Guardedly Optimistic

The past few years have been unforgettable for those of us who love great horse racing. Stars like Zenyatta, Rachel Alexandra, Blame and Curlin have given us some great memories on the racetrack. And an explosion of new media has resulted in the engagement of racing fans in ways we could not have imagined just a few short years ago. Unfortunately, none of these recent, great stories or innovations seemed to translate into business growth. And then, out of the blue, just as we are saying good bye to a year when pundits and bloggers, alike, decried the lack of star power on track, we learn that from an economic perspective, 2011 ended with a bang. That’s right. December and Year End Economic Indicators published yesterday by Equibase show strong growth for the first time in years.

Last month, handle jumped almost 18% over figures from December 2010, and purses for the month rose an astounding 24% year-over-year while race days jumped a surprising 10.2%. For the year, we were still down about 5.5% in handle but the fourth quarter of 2011 showed across-the-board gains in handle (1.37%), purses (10%) and race days (4.4%) compared to the fourth quarter of 2010.

Increases like these have been scarce in the Thoroughbred racing business for a long time. Toss out the anomaly of a small year-over-year increase in November of 2009, when the Breeders’ Cup was run in October of the prior year, and it’s been almost four years since we have seen a year-over-year monthly increase. Similarly, it’s been 17 quarters since we have seen year-over-year quarterly increases.

It’s hard to say with certainty what happened in December to cause this turnaround. Truth is, there are probably several factors that contributed to these increases.

First, December was the only month in 2011 that we were not comparing to a month in 2010 when the New York City OTB system was fully functioning and generating about $750 Million in handle annually (about 8% of the national total). We knew that some of the lost NYCOTB handle was not being recaptured by NYRA or the other OTBs in New York, we just didn’t know how much. These December numbers suggest that we lost a sizable percentage of handle due to the closing of NYCOTB. While NYRA was quick to create new opportunities for displaced NYCOTB players, the loss of such a major distribution outlet undoubtedly hurt out-of-state track operators. Many tracks around the country experienced sizable declines in simulcast handle after the demise of NYCOTB. So some of the increased handle in December may well have been occurring all year but was being disguised by the effects of lost NYCOTB handle.

December also probably benefited from the early opening of Gulfstream Park in December rather than the traditional January opening of its much-anticipated winter meet. You can be certain that both handle and purses rose substantially in Florida in December of 2011 vs. the corresponding period in 2010.

Race days in December of 2011 rose by 10% for reasons that aren’t clear but I suspect it’s related to a rash of track closures in December of 2010 due to inclement weather on the Eastern seaboard during that time. Whatever the reason, more race days generally will generate more handle.

And then there are the effects of the overall economy. This morning’s job numbers show a jobless rate nationally at about 8.5% and trending in the right direction. Housing prices are stabilizing. Mortgage rates are as low as they have been in decades. Corporate profits are strong. Even the equity and bond markets seem to be less unpredictable. Finally, the national economy seems to be in a gradual recovery.

It is too soon to call these developments a trend or to declare an end to the economic malaise that beset our industry along with the rest of the U.S. economy four years ago. I am going to keep my optimism guarded for now. Given all the economic travails of the past four years, caution seems like the prudent course. But you have to admit that December’s numbers are good news.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Pull the plug on the Claiming Crown

The idea of bringing together a bunch of claiming horses and having them meet on the same card always had obvious shortcomings. Claimers may be the so-called backbone of the business, but they don’t generate anything in the way of interest from fans or bettors. Claimers are claimers because they simply aren’t very good horses and that’s why the Claiming Crown was never anything more than a celebration of mediocrity.

Proponents of the Claiming Crown argued that it was a way to reward these blue-collar horses and their trainers and owners by allowing them to have at least one day when they could compete for decent purses. But now even that argument has become a specious one. With claimers routinely running for inflated purses at slots tracks, the pots offered in the Claiming Crown no longer seem like that big of a deal.

That’s why Rapid Redux, the most famous claimer of the last 50 years and a winner of 20 straight races, won’t be competing in the Claiming Crown Saturday at the Fair Grounds. He was eligible to run in the $50,000 Iron Horse, but to do so he had to get from his base in Pennsylvania to New Orleans and that was going to cost owner Robert Cole $13,000. Once there, he would have had to run against far better horses than he usually faces.

