August 21, 2025 • 37 mins
On this week's Harness Racing Alumni Show the panel of August 7th that consisted of Rick Berks, Gordon Banks, and Michael Antoniades is back along with standardbred breeder and owner Richard Young. Michael gives us a recap of the August 7th Show. Gordon and Rick discuss the industry business plan that is in its final draft stages and the potential scheduling of an industry wide round table. They’re also planning on the setting up of industry steering committees. Richard gives a constructive criticism of a current issue facing breeders. Ideas are discussed on things that can be done to save and promote our sport. All on this week's Harness Racing Alumni Show broadcast.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
The Harness Racing Alumni is currently producing a tribute video
for MICHAELA. Chance. Michael Chance is one of harness Racing's
greatest drivers of all time, a winner of ten two
hundred and fifty three races with career earnings of over
one hundred and eighty million dollars, winner of four Hamiltonians,
(00:23):
three North America Cups, twenty seven Breeder Crowns, and the
winner of Payson's Triple Crown in nineteen eighty seven. Inducted
into both the US and Canadian Hall of Fames. To
become a sponsor of the La Chance Tribute, please visit
www dot us trotz dot com again www dot us
(00:48):
trotz dot com. Welcome to this week's Harness Racing Alumni Show,
The Harness Racing Alumni Show with your host, Freddie Hudson
and Trade Martin. This is Freddie Hudson and welcome to
this week's Harness Raising Alumni Show. We have a distinguished
panel this week. We have Rich Firks, Gordon Banks, Richard Young,
(01:13):
all Santa readers along with Michael Anthonysen, the Track, Super
Track and analysts.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Welcome everyone, glad to be here on this week's show.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
We're going to start off with Mike is going to
give us a recap of our August seventh show. Mike,
over to you.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Sure, we are talking about a group of people that
obviously have a great passion for.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
The sport to try and do something.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
On a grand level, which is recreating some big events,
eyeing them together and perhaps talking about the Grand Slam,
connecting many of the sports top events. There's a lot
of support for something like this, and as we've seen
(02:06):
through the course of this year with a handle being
down almost one hundred million dollars, that there has to
be a discussion which creates some dialogue as how we
can get the harness racing train back on the rails.
And I think we'd all agree that somehow we could
(02:28):
go back to the type of racing that occurred at
Roosevelt and Metal Ends and Sportsman's forty years ago, that
we could attract an entirely new audience. So why don't
we go back and talk about the grand strokes about
this plan?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Okay, so we basically you do want to set up
a roundtable Gordon, where are we at and who can
we invite into who can we can't be enough to
start a roundtable to move in these direction of setting
up the steering committee.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Well, I think that requires a lot of thoughts because
in this industry, which is so divided, UH, who you
who you get on the steering committee is going to
go a wrong way to attracting or pushing people away.
So you need it to be very representative of the
kind of people. But un do you recognize you need
to get this going because I think all of us
(03:24):
look at this as a project to.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
Really change the business you have.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
What we're what we're all saying is that the marketing
that's necessary to make harness racing UH a known factor
in this country and in the world isn't being done
either by the racetracks because they're owned by interests who
wanted to fail, or by the us J because it
focus is on other things and doesn't have any marketing expertise.
(03:55):
So what we're saying is we need to form a
new group and with a new business plan to support
a series of four or five significant races all of
a million dollars or more, adding adding to the many
races that are seven hundred pounds and now the North
(04:15):
America Cup, the Metal.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Ass Pace, the Adios the jug.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
I forgot one Breeder's Crown, but Breeder's Crown right, those
races make them all minimum of a million, and hopefully
one of them two million.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
To attract more visibility, work in a way.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
That brings in network television, to get us a presence
once again, change and modify our product to make it
better for people shorten. I understand there's this massive conversation
about drag in the industry and it's but nothing can
justify six hour cards. Richard was saying he was watching
(04:59):
a Indiana Who's Your Card the other day as I
did also with six hours long. You have to be
kidding me. Every sport is trying to shorten the length
of time that their game lasts, and at the same time,
harness racing is expanding it. Claiming the drag is necessary,
that's an insanity, and there are so many things like that.
(05:19):
Fixed odds are necessary. We need part so in essence,
stance your questions and I'm going.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
Around it a little bit.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
We have to create an entity that handles the marketing,
handles the funding of these races, and works with all
the parties to get uniformity in the quality.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
Of the racing.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
And the gambling options and create a new day and
recognize that you have to focus on two different things,
maximizing attendance on special days at our racetracks and also
on a daily basis, maximizing the volume of way staring
and healing on the offline UH, on the online off
(06:04):
track UH platform, because that's the bread and butter of
the industry, and barness racing hasn't created the visibility to
attract enough betting dollars there. So who would be on
the committee the steering committee? UH. Something we'll all have
to discuss in the next couple of weeks and then
look for feedback from others to see if we're going
(06:27):
the right way.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Now, Rick, I'm going to go over that said that
the casinos are really trying to get and that we
as an inn stand up for ourselves.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
We have.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Now you had to come up with a pretty good job.
Don't pay the old.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
I'm having a hard time hearing, he though, Freddie my
batris mine, Okay, I must but yeah, it's a problem
with my body. Yeah yeah, after watching what happened with
and but yeah, I couldn't tell. It's good feedback after
(07:15):
a watching for years what happened with Capito pretty obvious.
And everywhere you look around where most of our tracks are,
we're tied to Rassinos, and it's pretty obvious. It's the
Rassinos objective the ultimately to get rid of us, because
we're the way it's structured today, we're just a parasite.
We don't offer anything to bring anything to the party.
(07:38):
We just have our handout and we're virtually unknown in
the markets we're in due to a long period of
not being marketed by ourselves or by the people who
basically run the show now. So we have to create
an awareness that we exist in the in the different
(08:00):
communities we're in. And I said on the last show,
you could walk around Washington, Kentucky and the horse racing
capital of the world and it would be hard for
us to find somebody that knows where their red model
is or their hard and racing goes on there. That's
just amazing to me. So our overarching goal and the purpose,
(08:20):
I think, is to bring awareness back to our sport.
We're going to have to do it ourselves. If Racinos
are not going to do it. The track owners are
basically I feel like they're just they're controlled by the
racinos because they're the one paying the tab. So we're
going to have to do it ourselves. And I don't
(08:41):
expect any of them to help us, but I do
believe we have the ability to do it ourselves. We
do have to modify our products in a lot of ways,
but the first thing we have to do, the main
thing we have to do is create more awareness to
our sport and bring people to them and these big events.
