events, but you'll also build up an
online Basically you're becoming unknown on you know, known online
where we're completely unknown now and you start growing this
(21:07):
population of people we can market to. But again, it
all has to be done. You know, we need one
big plan. As Gordon said, and then keep building it.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
From there, Rick, what type of budget do you think
we would need to market the whole sport of harness ration?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Well, you know, I was. You know, it's hard to
answer that because I have not been involved with this
cup of marketing in several years, so things change. But
just looking at it, if we created tried to create
this pacing Gland Grand Slam again, I just made up
the name, But to get all five of those events
(21:47):
over a million dollars, it costs us about a million
and a half if you look at it, and then
you'd have to factor in probably I would say anywhere
from twenty five I've to fifty thousand per location to market,
especially out of the box. We're trying to build a
(22:07):
big online audience. So the total of what I think
might cost us to do this whole thing, including the marketing,
would probably be in the area two million dollars. Now,
how much per marketing? Again, until we do it once
and see the impact, We'll learn as we go because
we're starting from scratch and that can be good and
(22:31):
bad in different ways. But as we do a little bit,
so it's hard to answer that question until we do it. So,
but it'll take a substantial amount of money to get
us off the ground, and then I don't know that
we'll have to keep that pace to do it. If
that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Michael, Michael, you're a hand say Michael, it's just going
to add one thing that on the marketing dollar amounts.
The other factor that one can't know. I can't quantify
right now, But you certainly need this series to be
covered on network. If you don't have network to push it,
(23:09):
it's going to be very difficult. The in house shows
can't really do it. The industry hasn't done too much.
You want this also from a fundraising perspective. You want
this on network TV because it's going to broaden your
reach of outside industry participants. The assumption that Rick and
I had was that we could probably raise a million
(23:30):
or more within the industry through the sales, through the breeders,
through various different means. One of the concerns is that
in the past, so many things have been tried to fail.
They have the Classic series that was funded through the
sales and never materialized as anything that could be kept.
So there's some negative energy in the industry with respect
(23:53):
to how the finance within the industry. But our assumption
was that we could raise from more from the industry,
and then we have to raise half that side. And
then that TV network aspect is really crucial because that's
the medium by which you take it to a third
brede level.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Make it.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
What IRA's done. They've got twenty five hours of programming
every week on Fox Sports. And what is that worth?
I have no idea. But even on a Wednesday, they
come out at one o'clock, they stay till six o'clock,
they show the Raiss. Saturday, you watch the whole Saratoga Card.
(24:37):
I mean, this is all new stuff. Twenty five hours
of programming every week. Not to mention, TVG's on and
TVG has a solid group of people, you know, running
that network and they're constantly driving you know, the product,
and their talent is excellent and we just can't get
(25:02):
anything close to this.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Michael. I'm going to jump in over here, Freddie here,
if you go back to two thousand and eleven when
the McKinsey report came out, the McKenzie report came out
and basically told the thoroughbred industry in that report that
currently you have to increase your TV coverage they were
doing forty hours a year in coverage at that point.
(25:26):
Since since then they increased that to I think it's
over one thousand hours a year now. I think the
last figure I looked at was like nine hundred and something,
but I think it's over one thousand now. And one
of the reasons that they had recommended the TV coverage
was that we have an older audience that is watching
(25:47):
our races, and while the younger generation is going to
the social media sites for their entertainment and so forth,
the older people, our audience, was going to TV more.
And so they basically felt we could protect our fan
base by going to the TV and that was their
reason and behind that.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Don't mean that there have been all kinds of suggestions made.
That was a good one. There's been all kinds of
suggestions to lower takeout. They haven't done that. When the
Fix six halfed at Arlington in two thousand and two,
they said, you got to totally revamp the toad system.
What have they done? Nothing? So now twenty years later, Jo,
(26:31):
you see horses even at Delmar going from eighteen to
one to six to one, from nine to one to
five to two, and it's like, boy, how can this happen? Yeah, yeah,
this was addressed in two thousand and two, twenty three
years ago, and here we are and we still can't
figure out how to do this. And the reason is
(26:53):
you don't have enough gambling people in the industry to
point things out that are simple to gamblers but not
necessarily simple to people that are, you know, in the
other parts of the business, the breeding part of the business,
the marketing part of the business, the gambling part of
the business has to drive this. And I don't understand
(27:18):
as a gambler why that should be so difficult to understand.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
But it is.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Okay. The other thing I'm going to make a suggestion
is that maybe we should put a committee together and
figure out who we should invite on this committee and
start this thing rolling.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
I have an idea. This is Michael and Rick you
can do this. And Gordon you should be in charge
of this. A mass thirty or forty probably marketing people.
You're best marketing people, and the people that maybe investors.