It wasn’t worth it, not when Rapid Redux can get on a van and ship to a half dozen racetracks and race against inferior horses for good money. When you can be 1-10 in a $20,000 race close to home it makes no sense to venture so far outside your comfort zone.

Rapid Redux will stay home Saturday, as will dozens of other horses who are eligible for Claiming Crown races. Only 39 horses have been entered for this year’s Claiming Crown events. There will be just five Claiming Crown races because a sixth, the $75,000 Rapid Transit, had to be cancelled when it did not get enough entries. Not surprisingly, Louisiana-based horses dominate the Claiming Crown entries.

The five Claiming Crown races are among the worst betting races on the Fair Grounds card, they will come and go without anyone paying much attention to them and they won’t do anything to generate handle.

Fans and horseplayers rejected the Claiming Crown a long time ago. Now, it appears that owners and trainers have, too. Never a great idea to begin with, the Claiming Crown has lost any and all appeal, and it’s time for it to go.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

There are records and then there are records

That crunching and groaning heard ‘round the North American racing world this week was the sound of fans and media bending over backwards in an attempt to place the 20-race win streak of Rapid Redux into sensible context.

So let’s get the qualified encomiums out of the way up front. Rapid Redux has found a stage upon which he can perform, race after race, at the pinnacle of his talents. Where those talents fit in the big picture is grist for debate – no one is suggesting he’s playing La Scala, or Tanglewood, or even Off-Off Broadway – but certainly he deserves high praise for his extended success in a sport that offers far more ways to lose than win.

In his case, the chances for losing have been reduced by the level of competition he faces. He is clearly blessed with a sound and healthy constitution that must be the envy of horsemen everywhere. And in the true spirit of a pack leader, his success has helped pay for the ongoing upkeep of lesser horses owned by Robert Cole.

A dedicated skeptic might look at the pedigree of Rapid Redux and wonder why he hasn’t achieved more, at least in terms of quality. As a son of Pleasantly Perfect he comes from a powerful sire line tracing in short order to Ribot, one of the breed‘s Big Daddies. The female family of Rapid Redux kicks off with mares by Storm Cat, Tom Rolfe (by Ribot), and Forli, and ends up wandering around in the same gene pool that gave us Northern Dancer, Halo, Tosmah, Cannonade and Stephan’s Oddysey.

It’s a tough game, though. Sometimes you can breed the best to the best and come up with nothing more than a headstrong saddle pony. Rapid Redux, for all the hopes and dreams his bloodlines might have encouraged, has been an over-achiever by most reasonable measures, eminently worthy of his locally heroic status. He can’t help it if hungry bloggers trolling for comments and track publicists desperate for site hits have elevated his achievements beyond reason.

Blame it on the suggestive power of raw numbers, and the quick-twitch intellect of the human species that has been trained on smoke signals, telegrams, headlines, texts, and tweets. Detached from the reality they represent, numbers of scale – 20, 100, 1,000 – take on a self-justifying life of their own as in, “He must have done something good. He did it 20 times!”

No one has made a case that Rapid Redux could warm up Zenyatta, Cigar, Buckpasser, or any of the other win-streaky names in the history of the sport. But there they are anyway, popping up in the same paragraphs, conflating away as if the achievements somehow relate.

His justifiably proud trainer, David Wells, did not help matters much when he said, in the wake of RR’s 20th straight last Monday at Charles Town, “We’re still eyeing Citation’s record.”

I hope they enjoy the view.

The “record” to which Wells referred is the 19 wins of Citation in 1948, when he started 20 times. Rapid Redux, in the midst of his 20-race winning streak, has 18 of them in 2011.

Beyond the coincidence of the numbers involved, the only thing any records Citation and Rapid Redux would have in common is the fact that they were established in a counter-clockwise direction. Let’s set aside for a moment the piddling string of bargain basement starter allowance races won by Rapid Redux – and bless those racing secretaries for magically making those races fill – and take a moment to unpack the career of Big Cy, who made his first start for Ben and Jimmy Jones on April 22, 1947.

Citation won his first five starts then finished second to Calumet stablemate Bewitch (a Hall of Famer in the making) in the 1947 Washington Park Futurity. Citation won his next seven starts and then lost the 1948 Chesapeake Trial in the mud at Havre de Grace to Saggy, who later sired Hall of Famer Carry Back. To date: 14 starts, 12 wins, 2 seconds. Not bad.