If you look at thoroughbred racing, they do a great
(09:04):
job with this. People love events, they love, they love
and one thing that we have that most other sports
or we have history that works in our advantage and
where a lot of small role markets. We're a big
event for our big events and we should be taking
advantage of it. So that that's our main goal. On
(09:27):
who we invite or how we go about setting up
a roundtable discussion too, basically decide how we move forward
and and uh that that's I don't know how we
do that or do we invite people? Do we do
we just open it up and who wants to come?
And I don't know how what the interest level is,
(09:48):
but I think that's that's where our next step has
to be and the it's the Lushington, the scale is
probably it's the best place to do it. You have
a large question of harness sports people. Uh so that
that's that's where it seems to be where we should
be targeting.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Let me let me put in here for a moment,
but I'm asking a question to everyone on the panel,
and I'd like.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
To start with mister young.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
If you could get all these premiere races we're talking
about to a million dollar perse and possibly a two
million dollar person on a breeder's crown, what will the
immediate effect on the industry be.
Speaker 7 (10:32):
Well, that's really kind of hard for me to answer
that question. The effect is that you create an interest
for the two three, four weeks before the big race
then and then uh you do get a lot of
people to go to that, and then it all dives
up and that's still two of even the third Brits
(10:54):
they have the big thing the next week that's virtually
nobody there. And and how you go about creating interest
is really what this is all about. And we've gone
through the topic of change, change the racing, and you
can't change racing. That is the way it is, and
(11:15):
it's changed to a point where it's more boring to walk,
and that's part of the problem. And how do you
change that, I don't know. Go to two mile races.
You don't have normal one mile races. You have at
least three four on the card that have two mile races.
Speaker 6 (11:31):
That kind of thing.
Speaker 7 (11:32):
At least that will create more interest and make it
less favorites winning. But I really can't answer that on
the cuff. But I really liked when they did the
(11:53):
jug and went to a million dollars and say, okay,
that's where I'm going. And it also created more interests
with other owners, so they had more elimination races than
they've ever had in a long long time. And so
if you create enough money, you get enough interest. Part
of the problem we have is that if we took
one hundred people out of this business, we would have
(12:14):
no business.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That's how possible.
Speaker 7 (12:16):
That's all you gotta do is take away one hundred
people and the business would be finished. Because we're controlled
by a very small group of rich men and they get.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
To do what they want to do.
Speaker 7 (12:28):
They have two three horses in every race, and that
also causes another problem.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
So let me address let me bring this to Gordon Gordon,
if we could create the road to the Breeder's Crown
and by doing so involves venues as similar to what
the Derby does Kentucky, and all of a sudden, now
(12:54):
you get more and more venues involved. Wouldn't that have
a pretty good residual of fact?
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Well?
Speaker 4 (13:02):
I think I think what Richard said is pretty true.
I think I think if you want to have a
if you want to get a longer effect, you have
to use the four or five racers you're going to
put together uh period of three or four months and
use that as a marketing concept, sort of like a
triple crab of Thurberd racing. If a horse wins the
(13:24):
first one or two, it builds.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Up a lot in the industry for the last leg.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
I think if you have a four leg triple crown,
a four leg grant slab, and then the Breeder's crown,
call a fantastic five whatever you want, and if you
have the last one fully being decisive, that you can
create a lot of interest. I still think, as we
talked about other times, that you have to you have
(13:49):
to create a bonus system. You have to have fixed bards.
So people could talk about it and wager in advance
as they would in other sports, and then they could
also have tie in wagers. You can mix wager on
harness racing with greater around football or other items. If
you have fixed the haunts. If you don't have fixed
the houts, you can't do it effectively. I think in
no way. I know that that's been done, so I
(14:10):
think there are ways you can do it, but I
think it's it's got to be the major focus of
what we're trying to do, because I think we have
to recognize that the product as we have it, in
terms of the quality of the product, the new ability
of the product is not there. I spoke to some
people in the industry about this issue, and they said
(14:34):
to me, well, what's so important about one million dollars?
You have a breeder's crown which is seven million dollars
on a one night or six million dollars. What differences
are going to make if it's nine or ten million dollars.
Number one, that's negative attitude people in this industry have.
But number two, there's a certain amount of sense to
that one has to completely redo everything. There's basically no
(14:58):
marketing or whatsoever of harness racing, and the only way
to overcome the problem and address what Richard said is
through intelligent UH marketing in all sorts of related new ways.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Rick put us back to your original thoughts about what
Gordon just said.
Speaker 6 (15:19):
Well, that's exactly right and what I don't see going
on in this industry, and I doubt that there's much
of it going on. But the way to market today
is a digital marketing and we could that's how we
build our own fan base, and it's it takes a
good digital marketing plan and as you know, you go,
(15:40):
you go search for anything online and then you start
getting inundated with all kinds of marketing on your social media.
If we if we took any market and I'm gonna
use the red mile again, but if we marketed digitally
to everybody for the month before event, that anybody that
(16:02):
bought anything to do with horses and halt or a
bridle boots anything, you start hitting them and we're having
this big event. The whole objective is and bring a
big crowd there and you send them. When you digital
market to people, you send them here's sign up here
quick here, and we'll send you a free path to
(16:23):
the event. Because the entrance, you won't have any interest
or whatever. But the whole objective is to start building
up this digital marketing pool of people you can market
to from the people that respond and people love events,
they just don't know what's going on. But if as
you if you have a big event and you have
(16:45):
you start building up this pool of people you can
market through in the future that continues to grow and
from there. I think that you know, remember our sport,
we're about entertainment. That's really we're entertainment and that's what
we have to think of it that way, and we
can't just market to the betters. We want to market
(17:06):
to the general public. And the more people we can
get to show up, there's a percentage and I don't
know what it is, but there's a percentage of those
people that will start following the sport will bet the sport.
The same thing happens in thoroughbred racing. They have a
you know these big races. You go there during the week.
(17:27):
Like George said, there's no crowds there, but there's still
a huge online audience. You know what's interesting too about
the Metal Lands that they have a their sports book.
People could sit home in front of their computers and
their pajamas and bet. But they go there because they
want to be around other people betting. So but the
(17:47):
divigital marketing is where we need to be and we
start we start building these big events and start building
an audience that carries us over and every year are
as each event comes on, we still keep growing that audience.
And I think over time, that's how you do it.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's the.
Speaker 7 (18:10):
Digital business now, that's all it is. Nobody goes to
the track anymore except for the big events. So the
big event creates the scenario where, oh, that's fun, but
I'm not going to go here all the time. Look
how long it takes blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
But if I can watch it.
Speaker 7 (18:24):
On TV normally, if I could watch it on a
computer normally without having to pay for it and advertise
that it's available to watch, that will help.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
Yeah. The other thing is if you want to try,
if you want to try.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
To get people to be at the racetrack, the whole
reason for people being at a racetrack in the past
is no longer there.
