Harness: Profile of USTA Director David Siegel

What kind of car do you drive?

2006 Toyota Prius with 185,000 miles.

Favorite dinner meal? Snack?

Chicken Parmigiana; Ice Cream.

What is your favorite track to visit?

Cal Expo because that is where I spent my driving career.

What is your favorite event in racing?

Little Brown Jug week. I was there once and drove in a couple of races on one of the days. The coolest part was two-fold. One, there were fans, and two, the closeness of the fans. I went to warm my horse up with no groom and I literally drove the horse through a crowd of people and that was the norm. I could not believe any amount of state safety would allow that to happen. I thought one bad actor could trample people, but I guess it has never happened.

How often is racing on your mind?

Because of my job, daily, and it has been for 20-something years.

What is your favorite thing to do outside of racing?

Play baseball. I play in three regular leagues. One is a 55 and over, another is 65 and over – they let me play even though I am 62, and finally a league with players ranging from 28 to 75 that consists of people who have played in an A’s or Giants fantasy camp in Arizona. Unfortunately, none of them are active right now.

What is your favorite sport to watch? Team?

Baseball – San Francisco Giants.

What is one thing about you most fans/bettors don’t know?

When I was driving, they would probably be surprised that I have an MBA from Stanford.

What is one word that describes harness racing for you?

Jeopardy.

What came first, your involvement with Trackmaster or your interest in Harness Racing?

My involvement with Trackmaster. That began in March 1993.

How did you get started in the sport?

I took a ride in the starting gate at Pompano Park in December 2001 and bought my first horse March 15, 2002. That horse was born in 1999 and he's 21 years old now. I still have him.

What is the best advice you've ever gotten about harness racing?

I'm not sure this was the best, but it is one I remember. Ed Hensley, who was an early mentor of mine, told me that he never launched an objection. I only launched one. It was the only time I thought someone was trying to intentionally hurt me.

What was your favorite moment in harness racing?

I guess when I was named Amateur Driver of the Year in 2007.

Which is the best horse you've ever owned?

No question about it, Wastin Time. He was the first horse we bought and I owned him the whole time. He could be raced any way. You could leave, duck in, or come from off the back. He was two fingers to drive. He has also been a great all-around horse in retirement. He raced from ages 2 to 10 and made almost 250 starts. I retired him at age 10 and he stays at a public stable near my house on Stanford (University) land. The campus used to be a Standardbred breeding farm. On the University is a huge statue of Leland Stanford’s prize stud named Electioneer. Wastin Time is a direct descendent of that.

You were an avid driver for years, what made you stop?

I guess I would call it a perfect storm of multiple things. It all came about in January of 2018 when I last raced. Prior to that I was driving in 50-60 percent of the races and my opportunities declined going into that fall meet in 2017. Second, given that I had to drive two-and-a-half hours to get there (Cal Expo), I had to drive in at least half the races to make it worthwhile. The very strong economy of the Bay area caused the drive to go from an hour-and-a-half to two-and-a-half to three hours sometimes. That got me pretty flustered. Third, I was very unhappy with the way the Racing Secretary ran the office up there. Fourth, I had taken 10 years off from baseball and was starting to coach and play again, and it was very hard to do both.

I came into the fall saying that if things didn't change I would stop, but I still had a goal to get to 500 wins. I got that 500th win sometime after Jan. 1. I ended with 502. Then that was it.

Do you miss driving?

For the most part, no. I have a jog cart at my barn and I take Wastin Time out one or two times a week. I have also visited barns and tracks where I've jogged and trained. I do miss actually driving a little, the six minutes from the time you get onto the track until you get off, but I don't miss everything else surrounding it. That includes the race office stuff and all of the other bullshit that goes on at the track, which I feel is detrimental to the sport.

Many people call for free past performances. If the top 10 tracks in terms of handle put up $100,000 each and the next 10 put up $50,000 each, would that be a viable alternative to get free PPs?

Yes, it is viable. Now I would strongly recommend that they didn't do it. Racetracks would never get that money back in terms of increased handle. I would presume that’s the only reason to do it. They would have to get back in handle between 10x and 20x for it to make sense, and there is zero chance of that happening.