On April 17, 1948, five days after his loss in the Trial, Citation won the Chesapeake Stakes by 4 1/2 lengths and followed with 14 more victories that year. The streak included the Triple Crown, the American Derby, the Jersey Derby, the Jockey Club Gold Cup, and a walkover in the Pimlico Special. Among the major stakes winners Citation beat that year were Delegate, Vulcan’s Forge, Phalanx, Better Self, Eternal Reward, First Flight and his Hall of Fame stablemates Coaltown and Armed.

After that, Citation needed a year off to deal with ankle and tendon issues. He did not lose again until Jan. 26, 1950, when he was beaten a neck by Miche in an overnight handicap at Santa Anita. The fact that Miche went on to win the Santa Anita Handicap two years later was of little consolation to most fans, who thought Citation’s streak would go on forever. But those closest to him knew better, including the man who did the vet work for the California division of the Calumet stable, Dr. Jack Robbins.

“He was still very good, but he wasn’t the horse he was as a 3-year-old,” Robbins said this week from his home in Rancho Santa Fe. “He had a low bow, and Jimmy Jones managed him pretty well. Dealing with that bow, all he could do was keep him in ice packs and be careful how many times he ran.”

Citation made 15 more appearances in 1950 and 1951, which included a memorable cluster of tough beats while giving weight to a future Hall of Famer, Noor. He retired with a victory 60 years ago in the Hollywood Gold Cup as the game’s first millionaire, having won 32 races, finished second 10 times and third twice in 45 starts.

But then, those are just numbers.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Breeders’ Cup Over; Excitement May Not Be

The 28th running of the Breeders’ Cup is in the books, and there is a lot of things to like about the top end of the thoroughbred racing industry. There was hardly a dud among the 15 races contested — which should be expected when $26 million of purse money is at stake.

The Europeans took a strong contingent to Churchill Downs — a must if this is truly going to be a global championship — and they left here with ample loot. The trainer Aidan O’Brien won the Juvenile Turf with Wrote, then experienced a more priceless moment when his 18-year-old son, Joseph, rode St. Nicholas Abbey to victory in the Turf to become the youngest jockey to capture a Breeders’ Cup race.

There were a fair share of bombers that came in, but none bigger than Court Vision, who had not been in the winner’s circle in 13 months but found his way back there with a furious closing kick to win the $2 million Mile at odds of 69-1.

Dale Romans, who took over the training of the horse from Rick Dutrow in September, credited luck, rather than magical horsemanship, for the improbable victory.

“All we needed to do was get him back to his old form, and if they backed up at all, he would come running,” Romans said of Court Vision, who did have eight career victories in 30 career starts. “When you have the best milers in the world running, they will go fast early. We were just hoping they would go too fast and he could run them down. And it all worked out perfectly for us.”

There also was a nice peek at some of the anticipated headliners for next year’s Triple Crown campaign. Usually the winner of the Juvenile is declared the early favorite for the Kentucky Derby, and from now until the first Saturday in May, he and his connections will be scrutinized as closely as art authenticators pore over found masterpieces looking for any hint of inauthenticity.

This year’s Juvenile champion was Hansen, and he has plenty of quirks to examine in the coming months. He came into the Juvenile undefeated after winning two races by a combined 26 lengths. Hansen flies out of the gate and never looks back. It’s not an ideal style for a colt who hopes to emerge from a full field of 20 at the Derby as the best 3-year-old in the land. His trainer, Mike Maker, knows that but confessed he had little choice but to let the big gray have his way.

“He’s a handful for us,” Maker said. “We don’t try to change him much, because if we do try, he gets mad and wants to fight. So we let him do his thing, make him believe he’s the boss.”

Hansen won Saturday by a short head over Union Rags, a colt that looks best suited to capture the Derby and beyond. He and his rider, Javier Castellano, broke from the No. 10 post and came no closer inside than the four path, turning a mile-and-a-sixteenth race into a mile-and-an-eighth one. Union Rags rolled down the stretch like he was something special, and he just missed reeling Hansen in. Union Rags is the true early Derby favorite.

Inevitably, the subject of championship voting comes up this time of year, and with it comes heated debate. It won’t be as hard to determine the award recipients this year as only a couple of horses lasted throughout 2011 and put up meaningful numbers. The New York Times does not allow its reporters to vote, but that does not mean there aren’t opinions.

Why not Animal Kingdom for the 3-year-old champion?

