Harness: Changing the model before a return to racing

The words of Cal Expo’s Chris Schick have remained in the front of my mind since he said it just days before his track was ordered to be closed. “The model doesn’t work,” Schick said, describing the loss of revenue from Off-Track locations within California. More important to me was his reference to a specific model that was used to keep racing afloat in the Golden State when many, for years, thought it to be impossible.

What makes Schick’s words appear prophetic at this moment is the overriding question to all other racing locales currently on months-long forced sabbaticals. What will your model be when racing is allowed to resume but the economic model will look nothing like the one before?

As most businesses have been forced into the reality of looking at their models and wondering whether there truly will be light at the end of the tunnel, it seems racing could use this opportunity to make vital adjustments, especially at tracks where 90 percent of purses are funded routinely from slot revenue. For those, reality will set in immediately, as whenever racing returns purses will be substantially reduced.

What appears imperative on most horsemen’s minds these days is to get horses raced as soon as possible and to begin generating some cash flow. From strictly that point of view, the best-case scenario would open tracks and return them to pre-virus status, with condition sheets matching what they looked like before closing.

While it’s impossible to know the date or timing behind any re-opening, it would seem wise for the entire industry to think of a few other important matters for the long-term preservation of the business and not just immediate cash-flow concerns. Most notably, how should this industry respond to an abundance of horses that need to be raced and the prospect of more limited purse money to dispense?

There seems to be a radical opportunity at the moment to change the model at most racetracks where purses are boosted by slot revenue. In that sense, one need look no further than Yonkers Raceway’s condition sheet and purse structure as an example of what should likely be put in the garbage disposal and never recycled. While Yonkers boasted the highest purse structure for harness racing in North America, its condition sheet appeared more designed to keep horses in the same class forever and benefit those who dropped in the box with regularity and hardly cared about winner’s circle photo-ops.

When Yonkers re-opens again for racing, it will do so in large part with a lower revenue stream. Just how quickly casinos can generate income is to be determined. Factor in that crowd size is likely to be restricted, and those expecting purses to be anywhere near what they were before will be seriously disappointed. Yet what may appear a significant blow to this industry could prove something positive given the right “model” that propels business on the betting side in our favor. The chances of restructuring the product given horsemen’s needs and that of the betting public may be just the cocktail that finally forces the industry in a direction towards self-salvation.

To put it more bluntly, standardization of the standardbred industry must be abandoned and we must look towards a model that consists of a revitalized condition sheet and a loosening of former restrictive behavior. At Yonkers, I would suggest that it is more than time to abandon eight-horse fields as the norm, as well as one mile as the every-race distance. The difficulty in getting people to wager at Yonkers has more to do not just with the limited number of starters in each race but the limited number of horses with interest in each race. Some of that lack of interest for the betting public has long been inspired by self-interest of owners and trainers. It’s much easier on the horse looking to drop in class to go out for a night-time training mile to prepare for a lower class the following week than to leave from post eight and take a chance on a troubled trip. Yet it’s the second avenue that most bettors are expecting but rarely get. In the advent of a new wagering product, the interest of those wagering on the races has to be of primary concern.

While Yonkers has in the past spread out the purse structure to let a wide group of owners share in the pie, a return to action should be met with a different set of conditions. It’s clearly time to put a quick end to the non-winners category going from non-winners of 2 races to non-winners of 8 races. While these events have done marvelous things to the bank accounts of shrewd owners they, do no service to the betting public.

Ideally, what I’d like to see is only races that have 10 or more horses in them show up on the wagering program. I know in the past horsemen have wanted every horse entered to receive some form of stipend when races filled with more than eight horses, but one must look towards competition as the guideline for success. The idea is to make the betting public believe that all the horses entered are actually interested in the 50-percent part of the purse.

The argument over longer distances has always had its pros and cons, and personally, a longer race without movement is more boring to watch than a mile race without movement. Larger fields can and will only make sense if drivers are looking to move forward from start to finish. It’s the job of the racing secretary to insure that races are as evenly-matched as possible in order for drivers to have confidence. With a theoretically larger supply of horses in fewer classes, this shouldn’t be that hard to accomplish.

Horsemen should be hungry when they return and bettors may be equally so, yet we all know that everyone has choices to make and we need to come up with a plan that will make it imperative for players to look at this direction. I would think in addition to Pick-4 and Pick-5 guarantees, offering rebates to players, who get involved in specific races, may at least give some that had no interest in the past product to take a “new” look with incentives.

In short, the absence of racing may be our last chance to recalibrate the system and give the betting public a model that they can work with.