Speaker 5 (18:44):
You don't have a walking.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Ring, you're not allowed into the paddock, you have no
proximity of the horses.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
The horses were the show that draw that would they
would drag people in.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
And the industry is that everything it can to isolate
its customer base from from the very product could be
attracted in them.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
I don't think it's never coming back.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
No, I don't think it's coming back, and it's sad,
but it was one of the things that pushed people
away too, that there was no reason to go.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
But the have brought people back on their big events.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
I'm doubts if the thoroughbreds also have that beautiful walking
ring experience where, if it's done properly, is interesting for kids,
it's interesting for everybody.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
They get up. We can do them.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
But look at the New Meatal Lands, for example. They
took it away because they didn't want to waste space,
and from their perspective, they didn't want to waste space.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Having that and.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Everything is a self fulfilling prophecy, you know, everything is
adding to the fact that there's no reason to be
at a racetrack. And the other thing is it's a
it's a it's a frightening again. I know that that rick.
You're focusing on the smaller tracks in the smaller area. Actually,
I think the marketing in those areas is simpler. The meadowlands.
It's beyond belief that they could be twelve miles for
(20:05):
Manhattan and probably ninety eight out of one hundred people
you would talk to in Manhattan would know nothing about it.
They wouldn't know there's harness racing there, they wouldn't know
anything or about Yonkers. There are no tie ins with
any stores. If you remember, I think at one point
years ago, Niatross was taken down Fifth Avenue a Broadway,
and it was publicity.
Speaker 6 (20:23):
And.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
There's nothing that's done to try to create excitement or
an audience. In the week before the Hamiltonian there used
to be a lot of publicity that's gone. There's no
effort to bring the sport to the people, and whether
it's deliberate or just negligence, it's killing the business. And again,
(20:48):
the owners of the tracks certainly aren't going to do it,
and the USA is not going to do it. So
if we don't do it, it's not going to happen. If
it doesn't happen, raise her downs and other tracks are
going to disassee her just as it did. Look at
the editorial that had in Pennsylvania last week, saying that
there were so many social needs for the money that's
been given to support harness racing. Now, actually it wasn't
(21:09):
harness racing. They were actually speaking more about thorobod racing,
but about racing in general. That's going to somewhere in
the next few years get home and if Rick's ideas
aren't followed, it's going to be worse because you can't
justify spending the kind of money that the states are
(21:31):
of supporting racing. When the camera pans to the huge
grand stands and the racetrack and there's six.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
People let me jump in here, or saying you know,
it occurs to me that you know, if you look
at what we do in the industry instead of marketing,
and when I say market I mostly mean digitally, not exclusively,
but what's not being done because that is the most
effective way of.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Marketing to day.
Speaker 6 (21:56):
But we uh Bush watching it at the Red Mild
last week and there was they had the dinosaur races,
which were very entertaining if people are running around there,
but U and a different night they have weaner dog
races and they fill the stadium the stand with Wiener Dog.
These are things that we can do. But what we
(22:18):
what we do is when we have a big event.
Remember we're about entertaining and a lot of the people
are coming are not going to be sports. Better we'll
get a percentage of them, but again to create awareness.
And but those events, what they're doing there, they don't
bring people to harness racing. But those are the type
of things we should be doing between races to entertain people,
(22:42):
because again that's what we're about. Throwing T shirts into
the crowd. You know, whether the Wiener Dog races or
whatever is going on, you could have a pony rise
to the side. You can do all these things in
this event. But like Gorgon said, the rassinos and the
track owners which are in one are one now are not.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Going to do this, and they're not.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
I don't think they're going to be particularly thrilled that
we're doing it because their goals are get rid of its.
But the more we entertain the crowd, the more Like
we if we did a million dollar event at the
Red Mile and the next week we were going to
have a follow up million dollar event, we give them
all three passes and next week we're going to have
the Winger dog races with it. You'll fill the place up,
(23:25):
you know. But like I said, we're gonna have to
do it. The Rassino is it's they're gonna cringe even
hearing us talking about this is, I believe, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
And it's pready here. When these meatal Lands first open,
they had a commercial out there where they had Tony
Abotello riding over riding the horse over the George Washington Bridge.
I'm going to the Metal Lands and that commercials shown
in all dor from Marca, and you know, forty two
(23:59):
thousand showed up open and.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Different era.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
But let me let me tell you something this more,
let me tell you something.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
This is very relevant. I believe.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
They have the Amateur Racing Club. And the amateur Racing
Club was never successful anywhere ten years ago but about
five years ago. And I'm not going to put it
entirely on Garrel. Garrel always talks about bringing back to
type of racing Jodah Frank had or it's advancing on
(24:32):
the outside, no holes, and the driver's county is very
resistant to doing it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
But the amateur drivers did it.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
They did it almost exactly the way Defrank would have
wanted it. There were no holes, There were almost always
ten horse fields. I think everyone would agree that these
aren't the most talented people that were driving the horses
compared to our professional drivers. But in a series in
it took about a year that product, the amateur product
(25:04):
of the Metal Lands, got to a point where favorites
were about twenty percent and the average payoff was nearly
twice what it was in the regular races. And within
a year people were betting three hundred thousand dollars on
the first race and an average I believe of two
hundred and sixty thousand for the amateur races, even though
(25:29):
they were the lowest level races and obviously the town
wasn't what it was. So if you could fix the
racing to the point where I think everyone would agreed
that probably the greatest race that they ever saw was
the Metal Lands of the seventies and eighties. If you
could get back to something like that where all of
(25:49):
a sudden you had the favorite percentage in the twenties
and the average win payoff was sixteen or seventeen, almost
half the tries pay over a thousand, you're you're going
to get people almost immediately it's.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
Not gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Well, guess what it happened.
Speaker 7 (26:14):
No, it's not, it's not gonna happen. It's just well,
you're talking about something completely different. There is zero chance
that we're going to change how they race and the
drivers of today and the horses of today to race
as if they're amateurs.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
It's just not going to happen.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Night thought though, Well.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Well, the one thing, I mean you might you might
have a chance if you tried to force bigger fields.
I don't know how much you can change the distances
of the.
Speaker 5 (26:45):
Races that bought them.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Certainly can have bigger field Yeah, yeah, I mean you know,
the drivers now are so petulant that they don't want
to have a second tier. And my god, you look
at racing in Australia and New Zealand. You have four
and five horses in the second here, and the playoffs
are much more unpredictable there. There are way and the
(27:06):
other side benefit of having a much bigger fields, in
addition to the wagering side of it, is that it
uses up more horses and you can have fewer races
in a night, so it's not a six hour experience.