And I would make four stops, first, one of the
Arkansas Derby and see what it's like to be to
(28:01):
see a crowd of sixty five thousand. Then I would
take them to one of the nighttime Churchill parties. I
wouldn't take them to the Derby. I'd take them to
a nighttime Churchill party. Theme parties for younger people to
dress up. Everyone's got a cowboy theme or something.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Upscale, they draw twenty five or thirty thousand people, but
these are not racing people, and ask Churchill, how did
you do this? Then go to opening day at Saratoga,
wait for one thousand people there at seven in the
morning to come in, and when the apron comes up
and you see all twenty and thirty year old, well
(28:39):
dressed people on the apron like like it was for
the Belmont, ask the marketing people at NIRA, how did
you do this? And then finally go to Delmar for
opening Day where they charged, as I said, seventy three
dollars to get in and they were sold out. They
could have probably sold out forty thousand, and ask the
marketing department how did you do this? Because they've done
(29:02):
all Freddie said it. They've done all the steps. All
we need to do is come up with a plan
to come up with the reasonable fact simile of what
they did. The work's already been done.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah, but Michael, it's more difficult than our industry because
the factor, the biggest impediment to this is that there
is no desire on the part of the owners of
the race tracks to spend any money or do anything
to make progress. If anything, they want us to go backwards.
So you have to fund this, at least in the beginning,
(29:36):
somewhat independently of the owners of the racetracks except for
the Goral and the Red Mile tracks. And you have
to you have to find a way to achieve an
objective that this industry has never been able to do.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
That.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
The USJ does nothing towards promoting the industry. I'm not
saying it should. It wasn't their original mandate. They really
should just be a data resource. And there's a there's
a void in the industry of leadership and marketing and promotion.
But everything is extremely doable if there's willing if there's
(30:13):
a willingness to spend, you can't you can't create a
change without spending. Nobody's willing to spend, I mean, and
each of these solutions are local. It's a good idea
to go see those things, but you don't even have
to see them to know they exist and to know
what's required. If you go to the Metalands, for example,
look at all the assets within fifteen miles of the
metal Lands, all the all the shops, all the stores,
(30:36):
all the restaurants. How hard would it be to have
a special evening where you bring in a celebrity chef
for a special theme party. Other things you could. You
could in a span of two or three years get
that place packed with celebrities, with interesting people with a
different audience, but there's no desire to do it. Instead,
(30:57):
the Metalands promotes by throwing dollars into pass the car.
And I don't mean to make fun or belittle that,
but that has no chance of in any way helping
the industry and the business there.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, I'm also this is ready here again. I'm also
going to jump in here. Jason Senttlemore several times has
tried to present to the United States Try and Association's
board an idea of taking like five percent of the
game and money that comes in and putting it into
a national marketing program marketing to promote the sport. And
(31:32):
before he could even get it out of his mouth,
Joe Farraldo shot him down, and half the directors got
up and walked out of the meeting.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Yeah, because this is an industry where what's holding it
back is the desire of each entity to just protect
what it has, and each leader in the industry to
protect their job and their base. With all we're talking about,
we're talking about big events that generally, in the first instance,
(32:06):
benefit big players and big horses. So the immediate response
of people in the middle or bottom level of the
industry in terms of dollar value and value of their horses,
they go, wait a minute, what's in it for us?
And as Rick has said to me many times, the
boat goes for everybody. And the more success we have
(32:30):
with big events, the more there is available for other events.
And it has to also be an awareness that everybody
pulls together, and that requires leadership to unite the industry.
It just didn't there. That's a real problem. I think
what Michael's talking about, what Rick's talking about, what I
talk about, there are common sense solutions that are necessary.
(32:51):
It's almost impossible for someone to say that's not the
right way to go. The problem, as the industry has
is when they see the right thing to do, they
don't do it. And the question is how do you
get this industry and to do those things.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I do think that our first start would be put
a committee together and definitely we need to have the
USTA representative or someone from the USDA on that committee,
and definitely someone from the Hamiltonian Society like John Campbell
to be on the committee. That would be my recommendation
to start getting this off the ground.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
And I think you first a business plan. I think
you need a business plan first, but you're supposed.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
To be a business plan Gordon, remember you in market
I tell you had that done.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah, I have to translate it from French. But we
need the business plan first that Rick would be happy
with it. I'm happy with it that you and Michael
and other people are happy with. Then one tries to
form an effective committee. I think they can reach out
and have specialists in these field. You need people that
(33:56):
can help on the marketing and you need people us
different ways. But I think the first step has to
be that there's a somewhat vetted specific plan that one
can the one can attempt to follow, and then one
can also take it to networks and see their reaction.
Because nothing's going to fly exactly as you design it.
(34:18):
More easily. So we have to coordinate it because you
have to get you have to be able to raise
money in the industry, and you have to be able
to raise money outside the industry. But the plan as
crucial as the first step.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Gordon, can I jump in there? I was gonna I
think it is rick. I think Gordon was trying to
say a rising tide lifts or boats in the harbor. Yes,
where he went there. But and it's true, one of
our first hurdles that we in this conversation with other
people that we had to jump was what Gordon just said.
