Newly formed Horse Racing League signs up Godolphin, WinStar, Gary Barber, and Vinnie Viola
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LEXINGTON, Ky. – A start-up co-founded by the former head of the Formula 1 auto-racing series has announced plans to launch a Thoroughbred league, with 10 teams drafting from a pool of 80 horses purchased by the start-up for races held in 2027, the founders announced on Thursday.
The start-up, which is being called the Horse Racing League, is headed by Greg Maffei, the former chief executive officer of Liberty Media, which purchased Formula 1 in 2016, and Danny Epstien, the head of the investment company Skylark.
The start-up said it plans to heavily market the league through social media channels, and that its events would feature “upgraded” hospitality and food and beverage options, along with live entertainment.
In an interview on Thursday afternoon, Epstien said that the team behind the league has been working on the concept for the past 18 months.
“We’re very excited,” Epstien said. “We took a lot of learning from the industry, and we want to make sure we get this right.”
According to the league, three groups have already committed to joining: WinStar Farms, Godolphin, and a partnership of Gary Barber, Vinnie Viola, and Chris Pucillo. Epstien declined to disclose the fee to join the league.
Under the start-up’s plans, each of the 10 teams will purchase a “franchise” in the league that will make them eligible for a November draft featuring 80 horses purchased by the league. Each team will select eight horses during the draft, and those horses will then be owned by the teams, in the literal sense of the word.
“They will be drafting and buying horses from the league,” Epstien said. “They will own those horses. And this is why I think this league is very different from other leagues. We want parity, we want strategy, and that’s why we came up with this draft concept. They are not bringing their own horses and forming a team from their own horses.”
Epstien said that the total budget for the horses purchased by the league has not yet been set. He said the league will be looking for 80 “allowance-level” horses.
In 2027, the league plans to hold three events – one in February, one in March, and one in April. The two earliest events will take place at either Santa Anita in Southern California or Gulfstream Park in Florida. The third event will take place at Keeneland in Lexington.
According to Epstien, four races – two on dirt, two on turf – will be held during each event, which will take place on an already scheduled race day, with six or more other races also on the card. Each of the teams will be able to enter one of the eight horses on their roster in each of the four league races. The purses of the four races will be provided by the league.
Teams will earn points based on the finishing positions of their horses in the league races. The points will be used to determine the league’s champions in several divisions, such as turf, dirt, or overall.
For the race card itself, the league is planning on being the nominal operator of the racetrack that day, in much the same way that Breeders’ Cup currently operates the track during the two days that feature its 14 races. The track will be paid a fee, and the league will have a right to certain revenues generated by the event, Epstien said.
Horses are flesh-and-blood animals, and there is no guarantee that a horse drafted in November will be available for a race under certain conditions four or six months later. Epstien said that the league rules will allow team owners to replace a horse on their roster lost to a physical issue by buying a horse on the open market that has a “rating” that is equal to or less than the horse that had to be replaced.
Equibase has developed a rating for horses that has been slowly introduced at U.S. racetracks over the past year, but Epstien said that the rating that will be used by the league for replacement horses has not yet been determined. He said that the participants in the league are scheduled to discuss that and other factors at a “summit” in the next three weeks.
Similar concepts have been devised for horse racing in the past, including, most recently, the National Thoroughbred League, which initially had plans to purchase horses on the open market and divide them up among teams based in cities across the U.S. headed by celebrities that did not necessarily have roots in the game.
The plans for direct ownership were quickly scuttled, and the NTL is currently a hospitality service, holding live events at tracks in the U.S. with benefits for its members.
When asked what would make the Horse Racing League different from the previous start-up efforts, Epstien said that the co-founders have focused on bringing “experienced” horse racing entities into the fold as team owners. He said that the league is currently in discussions with several other racing-centric groups as potential team owners.
“We’ve brought in great stewards of the sport so that we could do it the right way,” Epstien said. “We want to bring in the best people from the industry, people that have ties to horse racing or the equestrian world, so we have 10 teams that are stable.”
With November just four months away, the league is under the gun to get all of its players on board prior to the draft. If successful, Epstien said, the league plans to expand to six racing events a year by 2029.
“We’re talking about 24 races a year out of 30,000 that are currently run,” Epstien said. “If this works, then we brought new fans and the rest of the industry will hopefully get behind it. Our take is that everyone wins here.”
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