Every single bettor can get free past performances. All they have to do it bet $2 to show or win on a horse through an ADW. I have no belief that someone saving $2 will cause them to bet $1,000. I have all kinds of evidence against it and there is nothing to support it.

Tracks are able to give away free past performances today and always have been, but they typically don’t. If tracks really believe past performances should be given away, they can give away the $1.50 print program, which probably costs them $1, but most don't do it. The reason why they don't do it is because they don’t believe it will help.

We have entered into contracts with racetracks to give away a limited numbers of past performances. We’ve had agreements with Meadowlands, Yonkers and Hoosier Park, and I think they are still ongoing. It is typically for one set of past performances a week. They pay us and the USTA to do that. We are also very open for free past performances on major races. We have a deal with Harness Racing Update for no money where it can use any race where there is a purse of X amount to allow for greater promotion of the more prestigious races. So we do see a middle ground and support the industry that way.

Trackmaster/DRF/USTA give away free PPs for Strategic Wagering races and major stakes races. Do you see a benefit in those areas as a marketing tool?

No, because the people in the sport know the races and the tracks. They are betting and can get the past performances very inexpensively as a percentage of their handle, one or two percent. In terms of attracting new people, I think anyone who thinks that past performances is the vehicle to attract new people are out of their minds. First, I think it is very difficult to attract new people. The obstacles are so overwhelming, I don't think it can be done en masse. But if there is a solution on the data side, it is not past performances. That's like wanting to learn math and sitting in a calculus class as your introduction. Equibase has invested tons of money over the last 25-plus years to come up with the equivalent of the fountain of youth perfect program to attract newcomers to the sport and it doesn’t exist. I will say it never will. There are data offerings at an entry level that are very good, but there is no utopian one. The best ones that are out there are selection-type programs that try to relay some basic understanding of the race and variable that come into play. But the very first thing a newcomer wants to know is who to bet on and why. There are selection products out there. Trackmaster has a product that tells you who to bet based on your risk preferences. So if you like going to the window to cash, it will have you bet to show to get you about eight trips to the window. If you like risk, it will recommend an exacta and explain it, but that is as difficult as it will be.

Over the last decade Trackmaster has created the automated morning line and an entire condition system for racing, is anything new in the hopper for the near future?

Not in that regard. I think those two things were actually incredible breakthroughs. Before those two were automated speed and pace ratings. The last I looked our morning line was used in like 60 percent of the starts. I think horse ratings are underutilized. Last year (2019) 21 racetracks used it, 12 pari-mutuel tracks and 11 pari-mutuel tracks regularly, including some very big ones like The Meadowlands. I think the ratings could take tons of cheating out of the game, make for more competitive racing as defined by compression of the odds – meaning fewer odds-on favorites and super-longshots, and the data supports that the ratings create larger field sizes. When I say that it takes cheating out, if used in place of claimers, it takes the trainer who is allegedly using something they shouldn’t be to prop horses up, causing people to be afraid to claim those horses, and it doesn’t allow them to jam (enter for a low claiming tag to get easy wins). For people who play games with condition racing, it takes that out of the mix. Why it isn't adopted more widely is because I think Racing Secretaries are stubborn about it, not all but many, and Harness Racing as a whole doesn't change and isn’t very much open to change. I think Racing Secretaries view it as a further step to office automation as opposed to another tool in their arsenal to make racing better, and I think as a group and for Harness Racing overall, that is terribly shortsighted.

It terms of anything for the future, I am much more focused outside of my Trackmaster job and more in focus on my USTA role as Director and a member of its Executive committee to try to maximize our chances of survival. The USTA and its membership itself is the biggest obstacle to survival.

I believe the largest threats to Harness Racing are from outside the sport. The primary threat comes from extreme animal advocate groups and number two, the public at-large as it relates to subsidies, in that order.

With animal rights groups there are three issues, in this order:

1) Visible abuse to the horses while racing. During racing the most visible thing is whipping. Whipping is often cruel and always appears cruel even if it is not. It is the easiest thing to address because it costs no money. It is just a rule change and implementation across racing commissions. It has improved, but there is no reason for anything more than tapping a horse with respect to the criticism you are going to get from animal rights groups. It is the easiest change and the USTA Board refuses to do it. A wrist-action-only rule was turned down again the other day despite having already been implemented in some jurisdictions, including Ontario, without impact on handle.