(34:54):
That people look at it go, oh, this is great
for the for the rich guys racing for a million
dollars houses helped a little guy. And my immediate response
is because if we don't do the little guy won't
have any place to race. The idea that the you know,
it's kind of like the lottery, and that people buy
(35:15):
lottery tickets. Only a few people win the lottery, but
the lottery money goes into theoretically goes into the education
department of people that the profit from it. Well, in
this case, we're doing yeah, a few people, but most
of the people who are buying and racing horses at
that level are not making money. I mean, they're having
fun and raising for big dollars, but the majority of
(35:38):
the people are not necessarily making a lot of that
money back. The people who really win in this scenario
obviously the breeders, because the more money that we race for,
the more valuable their their product is. And that's why
throwbit horses are so much more valuable. It costs wise
than a harness horse. But that's that's something we can change,
(36:04):
and the I could the analogy to the lottery does
make sense in a way that because if we look
at the freehold, where are they racing now? Now? Had
we gone in there and done a big event there
and made people aware, you know, one of the things
that that that happens when when, if we if and
when we do this is that from the perspective of
(36:26):
the casino who'd like to get rid of us, it's
going to make it. I think they're going to have
some resistance to it, because it's the more things that
we do, the more known we become, the more aware
the public and then the politicians become of our that
we have a following and have an audience. They look
(36:47):
at that as voters, you know that May is going
to make it much much harder over time for the
Rassinos to get rid of us. And uh, that's the
major goal here. If we could build our own fan
base and start doing all the things we're talking about.
Wolf stop losing tracks because in closing facilities, because it'll
(37:11):
make it very difficult for them to go to the politicians. Hey,
nobody cares about this, nobody even goes. Nobody bets Yeah,
because that's what you guys want, and that's why you've
unmarketed us into oblivion. But when we turn that around,
this goes right to our survival. So anybody thinks this
is only for one group of people in our industry
(37:33):
is not seeing the big picture.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Yeah. I think that's very well said. I think that's
a really important.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Point that.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
We have to keep focus on, keep hammering away at.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
I think there's two things to add to what Rick said.
Number one is the reason people invest in therapreds is
the persons are so astronomical compared to how and I'm
not talking about the total purses. I'm just telling you
about maiden purses, allowance purses, I mean claiming purses. You
(38:13):
in need to get these persones higher, and everyone knows
the only way to do this currently is they have
less racing days. But that's that's the that's the give,
that's the quid pro quote. You've got to get these
persones higher if you're going to get people really interested
in the sport. And the second thing is that all
(38:35):
the things you said about casinos, that is why everything's
going to end up in Kentucky because the gambling product
in Kentucky is owned by the race tracks, and the
race tracks want to push racing. There's no shareholders like
there are of a big gaming company saying we just
spent a billion dollars on this track. All we've got
(38:56):
to do is get of racing and we get our
billion dollars back. Right, Because they're worried about the stock price, Well,
in Kentucky, that doesn't exist, and that comes back to
the point you made, Rick, That's why everything's going to
end up in Kentucky.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Okay, gentlemen, I want to thank everyone for joining us today. Rick,
Michael Gordon, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Thank you. I'd like to be here.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Okay, that's a wrap for this week's show, and please
join us again next week
Speaker 4 (39:25):
The Honest Racing Alumni Show
Welcome to this week's Harness Racing Alumni Show. I'm Freddie
Hudson and I'm here today with Trade Martin and Bob Marks.
This week's Harness Racing Alumni Show is brought to you
by the Metal Lands Racetrack, home of the Metal Lands
Pace and the Hamiltonian. Visit www dot Playmeetalands dot com.
(00:21):
The Harness Racing Alumni Show with your host Freddie Hudson
and Trade Martin, we have a special show for you today.
Joining us we have returning Gordon Banks and International at
Standerbred breeder and owner, Michael Antonatis, a professional analyst, and
Rick Burks, a Stantabred owner and breeder, founder of Planet
(00:46):
Fitness health Clubs and you Fit Health Clubs. Gentlemen, Welcome
to the Harness Racing Alumni Show.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Welcome you.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
Okay, so today we're going to be talking about the
promotion of the sport of harness racing and the lack
of for why didn't you lead us in?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
You always put me, You always put me in a
bad position. But Rick and I have been talking for
a while about what might be able to be done
in this industry to try to get the sport more visible,
better promoted in a better relationship with casinos. Rick has
some great ideas and I think it's best that he
(01:32):
tried to explain his perspective. But everything is with a
positive outlook, trying to move this industry to a point
where it can succeed, because if nothing's done, I think
there's a general consensus if the industry has nowhere to
go but down. So Rick, I think it's really on
you to explain your thinking.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Well, I think you hit on it, and as you said,
we've been talking about it. But from what I've seen,
and I you know, I grew up in South Florida
and saw what went on with Pompado when the casinos
took them over. Took it over early on, and it
quickly became obvious that their mission. It took some time,
(02:18):
but we're not really partners with them. Their mission is
basically to get rid of us. And in a way
I can't blame them because we don't bring anything to
the party. We just have our hands out. We're a
very divided industry. We have facilities all over, but a
few of them ever worked together in unison, and we're
(02:42):
losing this facilities left and right, and I don't see
any end in sight that I don't see any organization
that should be leading our industry out of the wilderness
here have not either don't have a good idea what
(03:02):
to do, or what they've done hasn't worked, and I
think that's pretty obvious. My thought was when I look
around the thoroughbred industry, and I think some of the
guys were talking about it before we came on air,
but there's at least I think forty thoroughbred races in
the North America that are over a million dollar perse
(03:26):
and typically those are where they get their big crowds.