He had five starts this year, winning the Spiral Stakes on a synthetic track at Turfway Park and the Derby on dirt. He also finished second in an allowance race on turf and lost by a half-length in the Preakness Stakes. His Belmont Stakes effort was compromised when he was bumped at the start and his rider, John Velazquez, lost his stirrup. He finished sixth, and his season ended with a leg injury.

Neither the Preakness champion Shackleford nor the Belmont victor Ruler On Ice won another stakes race, though both are solid competitors. Shackleford made 10 starts this year, and Ruler On Ice nine. Stay Thirsty had nice wins in the Jim Dandy and the Travers, but his 11th-place finish in the Classic highlighted his up-and-down year.

Who is the Horse of the Year? The filly Havre de Grace remains the right choice. She finished fourth Saturday in the Classic after having trouble early, and her connections placed her against male horses in an effort to take away any doubts that she was a worthy recipient.

Drosselmeyer was the long-shot winner, and Game On Dude was a gritty second-place finisher, but neither can say they won 5 of 7, three of them in Grade I company. In fact, another filly and Havre de Grace’s rival, the since-retired Blind Luck, will probably collect the most second-place votes.

“She ran well and certainly didn’t tarnish herself,” Havre de Grace’s trainer, Larry Jones, said. “We have no regrets about running her here, and she’s still got another year ahead of her.”

So here’s to a very good year and raised hopes for an even better next year.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

WHY FRANK STRONACH IS GOOD FOR RACING

The Austrian-born Canadian entrepreneur Frank Stronach is a real-life Horatio Alger success story. Coincidentally, Alger’s first book was titled Frank’s Campaign.

Stronach is well-known in worldwide business circles and the mere mention of his name can provoke controversy. Depending on who is doing the evaluating, opinions about Stronach’s contributions to Thoroughbred racing can be as different as night and day. One might wonder: “Are you sure we’re talking about the same person?”

Most notable on the plus side, Stronach has built a hugely successful breeding and racing empire. His Adena Springs has won the Eclipse Award as champion breeder in the United States seven times since 2000. Additionally, Stronach was the leading owner in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2008 and his homebreds have won classics and sired classic winners.

Negative opinions about Stronach’s efforts arise mostly from his participation on the retail side of the industry. For example, his failed Magna Entertainment Corporation was roundly criticized for missing out on the down-payment money for racetrack slots at Laurel Park. Gulfstream Park in Florida is another focal point, owing to its controversial architectural design and placement within a shopping area and casino.

None of this is surprising. Any major entrepreneur or company leader is going to be a lightning rod for criticism and second-guessing. That comes with being a mover and shaker. Donald Trump, for instance, is a highly successful real estate developer and TV show host, who also destroyed a lot of shareholder wealth with his ventures in Atlantic City casinos and a defunct airline shuttle service. The late Steve Jobs was once fired from Apple.

It is certainly fair game and to be expected for customers to weigh in on Stronach’s racetracks or for investors to lament his stewardship of the former Magna Entertainment Corporation. However, the cut-to-the-chase question is: Would the North American horse racing industry be better off or worse off without Stronach’s involvement? If you could turn back the clock and change history so that Stronach never became involved, would you do so in the best interests of racing?

People who run businesses are inevitably going to make mistakes and their actions will not be universally applauded. But these should be considered within the context of the bigger picture. Racing needs much more investment from extremely wealthy individuals, who are passionate about the sport, rather than less. Auction sales need more buyers, racetracks and partnerships need investors, and geographical areas like greater Lexington and Ocala need organizations such as Adena Springs that employ hundreds of people and pump money into the local economies.

Most of all, because the pari-mutuel product is in deep trouble relying on the traditional business model, significant departures from past practices—personified, for example, by Gulfstream Park–are essential. As Albert Einstein remarked, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Entrepreneurs are the straws that stir the drinks, the people who are willing to put their money behind new approaches. Old-line industries like racing inescapably stagnate without innovation and experimentation. Someone needs to do the disruption and not many in racing have stepped up. Frank Stronach is an important exception to the rule. Leaders like him are going to provoke plenty of negative emotion but are invaluable. (The key indicator of Stronach’s “outsider” status: he is among the most instrumental figures in American racing and the most prominent Canadian in the sport since the late E. P. Taylor, yet he is not a member of the U. S. Jockey Club.)