You have that you could have seven or eight races
of twelve and fourteen horse fields, have some excitement and
still get home before your next child is born.
Speaker 6 (27:30):
May ten.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I think ten races is a gold standard the work forever.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Yeah, I'm fourteen and sixteen. It's ridiculous. Yeah, well, I.
Speaker 7 (27:43):
Don't know if we can talk people into twelve hour
fields and a mile and a half racing. But I
would love it. I will think, Yeah, I would love it.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
I'm just going to beg for a point where it
won't get thirty percent You won't get thirty thirty five
percent favorite winning either, won't. Do you know what the
average in the USTA right now, the average percentage of
winning favorites is the tracks currently running.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
Well, I don't know if that's true.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Where where that's true?
Speaker 3 (28:24):
You go on the USTA on track statistics, the tracks
run anywhere from forty one to fifty one percent.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Okay, yeah, that's that's pretty scary.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Well, what what.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Gordon is talking about? The slowing down of the second quarter,
the manicuring of tracks to make speed favoring tracks, the
the almost elimination of of horses batley to get towards
the front. This is all ended in a in a
(29:00):
in a event that's really not compelling anymore, very rarely
is it compelling. But if you could fix this, and
I think you can, you know, I know that's that's
uh probably minority opinion, But there's all kinds of things
you could do to get closers into the game. That's
a whole different gambling game now and a and a
(29:21):
very much more popular gambling game.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
Okay, you know.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
The difficulty is that the big money isn't going to
want that, because the big money likes the way it
is now. They spend you know, the breeders. If you
start changing the racing and the distances and everything else,
a lot of the a lot of the breeders are
going to be caught flat footed from sort of product
they're producing.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Well, well, let let me use something less personal, Gordon.
When when Bafford had all all that those problems in
California and and the horses were uh equine, uh fatalities
were at a a very accelerated rate. Dennis Moore went
over and what's the first thing he did. He slowed
(30:06):
the track down. In other words, he put more cushion
on the track. The track became slower, all of a sudden,
you didn't see all those crazy fractions where horses would
go wire to wire. The racing became more competitive, the
middle became more competitive, the bottom became more competitive, and
all of a sudden, your supertrainers, your Bob Bafford's, your
(30:27):
Doug O'Neill's, your Peter Miller's, they didn't do as well.
All of a sudden, you had a much better product.
So again, to keep it less personal, going back to
the Thoroughbreds, and I think they did it under the
guise of making the track safer, which of course is
everyone agrees the track should be safer. So there are
ways you can do this.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
In my opinion, yeah, there's a will, there's a way,
But I don't think there's a will.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Well. I want to see someone get on the get
on the other side of making the t act safer.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Yeah, you know, I remember, I don't.
Speaker 7 (31:06):
I don't think we have a problem, really, and how
states the tract is we don't. We don't have the
same problems with the team. There it said, that's the reality.
You know, in reality, I don't think sataness is an issue.
If you want to make the track flower, well, then
you get more suspensary problems, so I don't I don't
(31:27):
know if it applies in our cases.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
It does for third bits, I would agree there.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Okay, can you guys hear me, We can hear you? Okay,
Am I still muffled? Or am I coming in clear?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
You're You're.
Speaker 6 (31:47):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Because I guess, but a muffled you is better than
any of us.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
So you continue.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So we're moving along here, and we're moving to that
point where I have to start moving in the direction
to speed the show up. So I just want to
go over and recap. We're going to basically suffare roundtable.
We're going to basically try and get the industry to
support marketing efforts and look start looking for some finance
and to move our sports forward. I also, I know Richard,
(32:15):
I think you wanted to say something, So I'm going
to let Michael and you have a conversation.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
I think mister Young should just just talk about what
he wants to talk about.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
All right.
Speaker 7 (32:30):
Actually I wanted to talk about the new Garrel rule.
And originally I understood that Grell wanted to increase purpose
and he came up with a proposal that by charging
fifty percent of a sire's fee to all the sire
(32:55):
owners that that would generate enough money, and he in
fact would add fifty percent of what he received to
create a pool to increase persons. And on the surface,
that sounded okay. It was a reason to do it
was to increase purses. However, he also added, and this
(33:19):
I thought was actually better, that he would charge four
hundred dollars a one time fee for uh, what would
be two year olds next year, and that four hundred
dollars fee would allow those horses to raise lifetime at
the meadow ends in any early closer. And on the
(33:42):
surface you say, well, that sounds okay, except that that's
not what happened, And when you find out the actual story,
you wonder what's really going on. At least I can,
because in the end that money that supposed the coming
in to increase purses is greatly reduced, and half of
(34:05):
the money is not going to increase purses. It's going
to in fact help him run the track and to
possibly get a casino. So the let's call a number
ten thousand dollars instead of it being fifteen thousand dollars,
he turns it into five and then he had the
four hundred dollars that he's going to charge for all
(34:30):
the two year olds. That's part of it as well.
And I'm looking at this and I said, why go
through the pretense of a way to get money and
then only use half of it and not even tell
people what you're going to use it for? And so
I think that's what bothered me the most. The reality
is why get the breeders involved in doing something that
(34:52):
they really didn't have to do. He wants four hundred
dollars for fulls that are currently yearly, make it five
hundred dollars and guess what that one hundred dollars would
be equal to or more than the money received from
the size and call it a nominating fee to raise
(35:13):
to the meadowlands for the entire life of a horse.
And then it's no different than any other nominating fee,
and it's far simpler instead of going through a pretensive
I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that,
and not do it. Here's here's a different option. I
don't think he should include readers and force them to
make a payment than in reality they don't want to pay.
(35:36):
They'll do it because they haven't got a choice, but
I just think it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Okay, do they want to get to that?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I think that's said at all.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Gordon Michael Richard rich I want to thank all of
you guys for joining us.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
Situation, no pleasure, Thank you, it was a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Thank you, mister Young, thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
The Hardest Race of Alumni is currently producing a tribute
video for MICHAELA. Chance. Michael Chance is one of harness
racing's greatest drivers of all time, a winner of ten
two hundred and fifty three races with career earnings of
over one hundred and eighty million dollars, winner of four Hamiltonians,
(36:19):
three North America Cups, twenty seven Breeder Crowns, and the
winner of Payson's Triple Crown in nineteen eighty seven. Inducted
into both the US and Canadian Hall of Fames. To
become a sponsor of the La Chance Tribute, please visit
www dot us trotz dot com again www dot us
(36:43):
trotz dot com. That's a rap for this week's broadcast.
Thanks for listening, and please join us again next week.
Then Racing Alumni show.