In Lexington, where I spent part of the year, everybody
knows Keelan it's open three weeks in the fall and
three weeks in the spring, and according to things statistics
I've read, they generate something like one point six billion
(03:47):
dollars in economic impact just in that short period of time.
In the standard bread business, we have, I think, correct
me if I'm wrong, three races that are arguably a
million dollars. Know. North American is at a different dollar
dollar value, but between the Hamiltonian, the North American and
the jug are the only million dollar plus races that
(04:13):
we have, and I think that it's pretty obvious those
are probably the best attending race attended races by the
public that we have and our own industry people who
are in the industry. And that's without even any significant
marketing going on in a modern way. And what I
mean by that is digital marketing, which that's what you
(04:37):
have to get into to be effective today. So what
Gordon I have been talking about is we've kind of
you know, you can go to in Lexington. I go there,
you can. I was shocked to find out when Pompino closed,
I bought a place up in Lexington. I was really
shocked to find out that very few people Lexington, whether
(05:02):
they're my neighbors. Wherever you go, you'd be hard pressed
to find somebody who knows that the Red Model exists
or that harness racing goes on there. Now, that's the
self proclaimed horse capital of the world, and the track's
been there one hundred and fifty years and it's owned
by substantially by harness industry people, and yet nobody knows
(05:25):
that we exist.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Now.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
I think that's probably the same in other places a Saratoga,
for one, But I would be not be surprised to
find that's pretty typical. And the reason really more than
anything else, is that, from my perspective is the casinos,
the rassinos, they unmarket us into oblivion. You could have
(05:51):
walked around Pompino for days and never known that there
was racing on on right outside the back door, and
it was never an accident, it was that's in their minds. Again,
My opinion is they think that every dollar spent on
a horse racing bet is they would have made more
money if somebody put it in a slot. So from
(06:13):
the day that we do a deal with them at
every facility, it's that our days are numbered and they're
proving it. How many you know, you could list all
the tracks that are closed and that's going to continue
to happen. We're completely unknown. So I think the first
thing we really have to do as an industry is
unite behind something that to build our own fan base
(06:39):
back and we can't do therasinos are not going to
do it. And the rasinos run the tracks basically now
with the exception of I think Jeff Carrel's, but most
of them and they have no interest. Their interest is
in the other direction. So we basically, I think, have
(07:00):
to take the bull by the horn ourselves and find
a way to create some of our own fan base.
And we're going to have to do it in market
by market because we're so divided. But if we could
unite around and I don't mean independent of the USCA
or the Hamiltonian Society, I mean in conjunction with them,
(07:21):
but I don't see them producing a plan that would
get us there. And so just imagine if we had
a million dollar race, two million dollar races in Lexington
and we marketed it properly. We'd fill that place up
and people would know we were there. That doesn't exist
(07:45):
today and most of our markets, so we have a
vehicle to do it. We would we prove it every
year by the crowds we get for the few million
dollar events that we have. And so that some of
our gordon I have been talking about is creating what
(08:05):
we call I think it came up on Freddie Show
a couple of weeks ago about a Grand Slam event. Well,
we took four of our big events and made them
just like a pacing Grand Slam. And some of this
I'm making up as I go along. I mean, because
none of this has been decided by anything but I'm
(08:26):
just for purpose of a conversation. If we had a
purpose a pacing Grand Slam that we marketed as million
dollar races, four million dollar races, and then the Breeders' Crown,
which is also a million dollar plus race. So if
you had the North America and the ideos, the Pace
and the Jug and then the Crown, you could create
(08:46):
five million dollar races. We're gonna we need in some
of these we are already in, you know we're talking about,
but we're trying to create an event that people would
we want to fill the stadium. I mean, having peral
racers or you know, all these kinds of races don't
matter if there's nobody in the stands or they only
come for that. To me, throwing rubber ducties in the
(09:09):
cars is what you do when you're entertaining between races,
not to get people in the stands. So that's kind
of the gist of what we were talking about. How
do we create something an event like that we market
as one ongoing event where we can pick up market,
where we can pick up radio or radio even I
(09:30):
guess in some local markets radio too. But TV start
digitally marketing this as a big event and our goal
is to create awareness and build a fan base market
by market. Now, if you you know, I could I
go back to Thoroughbred. That's pretty much to me how
they do it. When you go to Thoroughbred tracks during
(09:52):
other than when there's these big events, they're not really Besides,
the simulcasting rooms are not well attended, but they live
off these great, big events. And uh, you know, that's
kind of the gist of what Gordon and I have
been talking about. Jordan want editing here.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
I'm going to throw this in. Basically, what you're saying
is that we the harness racing industry has to promote
ourselves to exist and to survive and to get the
sport back on track. Also, I'm just going to point
out that this is pretty speaking, by the way. Also,
I'm going to point out that the Thoroughbreds they did
a tremendous amount of market research and they basically copied
(10:34):
that plan. It's already there and all we have to
do is copy it and adjust it to harness race.