President Theodore Roosevelt talked in one of his most famous speechess, in 1910, about “the man in the arena”: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena… and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Horse racing needs more disruptive-innovative entrepreneurs in a shrinking arena. Mike Repole might be a younger version of Frank Stronach in the making

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Track Dates Inspire Hot Debates

After unusually heated debate, the race dates committee of the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission approved racetrack requests that are almost a carbon copy of this year’s calendar.

The full racing commission will take up the race dates at the Oct. 18 meeting. “Aren’t we going through the same thing as last year? I don’t see what we are going to do to make our game different,” said Tom Ludt, a committee member. He is also chairman of the Breeders’ Cup board and president of Vinery, a Thoroughbred stud farm. “We can’t keep repeating the same thing we’re doing.”

Ludt’s comment came after the five Thoroughbred tracks asked for 210 days of racing and three Standardbred tracks asked for 65, almost exactly the days they raced this year.

One harness racetrack, Thunder Ridge in Prestonsburg, cut its request by three days, to 21. Asked why, track general manager Anita Ratliff was succinct: “Money.”

She said that the track lost thousands of dollars on the extra days this year and that there were some days when betting on live racing totaled $18 for the day.

Ludt suggested the tracks throw “something controversial” at the committee to get the public’s attention rather than continuing in the same vein. “For $20 a day, why bother?” he asked.

That prompted fellow committee member Betsy Lavin to ask whether Ludt was “suggesting denying dates to someone will put pressure to the state as far as gambling.”

Ludt said he was not directing criticism at any track, but he wanted to see more innovation, especially since they will be competing soon with slots-enriched purses in New York. His farm is moving some operations to New York to take advantage of expected larger purses for state-bred horses.

But several tracks said they were making some adjustments:

■ Churchill Downs has invested $4 million in lights for a few nights of racing each year.

■ Kentucky Downs has opened the first instant racing parlor, increased its dates request from four days to six and nearly doubled the tax revenue paid to the state in September, compared to last year.

■ Ellis Park is applying for instant racing, which track owner Ron Geary said he expects to boost purses by 50 percent, to about $270,000, after the first year of operation.

■ Keeneland has rolled out a mobile betting application that saw $40,000 in handle the first day.

Bob Elliston, president of Turfway Park, said a recent report noted that casinos at tracks in Pennsylvania had pumped $275 million into that state, siphoning horses from Kentucky. “These (changes by the Kentucky tracks) are all attempts to overcome that big gaping hole,” Elliston said.

Kevin Flanery, president of Churchill Downs racetrack, said that even changing a track’s meet from November to September would not be enough of a game changer. “The game changer is what Bob said,” he said.

One major point of contention was Churchill’s request to drop the Fourth of July from its schedule. For the past few years, Churchill has overlapped the holiday with Ellis Park in Henderson.

Committee member John Ward, a Kentucky Derby-winning trainer, said that switch could cost the state money on handle and drive trainers out of the state faster.

“We’re going to see a huge difference in handle between Churchill and Ellis,” Ward said. “Do we represent the state of Kentucky to maximize profits to the state, or the tracks to maximize profits to the tracks, or the horsemen?”

Racing commission chairman Bob Beck said the committee must balance the various interests. “I don’t know that we’re here to maximize anybody’s profits,” Beck said.

But Beck also said he was still worried about the calendar. “Three years ago I had some concerns about the year-round calendar. … I continue to be concerned about that,” he said.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Good As It Gets

New sporting events can be about as meaningful as infomercials, barely beating reruns in terms of interest. The chief need to be filled by most new sporting events is a corporate sponsor needing more money.

Something like the Fed-Ex Cup is hardly water cooler talk at work. It’s more like cheese nacho talk overheard upon occasion in municipal course snack shops. The Fed-Ex Cup is a golf event. To win it you shoot low scores at tournaments few follow closely. Who won this year’s Fed-Ex Cup, and where? Be back in a sec. The screen says the winner was Bill Haas icing the title at East Lake. The runner up was Webb Simpson. No offense, but I somehow missed their rise to this top.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup series has been around a while under different names and features a point system to determine playoff drivers. I come from a long line of sports players who have great respect for the classic time out. During all the time-outs I have known, nobody could steal home, could score a lay-up, could dance into the end zone for six points. But in car racing during a time out, under a caution flag, drivers can make up great distances of ground. Given technology that can duplicate human organs on something resembling a copy machine, you’d think that there would be a simple enough way to return cars to their original upright positions at the time of a wreck. I have always watched three race events a year, Daytona, the Indy 500, and the original Go Daddy commercials. After the big races early in the year, somebody had to have said: Now what?