Speaker 7 (37:00):
Yeah,
The Harness Racing Alumni is currently producing a tribute video
for MICHAELA. Chance. Michael Chance is one of harness Racing's
greatest drivers of all time, a winner of ten two
hundred and fifty three races with career earnings of over
one hundred and eighty million dollars, winner of four Hamiltonians,
(00:23):
three North America Cups, twenty seven Breeder Crowns, and the
winner of Payson's Triple Crown in nineteen eighty seven. Inducted
into both the US and Canadian Hall of Fames. To
become a sponsor of the La Chance Tribute, please visit
www dot us trotz dot com again www dot us
(00:48):
trotz dot com. Welcome to this week's Harness Racing Alumni Show,
The Harness Racing Alumni Show with your host, Freddie Hudson
and Trade Martin. This is Freddie Hudson and welcome to
this week's Harness Raising Alumni Show. We have a distinguished
panel this week. We have Rich Firks, Gordon Banks, Richard Young,
(01:13):
all Santa readers along with Michael Anthonysen, the Track, Super
Track and analysts.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Welcome everyone, glad to be here on this week's show.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
We're going to start off with Mike is going to
give us a recap of our August seventh show. Mike,
over to you.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Sure, we are talking about a group of people that
obviously have a great passion for.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
The sport to try and do something.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
On a grand level, which is recreating some big events,
eyeing them together and perhaps talking about the Grand Slam,
connecting many of the sports top events. There's a lot
of support for something like this, and as we've seen
(02:06):
through the course of this year with a handle being
down almost one hundred million dollars, that there has to
be a discussion which creates some dialogue as how we
can get the harness racing train back on the rails.
And I think we'd all agree that somehow we could
(02:28):
go back to the type of racing that occurred at
Roosevelt and Metal Ends and Sportsman's forty years ago, that
we could attract an entirely new audience. So why don't
we go back and talk about the grand strokes about
this plan?
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Okay, so we basically you do want to set up
a roundtable Gordon, where are we at and who can
we invite into who can we can't be enough to
start a roundtable to move in these direction of setting
up the steering committee.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Well, I think that requires a lot of thoughts because
in this industry, which is so divided, UH, who you
who you get on the steering committee is going to
go a wrong way to attracting or pushing people away.
So you need it to be very representative of the
kind of people. But un do you recognize you need
to get this going because I think all of us
(03:24):
look at this as a project to.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
Really change the business you have.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
What we're what we're all saying is that the marketing
that's necessary to make harness racing UH a known factor
in this country and in the world isn't being done
either by the racetracks because they're owned by interests who
wanted to fail, or by the us J because it
focus is on other things and doesn't have any marketing expertise.
(03:55):
So what we're saying is we need to form a
new group and with a new business plan to support
a series of four or five significant races all of
a million dollars or more, adding adding to the many
races that are seven hundred pounds and now the North
(04:15):
America Cup, the Metal.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Ass Pace, the Adios the jug.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
I forgot one Breeder's Crown, but Breeder's Crown right, those
races make them all minimum of a million, and hopefully
one of them two million.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
To attract more visibility, work in a way.
Speaker 4 (04:39):
That brings in network television, to get us a presence
once again, change and modify our product to make it
better for people shorten. I understand there's this massive conversation
about drag in the industry and it's but nothing can
justify six hour cards. Richard was saying he was watching
(04:59):
a Indiana Who's Your Card the other day as I
did also with six hours long. You have to be
kidding me. Every sport is trying to shorten the length
of time that their game lasts, and at the same time,
harness racing is expanding it. Claiming the drag is necessary,
that's an insanity, and there are so many things like that.
(05:19):
Fixed odds are necessary. We need part so in essence,
stance your questions and I'm going.
Speaker 5 (05:26):
Around it a little bit.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
We have to create an entity that handles the marketing,
handles the funding of these races, and works with all
the parties to get uniformity in the quality.
Speaker 5 (05:42):
Of the racing.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
And the gambling options and create a new day and
recognize that you have to focus on two different things,
maximizing attendance on special days at our racetracks and also
on a daily basis, maximizing the volume of way staring
and healing on the offline UH, on the online off
(06:04):
track UH platform, because that's the bread and butter of
the industry, and barness racing hasn't created the visibility to
attract enough betting dollars there. So who would be on
the committee the steering committee? UH. Something we'll all have
to discuss in the next couple of weeks and then
look for feedback from others to see if we're going
(06:27):
the right way.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Now, Rick, I'm going to go over that said that
the casinos are really trying to get and that we
as an inn stand up for ourselves.
Speaker 5 (06:40):
We have.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Now you had to come up with a pretty good job.
Don't pay the old.
Speaker 6 (06:51):
I'm having a hard time hearing, he though, Freddie my
batris mine, Okay, I must but yeah, it's a problem
with my body. Yeah yeah, after watching what happened with
and but yeah, I couldn't tell. It's good feedback after
(07:15):
a watching for years what happened with Capito pretty obvious.
And everywhere you look around where most of our tracks are,
we're tied to Rassinos, and it's pretty obvious. It's the
Rassinos objective the ultimately to get rid of us, because
we're the way it's structured today, we're just a parasite.
We don't offer anything to bring anything to the party.
(07:38):
We just have our handout and we're virtually unknown in
the markets we're in due to a long period of
not being marketed by ourselves or by the people who
basically run the show now. So we have to create
an awareness that we exist in the in the different
(08:00):
communities we're in. And I said on the last show,
you could walk around Washington, Kentucky and the horse racing
capital of the world and it would be hard for
us to find somebody that knows where their red model
is or their hard and racing goes on there. That's
just amazing to me. So our overarching goal and the purpose,
(08:20):
I think, is to bring awareness back to our sport.
We're going to have to do it ourselves. If Racinos
are not going to do it. The track owners are
basically I feel like they're just they're controlled by the
racinos because they're the one paying the tab. So we're
going to have to do it ourselves. And I don't
(08:41):
expect any of them to help us, but I do
believe we have the ability to do it ourselves. We
do have to modify our products in a lot of ways,
but the first thing we have to do, the main
thing we have to do is create more awareness to
our sport and bring people to them and these big events.
If you look at thoroughbred racing, they do a great
(09:04):
job with this. People love events, they love, they love
and one thing that we have that most other sports
or we have history that works in our advantage and
where a lot of small role markets. We're a big
event for our big events and we should be taking
advantage of it. So that that's our main goal. On
(09:27):
who we invite or how we go about setting up
a roundtable discussion too, basically decide how we move forward
and and uh that that's I don't know how we
do that or do we invite people? Do we do
we just open it up and who wants to come?