It has already been done for us. So and that
was a big money thing that they did. Michael, did
you want to say something in here?
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Yes, I want to echo your sentiments. If you go
back forty years, there was a horse spend the Buck
that instead of going from the Triple Crown went to
the Jersey Derby I believe it was a Garden State
and chase some bonus. And because of that, Therbot Racing
(11:09):
got together and said, we can never let this happen again,
so they created the Visa Triple Crown Bonus. It was
a five million dollar bonus if you won the Triple
Crown events, and there was also points for each event,
which got everything back on track. Because in the mid
eighties the middies was the greatest time and there was
the worst time. But around the eighties you had all
(11:30):
those farms in Kentucky that had trouble. They had to
build the sport basically from scratch again. So what did
they do? You know, the Derby became this magnificent event.
John Gaines came up with the Breeders Cup, a year
end championship, and that did not have three year old races,
(11:51):
you know, because John Gaines wanted to see the three
year old's race against the older horses, which is still
to this day is the big to do. Somebody got
together and said, we have an empty space in the winter.
So instead of having just a don handicap for five months,
you started having Dubai, you started having the Pegasus, and
(12:14):
Churchill created the road to the Derby. Now, all of
a sudden, your first five months are filled up. So
by the time the Derby happens on the first Saturday
in May, people have been watching these horses for two months.
So yes, as Freddy said, everything all the components. If
(12:36):
you watched Saratoga Saturday last year, they did twenty six million.
They had a lot of short fields, but their record
is forty million. For Whitney Day. They did almost fifty
million in a year where horse racings not having the
greatest year, but the third and here's why you're on
the right track wreck because the third bread, the big event,
(13:00):
vents drive everything. Not only did they do fifty million,
but the early pick five pool was over a million dollars,
the late pick five pool was over a million dollars,
and dell Bar's late pickfive pool was a million dollars.
So from a gambling standpoint, the thoroughbreds have the product.
(13:22):
They they're much better at putting on the events. And
let me talk to you one thing and then I'll
open it up. It The Arkansas Derby draws sixty five
thousand people. There's a block long line to get a
tip sheet. The Derby we know does one hundred and
fifty thousand people opening day at Delmar, which they limited
(13:43):
to twenty one thousand people. They could hold more, but
they're limited to twenty one thousand. They were charging seventy
three dollars to get in and they had twenty one
thousand people. This is how far we are from where
they are. This took them forty years and they have
(14:05):
totally re did the sport. We need a complete reboot
and got Rick and Gordon, your two people. That would
be a good place to start. Need their race everything
we know because what we know doesn't work.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Yeah, will Michael, you silenced us all.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
Both the combination is silencing because it's so true. I mean,
everything that Rick said is right, everything that was said
after is right. And I mean I was recently at
the Idios and the people of the Idios and the
race office were incredibly nice. So I don't want to
say anything disparaging, but they were talking to me about
how thirty years ago they used to have thousands of
(14:53):
people on the infield around the racetrack and above the racetrack,
and how now they have no one there, And I
was interested to see it was true. They for a
big event. They had a fair number of people there
in terms of making it feel crowded for the grand stand.
But they could have had so much more done. They
could have taken another ten thousand people and had a grandstand.
(15:15):
But they don't promote it. I stayed in a hotel
that was two miles away from the racetrack. They didn't
even know about the race. There's no promotion in what
everything has been said so far. The key is promotion
having a vision. You have to have a vision to
make other people steve the vision and act in a
way that you're hoping they will. We do nothing, We
(15:35):
have no coordination. We don't use television at all. We
spend money in disjointed ways. We have major industry players
having you know, personal dislikes to limit what can be
done in all sorts of ways. We just don't have
leadership that can self promote. The key in what Rick
(15:58):
was postulating was that this industry could self promote. It
needs to do that, but it needs to coalesce and
have a one vision and one objective, and it can
a lot can be done, but it has to be
done in a new way, and it has to be
done in the beginning.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Now, if I think Freddie, can I jump in here
and just say in marketing these I think that in
my experience that digital marketing today is the most effective
by far away of doing it. We're past the days
(16:38):
of direct mail pieces and not that that still doesn't happen,
or billboards, which are very expensive again still happens, but
the backbone of marketing today is digital. And it's from
my perspective that I think works to our advantage because
you can market to the people, very specifically to the
(17:01):
people you want to. So it's just picture, We're going
to have create a big event and take one of
these billion dollar races too, and I'm gonna use elections
for no particular reading except that I started talking about it.
But if you had a good marketing budget and a
good marketing plan, and you started digitally marketing, and everybody
(17:24):
within fifty miles of Lexington who buys a halter, a bridle,
a boot, anything related to horses at all, or for
that matter, gambling, and you started just like you see
yours on your social media these when you've searched something,
things pop up like how did they know I was
looking for a refrigerator? You know? It's that's what digital
(17:45):
marketing does and can be very specific specific. There's two kinds.