2) Visible abuse to horses or lack of care post-racing. If we can't keep care of our horses after their careers, that is another weapon for the animal rights extremists to use against us.

3) Use of medication to keep horses going when they otherwise shouldn’t be.

With the subsidies, is it really worth it for states to subsidize racing in the big picture? There have been big cutbacks and the most recent one is the proposed one in Pennsylvania. It is simple economics. There is no argument to keep racing going for public interest. The public has spoken loud and clear; they don't want it. They have talked with their feet. The handles at some of these racetracks compared to the purses is a joke.

Why does racing stay? There are two reasons and I’m not saying they are bad reasons to keep it because they are good reasons. One is the short-term economic impact of getting rid of it. The other reason is the open space argument; the positive externality that people benefit when they drive by an open field, or see the foals or hay growing.

The reasons against it are tremendous. The biggest is that the public has no interest. Racing has survived because the two other things are worth the tax the public is spending to help it survive.

You serve as President for Trackmaster and on the Board of Directors for USTA. Do you view that as a conflict of interest?

Not at all. As a matter of fact, we have helped the USTA and Harness Racing immensely because of that relationship. When there is any possibility of their being a conflict, I step out. Like when there is voting or discussion on a contract. There are things that we work hand-and-hand with the USTA or drive things that I think make both organizations much better off. Something like the morning line, if we didn't have this exclusive relationship with the USTA, we wouldn’t have done it. Or the Strategic Wagering program, we were under no contractual obligation to cooperate with that, but we do. Most of the things the USTA asks for we do.

How has COVID-19 affected you personally and in terms of business?

I am in the top one percent, luckily, of being least affected, and I remember that every day. I've been working from home the last year-and-a-half. My children are out of the house, so working from home is no different than before. I told you before that a huge avocation of mine is baseball and I coach a 14 and under team. That has stopped. But I like bike riding and that hasn’t been affected. I have two horses in a nearby barn and I can ride or jog those horses. While I have a postage stamp lot because I live in an expensive area, I have a batting cage and a wonderful hitting machine back there, so I can still stay in shape and throw and hit as often as the weather permits. So luckily, I am unaffected.

From a business standpoint, it's devastating. Obviously our revenues have pretty much dried up to close to zero. On the harness side zero and on the Thoroughbred side a lot less product is being sold. We do have ADW revenue that continues to come in, but our fortunes are tied to the fortunes of racing, which are obviously terrible right now despite it being the best remaining sport. We are just weathering the storm. Luckily our company has been conservative in terms of what it keeps around for cash and we have a long list of projects that we’ve always put on the back burner and we’ve been able to get a lot of those projects done.

If you had the power to change one thing in the sport, what would it be?

If I had the power to change something that is changeable, there is no question it is whipping. Because we can do it and it is free.

How do you view the future of harness racing?

It is a very bleak outlook. What I believe has to happen is that racing has to stand on its own. It cannot live in a subsidized world forever because the public will not tolerate it, especially with the pressure from animal rights groups. What I think will happen as those subsidies go away, the number of racetracks will decrease for sure. It is like cutting off the limbs of a tree to save a pretty healthy trunk. As that happens, the total handle will drop a little, but the handle per remaining tracks can be strong. Therefore there can be money to address other issues. Unwanted horses obviously becomes less of an issue when instead of 7,000 horses there are 1,000. So aftercare is a lot more manageable. There will be significantly more money to police all of the illegal aspects of racing. That's what I see happening, four or five different tracks with coordinated dates and times, much like they do in Australia. It is impossible to do with something like 38 jurisdictions right now. So I think it will survive but at a much smaller level.

The USTA Board of Directors meetings are going on right now. Has doing it remotely via electronic means changed the dynamic?

No. I’m not thrilled with the dynamic to start with and it is largely because many of the controversial topics don't get addressed. They get kicked down the road. Most of the directors have their minds made up beforehand, and maybe that is the same way with Congress or any group, but there is a lot of stubbornness in Harness Racing.

Are you in favor of Lasix?

I’m against it because of the ammunition it provides to animal rights groups to shut us down. Otherwise, I’d be slightly in favor.

What is your favorite TV Show?

I watch a lot of TV. If I had to pick one, Law & Order SVU.