And I don't know how what the interest level is,
(09:48):
but I think that's that's where our next step has
to be and the it's the Lushington, the scale is
probably it's the best place to do it. You have
a large question of harness sports people. Uh so that
that's that's where it seems to be where we should
be targeting.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Let me let me put in here for a moment,
but I'm asking a question to everyone on the panel,
and I'd like.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
To start with mister young.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
If you could get all these premiere races we're talking
about to a million dollar perse and possibly a two
million dollar person on a breeder's crown, what will the
immediate effect on the industry be.
Speaker 7 (10:32):
Well, that's really kind of hard for me to answer
that question. The effect is that you create an interest
for the two three, four weeks before the big race
then and then uh you do get a lot of
people to go to that, and then it all dives
up and that's still two of even the third Brits
(10:54):
they have the big thing the next week that's virtually
nobody there. And and how you go about creating interest
is really what this is all about. And we've gone
through the topic of change, change the racing, and you
can't change racing. That is the way it is, and
(11:15):
it's changed to a point where it's more boring to walk,
and that's part of the problem. And how do you
change that, I don't know. Go to two mile races.
You don't have normal one mile races. You have at
least three four on the card that have two mile races.
Speaker 6 (11:31):
That kind of thing.
Speaker 7 (11:32):
At least that will create more interest and make it
less favorites winning. But I really can't answer that on
the cuff. But I really liked when they did the
(11:53):
jug and went to a million dollars and say, okay,
that's where I'm going. And it also created more interests
with other owners, so they had more elimination races than
they've ever had in a long long time. And so
if you create enough money, you get enough interest. Part
of the problem we have is that if we took
one hundred people out of this business, we would have
(12:14):
no business.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
That's how possible.
Speaker 7 (12:16):
That's all you gotta do is take away one hundred
people and the business would be finished. Because we're controlled
by a very small group of rich men and they get.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
To do what they want to do.
Speaker 7 (12:28):
They have two three horses in every race, and that
also causes another problem.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
So let me address let me bring this to Gordon Gordon,
if we could create the road to the Breeder's Crown
and by doing so involves venues as similar to what
the Derby does Kentucky, and all of a sudden, now
(12:54):
you get more and more venues involved. Wouldn't that have
a pretty good residual of fact?
Speaker 5 (13:02):
Well?
Speaker 4 (13:02):
I think I think what Richard said is pretty true.
I think I think if you want to have a
if you want to get a longer effect, you have
to use the four or five racers you're going to
put together uh period of three or four months and
use that as a marketing concept, sort of like a
triple crab of Thurberd racing. If a horse wins the
(13:24):
first one or two, it builds.
Speaker 5 (13:25):
Up a lot in the industry for the last leg.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
I think if you have a four leg triple crown,
a four leg grant slab, and then the Breeder's crown,
call a fantastic five whatever you want, and if you
have the last one fully being decisive, that you can
create a lot of interest. I still think, as we
talked about other times, that you have to you have
(13:49):
to create a bonus system. You have to have fixed bards.
So people could talk about it and wager in advance
as they would in other sports, and then they could
also have tie in wagers. You can mix wager on
harness racing with greater around football or other items. If
you have fixed the haunts. If you don't have fixed
the houts, you can't do it effectively. I think in
no way. I know that that's been done, so I
(14:10):
think there are ways you can do it, but I
think it's it's got to be the major focus of
what we're trying to do, because I think we have
to recognize that the product as we have it, in
terms of the quality of the product, the new ability
of the product is not there. I spoke to some
people in the industry about this issue, and they said
(14:34):
to me, well, what's so important about one million dollars?
You have a breeder's crown which is seven million dollars
on a one night or six million dollars. What differences
are going to make if it's nine or ten million dollars.
Number one, that's negative attitude people in this industry have.
But number two, there's a certain amount of sense to
that one has to completely redo everything. There's basically no
(14:58):
marketing or whatsoever of harness racing, and the only way
to overcome the problem and address what Richard said is
through intelligent UH marketing in all sorts of related new ways.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Rick put us back to your original thoughts about what
Gordon just said.
Speaker 6 (15:19):
Well, that's exactly right and what I don't see going
on in this industry, and I doubt that there's much
of it going on. But the way to market today
is a digital marketing and we could that's how we
build our own fan base, and it's it takes a
good digital marketing plan and as you know, you go,
(15:40):
you go search for anything online and then you start
getting inundated with all kinds of marketing on your social media.
If we if we took any market and I'm gonna
use the red mile again, but if we marketed digitally
to everybody for the month before event, that anybody that
(16:02):
bought anything to do with horses and halt or a
bridle boots anything, you start hitting them and we're having
this big event. The whole objective is and bring a
big crowd there and you send them. When you digital
market to people, you send them here's sign up here
quick here, and we'll send you a free path to
(16:23):
the event. Because the entrance, you won't have any interest
or whatever. But the whole objective is to start building
up this digital marketing pool of people you can market
to from the people that respond and people love events,
they just don't know what's going on. But if as
you if you have a big event and you have
(16:45):
you start building up this pool of people you can
market through in the future that continues to grow and
from there. I think that you know, remember our sport,
we're about entertainment. That's really we're entertainment and that's what
we have to think of it that way, and we
can't just market to the betters. We want to market
(17:06):
to the general public. And the more people we can
get to show up, there's a percentage and I don't
know what it is, but there's a percentage of those
people that will start following the sport will bet the sport.
The same thing happens in thoroughbred racing. They have a
you know these big races. You go there during the week.
(17:27):
Like George said, there's no crowds there, but there's still
a huge online audience. You know what's interesting too about
the Metal Lands that they have a their sports book.
People could sit home in front of their computers and
their pajamas and bet. But they go there because they
want to be around other people betting. So but the
(17:47):
divigital marketing is where we need to be and we
start we start building these big events and start building
an audience that carries us over and every year are
as each event comes on, we still keep growing that audience.
And I think over time, that's how you do it.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's the.
Speaker 7 (18:10):
Digital business now, that's all it is. Nobody goes to
the track anymore except for the big events. So the
big event creates the scenario where, oh, that's fun, but
I'm not going to go here all the time. Look
how long it takes blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
But if I can watch it.
Speaker 7 (18:24):
On TV normally, if I could watch it on a
computer normally without having to pay for it and advertise
that it's available to watch, that will help.
Speaker 5 (18:36):
Yeah. The other thing is if you want to try,
if you want to try.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
To get people to be at the racetrack, the whole
reason for people being at a racetrack in the past
is no longer there.
Speaker 5 (18:44):
You don't have a walking.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
Ring, you're not allowed into the paddock, you have no
proximity of the horses.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
The horses were the show that draw that would they
would drag people in.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
And the industry is that everything it can to isolate
its customer base from from the very product could be
attracted in them.