It's paid search and pay search to social that we
don't need to get into, but you can be very
effective on who you want to market to. So imagine
if we had a big event, and people love big
events even though they don't know anything about it. They
love to come out to big events. And North Americans
(18:07):
a great example. I've been there a few times, not
as many times as a lot of people, but you
sit out in the I sit out in the stands
and listen to people talking, and it doesn't take long
to figure out that these people don't really know anything
about harness racing. They want to see the million dollar race.
It's a big event. And now when you go to
these small markets, which is where we live, think about
(18:31):
we're all outside of the meadowlands, but most of our
markets are all smaller markets, and a big event like
that in a small market is a big event, a
big event, and a big market is just another event.
So the combination of people in small markets will drive
much farther distances because it's easy to travel twenty miles
(18:55):
miles in rurally than it is in the city obviously,
so you can expand where you can market to. But
the we can take the things that people may think
as negatives, like being a small market, and the fact
that we haven't done any of this digital marketing in
a coordinated way, especially around a sequence of events, means
(19:19):
that all that opportunity is there. We just need to,
you know, figure out a plan to do it, market
the whole thing and you I think you'd be amazed
at how bigger crowds could we get there. Now what
happens people go, well, what's that? What does that mean?
You know, so they had big one, a big event.
How's that going to help us? Well, because that I'll
go back to digital marketing. If I if I send
(19:42):
you a digital market something digital marketing that says we're
having a million dollar race at the red mile. Here's
your free paths. You know, sign up here, you know,
download this. Now you capture all their information for future marketing.
You start building a big market pool of people you're
going to market to, and it keeps growing. And that's
what goes on in the rest of the world outside
(20:04):
of ours, including throwbrids. They capture a ute and it
keeps a growing number of people. So that's how you
keep doing it. Now, how does that affect the mesino? Well,
obviously bringing people out there. When we're doing this marketing,
we give them a get with the casino and try
to get them. What if we get ten twenty thousand people,
(20:24):
we want you to give them a pass for twenty
dollars slot play to get them into the casino. Now,
some percentage I don't know what, but some percentage of
those people we show them a good time will come
back that the casinos know how much that means to
them to get people through that door. They can tell
you to the dying probably what every customer is worth
(20:47):
to them. So we keep building this and again, market
by market in time you're going to start when you
start having these events, but you'll also build up an
online Basically you're becoming unknown on you know, known online
where we're completely unknown now and you start growing this
(21:07):
population of people we can market to. But again, it
all has to be done. You know, we need one
big plan. As Gordon said, and then keep building it.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
From there, Rick, what type of budget do you think
we would need to market the whole sport of harness ration?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Well, you know, I was. You know, it's hard to
answer that because I have not been involved with this
cup of marketing in several years, so things change. But
just looking at it, if we created tried to create
this pacing Gland Grand Slam again, I just made up
the name, But to get all five of those events
(21:47):
over a million dollars, it costs us about a million
and a half if you look at it, and then
you'd have to factor in probably I would say anywhere
from twenty five I've to fifty thousand per location to market,
especially out of the box. We're trying to build a
(22:07):
big online audience. So the total of what I think
might cost us to do this whole thing, including the marketing,
would probably be in the area two million dollars. Now,
how much per marketing? Again, until we do it once
and see the impact, We'll learn as we go because
we're starting from scratch and that can be good and
(22:31):
bad in different ways. But as we do a little bit,
so it's hard to answer that question until we do it. So,
but it'll take a substantial amount of money to get
us off the ground, and then I don't know that
we'll have to keep that pace to do it. If
that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Michael, Michael, you're a hand say Michael, it's just going
to add one thing that on the marketing dollar amounts.
The other factor that one can't know. I can't quantify
right now, But you certainly need this series to be
covered on network. If you don't have network to push it,
(23:09):
it's going to be very difficult. The in house shows
can't really do it. The industry hasn't done too much.
You want this also from a fundraising perspective. You want
this on network TV because it's going to broaden your
reach of outside industry participants. The assumption that Rick and
I had was that we could probably raise a million
(23:30):
or more within the industry through the sales, through the breeders,
through various different means. One of the concerns is that
in the past, so many things have been tried to fail.
They have the Classic series that was funded through the
sales and never materialized as anything that could be kept.
So there's some negative energy in the industry with respect
(23:53):
to how the finance within the industry. But our assumption
was that we could raise from more from the industry,
and then we have to raise half that side. And
then that TV network aspect is really crucial because that's
the medium by which you take it to a third
brede level.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Make it.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
What IRA's done. They've got twenty five hours of programming
every week on Fox Sports. And what is that worth?
I have no idea. But even on a Wednesday, they
come out at one o'clock, they stay till six o'clock,
they show the Raiss. Saturday, you watch the whole Saratoga Card.
(24:37):
I mean, this is all new stuff. Twenty five hours
of programming every week. Not to mention, TVG's on and
TVG has a solid group of people, you know, running
that network and they're constantly driving you know, the product,
and their talent is excellent and we just can't get
(25:02):
anything close to this.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Michael. I'm going to jump in over here, Freddie here,
if you go back to two thousand and eleven when
the McKinsey report came out, the McKenzie report came out
and basically told the thoroughbred industry in that report that
currently you have to increase your TV coverage they were
doing forty hours a year in coverage at that point.
