Panza to depart NYRA at the end of October

Martin Panza, the senior vice president of racing operations at the New York Racing Association for the past eight years, will be leaving the position at the conclusion of the Belmont Park meet on Oct. 31, NYRA announced on Friday.

Panza is one of the most high-profile racing officials in the country, and he is known for aggressively pushing horsemen to support the racing product at the tracks where he has worked. In the announcement, NYRA credited Panza for the “leadership and oversight of racing functions at NYRA . . . and execution of NYRA’s premier stakes offerings and daily racing programs.”

“Martin has successfully maintained the history and traditions of New York racing while also modernizing the program to adapt to changes in the sport and the overall industry,” said David O’Rourke, NYRA’s chief executive, in the release. “His contributions have strengthened Thoroughbred racing here in New York and across our sport.”

The release did not state a reason for his departure.

Panza, a graduate of the Race Track Industry Program at the University of Arizona and a member of its advisory board, said in the release that he has been “lucky to have learned the craft from some of the best in the business.”

“It’s a responsibility to share that knowledge with the next generation, and I look forward to watching the NYRA racing office flourish and succeed for many years to come,” Panza said.

At NYRA, Panza retooled the stakes program in order to concentrate stakes races on weekends to form so-called “blockbuster cards” rich in stakes opportunities, a tactic that most U.S. racetracks have adopted to draw attention to their simulcast product.

Reached on Friday, Panza declined to comment beyond the release.

Also while at NYRA, Panza traveled throughout Europe and Asia to recruit horses for stakes races at NYRA tracks to capitalize on the burgeoning international simulcast market, and he had focused recently on cultivating Japanese contacts after that country opened up its simulcast market to foreign races. Under relatively new regulations, Japan allows its bettors to wager into a separate pool if a Japanese horse is competing in a Grade 1 race overseas.

Panza was hired by NYRA in 2013 after serving as the vice president of racing and racing secretary at Hollywood Park in Southern California. He had also worked in the racing departments at the other high-profile Southern California tracks, Santa Anita and Del Mar. In 1998, he created the first guaranteed pick 6.

Panza has served two terms on the American Graded Stakes Committee, an arm of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association that assigns the grades for stakes races at U.S. racetracks. He is currently a member of the Breeders’ Cup Selection Committee, the Dubai World Cup Selection Committee, and the Jockey Club’s North American Racing Committee.

He also serves on the board of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association as NYRA’s representative, along with the boards of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, the Racetrack Medication and Testing Consortium, and the Thoroughbred Racing Associations.

--additional reporting by David Grening