Speaker 6 (19:01):
I don't think it's never coming back.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
No, I don't think it's coming back, and it's sad,
but it was one of the things that pushed people
away too, that there was no reason to go.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
But the have brought people back on their big events.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
I'm doubts if the thoroughbreds also have that beautiful walking
ring experience where, if it's done properly, is interesting for kids,
it's interesting for everybody.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
They get up. We can do them.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
But look at the New Meatal Lands, for example. They
took it away because they didn't want to waste space,
and from their perspective, they didn't want to waste space.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Having that and.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Everything is a self fulfilling prophecy, you know, everything is
adding to the fact that there's no reason to be
at a racetrack. And the other thing is it's a
it's a it's a frightening again. I know that that rick.
You're focusing on the smaller tracks in the smaller area. Actually,
I think the marketing in those areas is simpler. The meadowlands.
It's beyond belief that they could be twelve miles for
(20:05):
Manhattan and probably ninety eight out of one hundred people
you would talk to in Manhattan would know nothing about it.
They wouldn't know there's harness racing there, they wouldn't know
anything or about Yonkers. There are no tie ins with
any stores. If you remember, I think at one point
years ago, Niatross was taken down Fifth Avenue a Broadway,
and it was publicity.
Speaker 6 (20:23):
And.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
There's nothing that's done to try to create excitement or
an audience. In the week before the Hamiltonian there used
to be a lot of publicity that's gone. There's no
effort to bring the sport to the people, and whether
it's deliberate or just negligence, it's killing the business. And again,
(20:48):
the owners of the tracks certainly aren't going to do it,
and the USA is not going to do it. So
if we don't do it, it's not going to happen. If
it doesn't happen, raise her downs and other tracks are
going to disassee her just as it did. Look at
the editorial that had in Pennsylvania last week, saying that
there were so many social needs for the money that's
been given to support harness racing. Now, actually it wasn't
(21:09):
harness racing. They were actually speaking more about thorobod racing,
but about racing in general. That's going to somewhere in
the next few years get home and if Rick's ideas
aren't followed, it's going to be worse because you can't
justify spending the kind of money that the states are
(21:31):
of supporting racing. When the camera pans to the huge
grand stands and the racetrack and there's six.
Speaker 6 (21:37):
People let me jump in here, or saying you know,
it occurs to me that you know, if you look
at what we do in the industry instead of marketing,
and when I say market I mostly mean digitally, not exclusively,
but what's not being done because that is the most
effective way of.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
Marketing to day.
Speaker 6 (21:56):
But we uh Bush watching it at the Red Mild
last week and there was they had the dinosaur races,
which were very entertaining if people are running around there,
but U and a different night they have weaner dog
races and they fill the stadium the stand with Wiener Dog.
These are things that we can do. But what we
(22:18):
what we do is when we have a big event.
Remember we're about entertaining and a lot of the people
are coming are not going to be sports. Better we'll
get a percentage of them, but again to create awareness.
And but those events, what they're doing there, they don't
bring people to harness racing. But those are the type
of things we should be doing between races to entertain people,
(22:42):
because again that's what we're about. Throwing T shirts into
the crowd. You know, whether the Wiener Dog races or
whatever is going on, you could have a pony rise
to the side. You can do all these things in
this event. But like Gorgon said, the rassinos and the
track owners which are in one are one now are not.
Speaker 5 (23:02):
Going to do this, and they're not.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
I don't think they're going to be particularly thrilled that
we're doing it because their goals are get rid of its.
But the more we entertain the crowd, the more Like
we if we did a million dollar event at the
Red Mile and the next week we were going to
have a follow up million dollar event, we give them
all three passes and next week we're going to have
the Winger dog races with it. You'll fill the place up,
(23:25):
you know. But like I said, we're gonna have to
do it. The Rassino is it's they're gonna cringe even
hearing us talking about this is, I believe, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
And it's pready here. When these meatal Lands first open,
they had a commercial out there where they had Tony
Abotello riding over riding the horse over the George Washington Bridge.
I'm going to the Metal Lands and that commercials shown
in all dor from Marca, and you know, forty two
(23:59):
thousand showed up open and.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Different era.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
But let me let me tell you something this more,
let me tell you something.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
This is very relevant. I believe.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
They have the Amateur Racing Club. And the amateur Racing
Club was never successful anywhere ten years ago but about
five years ago. And I'm not going to put it
entirely on Garrel. Garrel always talks about bringing back to
type of racing Jodah Frank had or it's advancing on
(24:32):
the outside, no holes, and the driver's county is very
resistant to doing it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
But the amateur drivers did it.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
They did it almost exactly the way Defrank would have
wanted it. There were no holes, There were almost always
ten horse fields. I think everyone would agree that these
aren't the most talented people that were driving the horses
compared to our professional drivers. But in a series in
it took about a year that product, the amateur product
(25:04):
of the Metal Lands, got to a point where favorites
were about twenty percent and the average payoff was nearly
twice what it was in the regular races. And within
a year people were betting three hundred thousand dollars on
the first race and an average I believe of two
hundred and sixty thousand for the amateur races, even though
(25:29):
they were the lowest level races and obviously the town
wasn't what it was. So if you could fix the
racing to the point where I think everyone would agreed
that probably the greatest race that they ever saw was
the Metal Lands of the seventies and eighties. If you
could get back to something like that where all of
(25:49):
a sudden you had the favorite percentage in the twenties
and the average win payoff was sixteen or seventeen, almost
half the tries pay over a thousand, you're you're going
to get people almost immediately it's.
Speaker 6 (26:08):
Not gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Well, guess what it happened.
Speaker 7 (26:14):
No, it's not, it's not gonna happen. It's just well,
you're talking about something completely different. There is zero chance
that we're going to change how they race and the
drivers of today and the horses of today to race
as if they're amateurs.
Speaker 5 (26:31):
It's just not going to happen.
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Night thought though, Well.
Speaker 4 (26:37):
Well, the one thing, I mean you might you might
have a chance if you tried to force bigger fields.
I don't know how much you can change the distances
of the.
Speaker 5 (26:45):
Races that bought them.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Certainly can have bigger field Yeah, yeah, I mean you know,
the drivers now are so petulant that they don't want
to have a second tier. And my god, you look
at racing in Australia and New Zealand. You have four
and five horses in the second here, and the playoffs
are much more unpredictable there. There are way and the
(27:06):
other side benefit of having a much bigger fields, in
addition to the wagering side of it, is that it
uses up more horses and you can have fewer races
in a night, so it's not a six hour experience.
You have that you could have seven or eight races
of twelve and fourteen horse fields, have some excitement and
still get home before your next child is born.