(25:26):
Since since then they increased that to I think it's
over one thousand hours a year now. I think the
last figure I looked at was like nine hundred and something,
but I think it's over one thousand now. And one
of the reasons that they had recommended the TV coverage
was that we have an older audience that is watching
(25:47):
our races, and while the younger generation is going to
the social media sites for their entertainment and so forth,
the older people, our audience, was going to TV more.
And so they basically felt we could protect our fan
base by going to the TV and that was their
reason and behind that.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Don't mean that there have been all kinds of suggestions made.
That was a good one. There's been all kinds of
suggestions to lower takeout. They haven't done that. When the
Fix six halfed at Arlington in two thousand and two,
they said, you got to totally revamp the toad system.
What have they done? Nothing? So now twenty years later, Jo,
(26:31):
you see horses even at Delmar going from eighteen to
one to six to one, from nine to one to
five to two, and it's like, boy, how can this happen? Yeah, yeah,
this was addressed in two thousand and two, twenty three
years ago, and here we are and we still can't
figure out how to do this. And the reason is
(26:53):
you don't have enough gambling people in the industry to
point things out that are simple to gamblers but not
necessarily simple to people that are, you know, in the
other parts of the business, the breeding part of the business,
the marketing part of the business, the gambling part of
the business has to drive this. And I don't understand
(27:18):
as a gambler why that should be so difficult to understand.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
But it is.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
Okay. The other thing I'm going to make a suggestion
is that maybe we should put a committee together and
figure out who we should invite on this committee and
start this thing rolling.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
I have an idea. This is Michael and Rick you
can do this. And Gordon you should be in charge
of this. A mass thirty or forty probably marketing people.
You're best marketing people, and the people that maybe investors.
And I would make four stops, first, one of the
Arkansas Derby and see what it's like to be to
(28:01):
see a crowd of sixty five thousand. Then I would
take them to one of the nighttime Churchill parties. I
wouldn't take them to the Derby. I'd take them to
a nighttime Churchill party. Theme parties for younger people to
dress up. Everyone's got a cowboy theme or something.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
You know.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Upscale, they draw twenty five or thirty thousand people, but
these are not racing people, and ask Churchill, how did
you do this? Then go to opening day at Saratoga,
wait for one thousand people there at seven in the
morning to come in, and when the apron comes up
and you see all twenty and thirty year old, well
(28:39):
dressed people on the apron like like it was for
the Belmont, ask the marketing people at NIRA, how did
you do this? And then finally go to Delmar for
opening Day where they charged, as I said, seventy three
dollars to get in and they were sold out. They
could have probably sold out forty thousand, and ask the
marketing department how did you do this? Because they've done
(29:02):
all Freddie said it. They've done all the steps. All
we need to do is come up with a plan
to come up with the reasonable fact simile of what
they did. The work's already been done.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah, but Michael, it's more difficult than our industry because
the factor, the biggest impediment to this is that there
is no desire on the part of the owners of
the race tracks to spend any money or do anything
to make progress. If anything, they want us to go backwards.
So you have to fund this, at least in the beginning,
(29:36):
somewhat independently of the owners of the racetracks except for
the Goral and the Red Mile tracks. And you have
to you have to find a way to achieve an
objective that this industry has never been able to do.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
That.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
The USJ does nothing towards promoting the industry. I'm not
saying it should. It wasn't their original mandate. They really
should just be a data resource. And there's a there's
a void in the industry of leadership and marketing and promotion.
But everything is extremely doable if there's willing if there's
(30:13):
a willingness to spend, you can't you can't create a
change without spending. Nobody's willing to spend, I mean, and
each of these solutions are local. It's a good idea
to go see those things, but you don't even have
to see them to know they exist and to know
what's required. If you go to the Metalands, for example,
look at all the assets within fifteen miles of the
metal Lands, all the all the shops, all the stores,
(30:36):
all the restaurants. How hard would it be to have
a special evening where you bring in a celebrity chef
for a special theme party. Other things you could. You
could in a span of two or three years get
that place packed with celebrities, with interesting people with a
different audience, but there's no desire to do it. Instead,
(30:57):
the Metalands promotes by throwing dollars into pass the car.
And I don't mean to make fun or belittle that,
but that has no chance of in any way helping
the industry and the business there.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, I'm also this is ready here again. I'm also
going to jump in here. Jason Senttlemore several times has
tried to present to the United States Try and Association's
board an idea of taking like five percent of the
game and money that comes in and putting it into
a national marketing program marketing to promote the sport. And
(31:32):
before he could even get it out of his mouth,
Joe Farraldo shot him down, and half the directors got
up and walked out of the meeting.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Yeah, because this is an industry where what's holding it
back is the desire of each entity to just protect
what it has, and each leader in the industry to
protect their job and their base. With all we're talking about,
we're talking about big events that generally, in the first instance,
(32:06):
benefit big players and big horses. So the immediate response
of people in the middle or bottom level of the
industry in terms of dollar value and value of their horses,
they go, wait a minute, what's in it for us?
And as Rick has said to me many times, the
boat goes for everybody. And the more success we have
(32:30):
with big events, the more there is available for other events.