The relatively new BCS system of picking two college football teams to play for a national championship is based on theory, conjecture, popularity and money. Boise State could finish undefeated from now until the moon turned as blue as its field and not be permitted to play in the final game. To date, the BCS has been lucky with contenders losing late to make way for the big dogs to play for king cash. This year, a huge mess is developing with six legit contenders campaigning for one spot in the championship, as the SEC winner is a guaranteed finalist: Wisconsin, Boise State, Stanford, Clemson, the Big 12 winner, and the SEC runner up, if it’s LSU or Alabama with one loss.

The one new sporting event that has work even better than it looked on the drawing board is the Breeder’s Cup championship run that goes Friday and Saturday, Nov. 4 and 5, at the garden spot of thoroughbred racing, Churchill Downs.

Several elements make this a picture-perfect sporting event.

One, it is truly a world championship, something along the lines of the Ryder Cup, the USA versus Europe, with the occasional competitor from Dubai mixed in. It’s primarily the British keeping the Breeder’s Cup from being about as unworldly as the World Series in baseball. Members of the British media think they invented horse racing when all they did was perfect turf racing. It’s hard not to feel a bit of nationalism when one of those characters dressed in a Sherlock Holmes hat and looking like he used to caddy for Benny Hill comes on the screen and says the Americans are running for third or fourth in a turf race. Many U. S. horses gravitate to the turf; it’s all European horses know.

The Triple Crown races come so early in the year and are so stressful for young horses, the winners are hard-pressed to win again, often even race again.

The Breeder’s Cup races tolerate no excuses. You think you’re tough, here’s the place to prove it. Chickens are obvious. The best horses at the end of the year usually win.

The most inviting thing about this sporting event is the risk-reward relationship of money wagered. When most horses can win a race, a lucky $2 bet can turn a fish into a whale

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Word Play

Given its long duration, one of the best places on earth to have unexpected and thought-provoking conversations about horse racing is the Keeneland September yearling sale.

The first few days of the sale are always a veritable Who’s Who of the racing world, but even during the rest of its two-week run, there are plenty of people on hand. At any given point, some of them are going to have time on the their hands. It is the hurry up and wait nature of any horse sale.

Talking is a natural way to pass the time, and I am convinced the amount of opinions and gossip that go around the sale grounds could rival that of any high school. Considering an average of 400 horses go through the ring each day, it is no surprise there are a lot of people, a lot of horses and a lot of noise.

Inevitably when covering the sale, I reach what I consider my Grinch moment, where all I want to do is go around saying, “the noise, noise, noise, noise” a la the beloved Dr. Suess character. If my schedule allows, that is when I try to find a spot in the back walking ring to flip through my sale catalog and decompress.

It was at this moment in time last week when I was approached by a woman who was astonished I knew how to read a catalog page. As the days have passed, I keep returning to our conversation because it highlighted a long standing issue: is horse racing’s vernacular keeping fans away?

While her directness was startling, in all fairness, I can appreciate why she walked up to me unprompted to express her surprise. I was sitting cross-legged on a concrete wall eating a Tootsie Roll Pop. Combined with the fact I was wearing barn appropriate tennis shoes, had just pulled my hair into a ponytail with my fingers, and tend to look young for my age, she probably thought I was 12.

When I pointed out I was probably a great deal older than she was thinking, she pointed at the candy and said, “Well, you are eating a sucker.”

Touche.

But after I explained I cover horse racing and everything that goes along with it for a living, she started asking questions. It turns out she sells real estate. She also confessed that sale catalogs and race programs overwhelm her and that she didn’t think she would ever understand them.

We chatted some more and then she went on her way. But her words have stuck with me.

Although the ultimate goal of horse racing — cross the finish line first — is pretty easy to understand, there is a lot that goes into that simple act.

Pedigrees, speed figures, track bias. Trainer habits, owner demands, jockey talent. Dirt tracks, grass tracks, synthetic tracks. Bar shoes, glue-on shoes, no shoes … the list goes on and on.

The point being, I get horse racing can get complicated pretty quickly. Multiple tracks do things to try to educate new fans, and there are also some fantastic online resources, but the intricacies aren’t something you are going to pick up overnight.