Speaker 6 (27:30):
May ten.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
I think ten races is a gold standard the work forever.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
Yeah, I'm fourteen and sixteen. It's ridiculous. Yeah, well, I.
Speaker 7 (27:43):
Don't know if we can talk people into twelve hour
fields and a mile and a half racing. But I
would love it. I will think, Yeah, I would love it.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
I'm just going to beg for a point where it
won't get thirty percent You won't get thirty thirty five
percent favorite winning either, won't. Do you know what the
average in the USTA right now, the average percentage of
winning favorites is the tracks currently running.
Speaker 5 (28:14):
Well, I don't know if that's true.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Where where that's true?
Speaker 3 (28:24):
You go on the USTA on track statistics, the tracks
run anywhere from forty one to fifty one percent.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
Okay, yeah, that's that's pretty scary.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Well, what what.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
Gordon is talking about? The slowing down of the second quarter,
the manicuring of tracks to make speed favoring tracks, the
the almost elimination of of horses batley to get towards
the front. This is all ended in a in a
(29:00):
in a event that's really not compelling anymore, very rarely
is it compelling. But if you could fix this, and
I think you can, you know, I know that's that's
uh probably minority opinion, But there's all kinds of things
you could do to get closers into the game. That's
a whole different gambling game now and a and a
(29:21):
very much more popular gambling game.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
Okay, you know.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
The difficulty is that the big money isn't going to
want that, because the big money likes the way it
is now. They spend you know, the breeders. If you
start changing the racing and the distances and everything else,
a lot of the a lot of the breeders are
going to be caught flat footed from sort of product
they're producing.
Speaker 3 (29:45):
Well, well, let let me use something less personal, Gordon.
When when Bafford had all all that those problems in
California and and the horses were uh equine, uh fatalities
were at a a very accelerated rate. Dennis Moore went
over and what's the first thing he did. He slowed
(30:06):
the track down. In other words, he put more cushion
on the track. The track became slower, all of a sudden,
you didn't see all those crazy fractions where horses would
go wire to wire. The racing became more competitive, the
middle became more competitive, the bottom became more competitive, and
all of a sudden, your supertrainers, your Bob Bafford's, your
(30:27):
Doug O'Neill's, your Peter Miller's, they didn't do as well.
All of a sudden, you had a much better product.
So again, to keep it less personal, going back to
the Thoroughbreds, and I think they did it under the
guise of making the track safer, which of course is
everyone agrees the track should be safer. So there are
ways you can do this.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
In my opinion, yeah, there's a will, there's a way,
But I don't think there's a will.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Well. I want to see someone get on the get
on the other side of making the t act safer.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Yeah, you know, I remember, I don't.
Speaker 7 (31:06):
I don't think we have a problem, really, and how
states the tract is we don't. We don't have the
same problems with the team. There it said, that's the reality.
You know, in reality, I don't think sataness is an issue.
If you want to make the track flower, well, then
you get more suspensary problems, so I don't I don't
(31:27):
know if it applies in our cases.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
It does for third bits, I would agree there.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Okay, can you guys hear me, We can hear you? Okay,
Am I still muffled? Or am I coming in clear?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
You're You're.
Speaker 6 (31:47):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Because I guess, but a muffled you is better than
any of us.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
So you continue.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
So we're moving along here, and we're moving to that
point where I have to start moving in the direction
to speed the show up. So I just want to
go over and recap. We're going to basically suffare roundtable.
We're going to basically try and get the industry to
support marketing efforts and look start looking for some finance
and to move our sports forward. I also, I know Richard,
(32:15):
I think you wanted to say something, So I'm going
to let Michael and you have a conversation.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
I think mister Young should just just talk about what
he wants to talk about.
Speaker 5 (32:27):
All right.
Speaker 7 (32:30):
Actually I wanted to talk about the new Garrel rule.
And originally I understood that Grell wanted to increase purpose
and he came up with a proposal that by charging
fifty percent of a sire's fee to all the sire
(32:55):
owners that that would generate enough money, and he in
fact would add fifty percent of what he received to
create a pool to increase persons. And on the surface,
that sounded okay. It was a reason to do it
was to increase purses. However, he also added, and this
(33:19):
I thought was actually better, that he would charge four
hundred dollars a one time fee for uh, what would
be two year olds next year, and that four hundred
dollars fee would allow those horses to raise lifetime at
the meadow ends in any early closer. And on the
(33:42):
surface you say, well, that sounds okay, except that that's
not what happened, And when you find out the actual story,
you wonder what's really going on. At least I can,
because in the end that money that supposed the coming
in to increase purses is greatly reduced, and half of
(34:05):
the money is not going to increase purses. It's going
to in fact help him run the track and to
possibly get a casino. So the let's call a number
ten thousand dollars instead of it being fifteen thousand dollars,
he turns it into five and then he had the
four hundred dollars that he's going to charge for all
(34:30):
the two year olds. That's part of it as well.
And I'm looking at this and I said, why go
through the pretense of a way to get money and
then only use half of it and not even tell
people what you're going to use it for? And so
I think that's what bothered me the most. The reality
is why get the breeders involved in doing something that
(34:52):
they really didn't have to do. He wants four hundred
dollars for fulls that are currently yearly, make it five
hundred dollars and guess what that one hundred dollars would
be equal to or more than the money received from
the size and call it a nominating fee to raise
(35:13):
to the meadowlands for the entire life of a horse.
And then it's no different than any other nominating fee,
and it's far simpler instead of going through a pretensive
I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that,
and not do it. Here's here's a different option. I
don't think he should include readers and force them to
make a payment than in reality they don't want to pay.
(35:36):
They'll do it because they haven't got a choice, but
I just think it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Okay, do they want to get to that?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
I think that's said at all.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
Gordon Michael Richard rich I want to thank all of
you guys for joining us.
Speaker 5 (35:51):
Situation, no pleasure, Thank you, it was a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Thank you, mister Young, thank you.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
The Hardest Race of Alumni is currently producing a tribute
video for MICHAELA. Chance. Michael Chance is one of harness
racing's greatest drivers of all time, a winner of ten
two hundred and fifty three races with career earnings of
over one hundred and eighty million dollars, winner of four Hamiltonians,
(36:19):
three North America Cups, twenty seven Breeder Crowns, and the
winner of Payson's Triple Crown in nineteen eighty seven. Inducted
into both the US and Canadian Hall of Fames. To
become a sponsor of the La Chance Tribute, please visit
www dot us trotz dot com again www dot us
(36:43):
trotz dot com. That's a rap for this week's broadcast.
Thanks for listening, and please join us again next week.
Then Racing Alumni show.
Speaker 7 (37:00):
Yeah,
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