And it has to also be an awareness that everybody
pulls together, and that requires leadership to unite the industry.
It just didn't there. That's a real problem. I think
what Michael's talking about, what Rick's talking about, what I
talk about, there are common sense solutions that are necessary.
(32:51):
It's almost impossible for someone to say that's not the
right way to go. The problem, as the industry has
is when they see the right thing to do, they
don't do it. And the question is how do you
get this industry and to do those things.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I do think that our first start would be put
a committee together and definitely we need to have the
USTA representative or someone from the USDA on that committee,
and definitely someone from the Hamiltonian Society like John Campbell
to be on the committee. That would be my recommendation
to start getting this off the ground.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
And I think you first a business plan. I think
you need a business plan first, but you're supposed.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
To be a business plan Gordon, remember you in market
I tell you had that done.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah, I have to translate it from French. But we
need the business plan first that Rick would be happy
with it. I'm happy with it that you and Michael
and other people are happy with. Then one tries to
form an effective committee. I think they can reach out
and have specialists in these field. You need people that
(33:56):
can help on the marketing and you need people us
different ways. But I think the first step has to
be that there's a somewhat vetted specific plan that one
can the one can attempt to follow, and then one
can also take it to networks and see their reaction.
Because nothing's going to fly exactly as you design it.
(34:18):
More easily. So we have to coordinate it because you
have to get you have to be able to raise
money in the industry, and you have to be able
to raise money outside the industry. But the plan as
crucial as the first step.
Speaker 2 (34:30):
Gordon, can I jump in there? I was gonna I
think it is rick. I think Gordon was trying to
say a rising tide lifts or boats in the harbor. Yes,
where he went there. But and it's true, one of
our first hurdles that we in this conversation with other
people that we had to jump was what Gordon just said.
(34:54):
That people look at it go, oh, this is great
for the for the rich guys racing for a million
dollars houses helped a little guy. And my immediate response
is because if we don't do the little guy won't
have any place to race. The idea that the you know,
it's kind of like the lottery, and that people buy
(35:15):
lottery tickets. Only a few people win the lottery, but
the lottery money goes into theoretically goes into the education
department of people that the profit from it. Well, in
this case, we're doing yeah, a few people, but most
of the people who are buying and racing horses at
that level are not making money. I mean, they're having
fun and raising for big dollars, but the majority of
(35:38):
the people are not necessarily making a lot of that
money back. The people who really win in this scenario
obviously the breeders, because the more money that we race for,
the more valuable their their product is. And that's why
throwbit horses are so much more valuable. It costs wise
than a harness horse. But that's that's something we can change,
(36:04):
and the I could the analogy to the lottery does
make sense in a way that because if we look
at the freehold, where are they racing now? Now? Had
we gone in there and done a big event there
and made people aware, you know, one of the things
that that that happens when when, if we if and
when we do this is that from the perspective of
(36:26):
the casino who'd like to get rid of us, it's
going to make it. I think they're going to have
some resistance to it, because it's the more things that
we do, the more known we become, the more aware
the public and then the politicians become of our that
we have a following and have an audience. They look
(36:47):
at that as voters, you know that May is going
to make it much much harder over time for the
Rassinos to get rid of us. And uh, that's the
major goal here. If we could build our own fan
base and start doing all the things we're talking about.
Wolf stop losing tracks because in closing facilities, because it'll
(37:11):
make it very difficult for them to go to the politicians. Hey,
nobody cares about this, nobody even goes. Nobody bets Yeah,
because that's what you guys want, and that's why you've
unmarketed us into oblivion. But when we turn that around,
this goes right to our survival. So anybody thinks this
is only for one group of people in our industry
(37:33):
is not seeing the big picture.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
Yeah. I think that's very well said. I think that's
a really important.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Point that.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
We have to keep focus on, keep hammering away at.
Speaker 4 (37:47):
I think there's two things to add to what Rick said.
Number one is the reason people invest in therapreds is
the persons are so astronomical compared to how and I'm
not talking about the total purses. I'm just telling you
about maiden purses, allowance purses, I mean claiming purses. You
(38:13):
in need to get these persones higher, and everyone knows
the only way to do this currently is they have
less racing days. But that's that's the that's the give,
that's the quid pro quote. You've got to get these
persones higher if you're going to get people really interested
in the sport. And the second thing is that all
(38:35):
the things you said about casinos, that is why everything's
going to end up in Kentucky because the gambling product
in Kentucky is owned by the race tracks, and the
race tracks want to push racing. There's no shareholders like
there are of a big gaming company saying we just
spent a billion dollars on this track. All we've got
(38:56):
to do is get of racing and we get our
billion dollars back. Right, Because they're worried about the stock price, Well,
in Kentucky, that doesn't exist, and that comes back to
the point you made, Rick, That's why everything's going to
end up in Kentucky.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
Okay, gentlemen, I want to thank everyone for joining us today. Rick,
Michael Gordon, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Thank you. I'd like to be here.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Okay, that's a wrap for this week's show, and please
join us again next week
Speaker 4 (39:25):
The Honest Racing Alumni Show
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