In recent years, the Breeders’ Cup has tried to make the event more “fan friendly” by doing things like changing the Distaff to the Ladies’ Classic because it is supposedly easier to understand. From the day this idea was introduced, it rubbed me the wrong way for multiple reasons.

Every sport has its own terminology, and I think that should be embraced. I also remain a bit surprised no producer of lady products has stepped up to claim that sponsorship. The Lady Speed Stick Ladies’ Classic does have a nice ring to it.

But after talking with this kindly stranger at the Keeneland sale, I couldn’t help but wonder if my reaction to things like the Ladies’ Classic wasn’t on the arrogant side. Maybe the way to attract new fans isn’t through education but readjustment of the establishment.

I have toyed with that idea for the better part of a week now, and arrogant or not, I just can’t make myself buy into it.

If you care about something, you will take the time to learn about it. Furthermore, you don’t have to understand everything about a sport to enjoy it. The offside rule in multiple sports plagued me for years, but it never kept me from getting into a good game.

The fact this sport can be complicated is not a bad thing. My conversation with the stranger at the sale highlighted that curiosity encourages conversation, which in turn can lead to education.

Plus, for all of that, we all have the friend that picked the 100-1 longshot winner because the horse had a memorable name. A great time can be had by one and all at a horse race, whether you can spout off five generations of Secretariat’s pedigree or not.

I stand by the idea that it is fun, excitement and openness that will get people to come back, not the catalog pages and terminology.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

Handicapping Insight

I have the pleasure and luxury of attending just about every horse racing conference held in the United States. Clients of my consulting business send me to every HBPA event, RCI, International Simulcast Conference, University of Arizona Symposium on Racing, Albany Law School Racing Conference and New York Gaming Summit. I attend all the sessions even though some of them do not directly affect what I do.

One topic that many of these conferences have covered is race day medication. I have sat through numerous panels discussing medication issues and have learned a lot.

For years, I was against Lasix being allowed on the day of the race. Back in 1994, I was still a consultant for the New York Racing Association (NYRA) reporting directly to the president. When Gerry McKeon retired and was replaced by Kenny Noe, my days were numbered. Being an adviser to Kenny Noe was like being a deckhand on a submarine. I’m not saying Kenny didn’t listen to his staff but his idea of a suggestion box was a paper shredder.

So one night at dinner the subject of Lasix came up and Kenny was adamant about changing NYRA’s stance against its use on race days. His point was how can the rest of the country be wrong and NYRA be right? We discussed the pros and cons of legalizing it and I came down on the side of keeping the policy of banning it. Big mistake; at least, for me.

But as time has gone by and I have not only had the luxury of attending conference sessions on the topic but having numerous discussions with many horsemen and veterinarians, my stance has changed.

Exercised induced pulmonary hemorrhaging (EIPH) is what happens when capillaries burst in a horse’s pulmonary system. At best, the blood from the hemorrhaging is insignificant and has no effect on the horse’s performance. At worst, it can result in sudden death to the horse and not every horse that dies from it has visible evidence of the bleeding coming out of its nostrils. In between, the severity varies. Nearly all horses racing suffer from it in some form.

Just about all horses performing in any form suffer from EIPH. Quarter Horses, Standardbreds, barrel racers, etc. suffer from it in addition to Thoroughbreds. What makes Thoroughbred racing different is how it is anaerobic in nature, meaning the horse goes into oxygen debt for lengthy periods at the end of the race. Anyone that has ever run a 400-meter race on track knows the feeling. Running hard for long periods of time results in lactic acid being secreted and muscles tying up. We used to call it rigor mortis.

Not only is the Thoroughbred asked to go into major oxygen debt but often times has to do it in bad air quality. Throw in heat and humidity and you have all the ingredients of asking horses to do things that border on being inhumane.

Lasix can relieve the symptoms of EIPH in most horses. Considering the positive therapeutic effects, it’s hard to understand that it has become the source of controversy that it is.

I used to think that giving two-year-olds Lasix was a big mistake and that all two-year-old racing should be devoid of it to see who the best horses are. However, I learned that the earlier you treat horses with Lasix, the less permanent damage is done to their lungs.

Lasix, because of its effect of being a diuretic, used to be used as a “masking agent” for other drugs. But, what everyone seems to agree upon is that today’s sophisticated drug tests are good enough to detect the banned medications whether Lasix is being used or not.

The rest of the world bans Lasix so why don’t we? All of the United States, Canada, most of south America and Saudi Arabia allow race-day Lasix. While that is still a minority, the fact is that the entire racing world with the exception of Hong Kong and Singapore allow horses to train on it.

In conversations with many people that have international experience, there is a feeling that the drug testing that other jurisdictions brag about are not up to our standards. They test urine, not plasma, and they have high thresholds that trigger a positive. Adjunct medications are allowed and one trainer told me he would love to take samples of international horses and run them through our testing procedures to see who is really “clean.”

We all bemoan the drop in average starts per season in America. Many blame it on our addictions to race-day medications. Yet, the data shows that the entire racing world has seen the average number of starts per starter each year has dropped.

Twenty years ago, the United States was third in annual starts per starter. Japan was number one and Italy was number two. Now, Japan is still number one, even though their average starts per starter each year has dropped, South Africa is number two and the United States is still number three. How can that be? That’s not what we hear from the Lasix opponents but the statistics are from the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities (IFHA).

Steroids were banned from most jurisdictions a few years ago. While that may have been the right thing to do, we haven’t seen a jump in starters since it went into effect. Will we see a jump in starts per starter if we ban Lasix? I sincerely doubt it as you are removing a therapeutic medication that keeps horses racing.

As a bettor, we have all had to adjust to the presence of Lasix. First time Lasix can be a powerful indication of expected improvement. Sometimes second time Lasix is a big move since we don’t really know how big the dosage was the first time. For me as a bettor, I don’t want it to be a factor at all. But rather than ban it, I think we should mandate it.

Nearly all Thoroughbred race horses bleed. If you think we can breed our way out of this by separating the horses that bleed from those that don’t and breed a new racehorse that doesn’t bleed and doesn’t need Lasix, you would have to ban it in training as well which nobody wants to do.

And, how do you explain banning it to the animal rights activists that view our sport as being cruel and inhumane? We went nuts after Eight Belles broke down in the 2008 Kentucky Derby (G1). Task forces were formed and racetracks and their maintenance procedures were examined in order to show the general public that we were doing everything we could to protect the horses that are racing.

If we mandated that all horses that are racing be treated with the same dose of Lasix, we take it out of the handicapping equation. We show the general public that we continue to diligently look out for the welfare of the horses that are racing. And we do the right thing by the horse by reducing the severity of EIPH.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?

High prices shouldn’t detract from Derby experience

In the good news-bad news department of horse racing, Churchill Downs is making 20,000 seats available to the public for next year’s Kentucky Derby. The bad news is there is a $100 administrative fee, half of which will be refunded if you get shut out.

For those complaining about the surcharge, they have closed their eyes to the basic capitalism principle that is supply and demand. A finite number of tickets are available, and the thirst for Derby seats seemingly is unquenchable.

In economic theory, the fee is no different than NFL teams forcing season-ticket holders to also buy tickets to meaningless preseason games. Or to get the best seats for your alma mater in football and basketball, it helps to make a donation to the athletic department. They do it because they can.

Churchill bean counters had seen ticket brokers making ungodly profits on Derby ducats for decades. They wanted to rein that in, in the name of protecting the customer. In reality, those profits needed to be going to the Churchill bottom line.

I have no doubts the new system will be safer and more efficient. Buying fake or nonexistent tickets for a major sporting event from unscrupulous vendors can be a problem. However, obtaining seats is just the start of a costly journey to Louisville for the first Saturday in May.

Your room at a lower-tier motel, which usually costs $39 a night in summer, will be a couple of hundred dollars a night. Renting a car? Most likely you’ll have to fly into Cincinnati, rent a car there and drive the 90 miles to Louisville. Dinner? The $14.99 rib-eye in October will be $39.99 in May, provided you even can get a restaurant reservation.

It is capitalism in all its glory.

This is not knocking the Kentucky Derby or Louisville. I have attended 15 Derbies and would give my eye teeth to see another in person. For folks my age, or close to it, the Derby needs to be on your bucket list. It is one of the greatest sporting events in the world.

If price, in this case a $50 fee, is a deal-breaker, then you are better off watching at home on NBC. In Louisville, $100 bills will be flying out of your wallet. But I guarantee you will have a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Plus, here’s an advantage that no other sport other than horse racing can offer: If you get lucky betting on Oaks and/or Derby day, you can win enough to pay for the trip.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE?