SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- Gary Fenton, the chair of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, urged the national racing industry to provide help – whether in the form of horses or money – to the beleaguered California circuit during a presentation on Thursday at the Jockey Club Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining to Racing in Saratoga Springs. Stressing that the entire U.S. racing industry is “connected,” Fenton outlined the racing industry's reliance on California owners, buyers, and horsemen while pointing out that California’s races and its bettors currently account for approximately 25 percent of the national handle. But he was also obliged to acknowledge that California is now down to two “brand-name tracks” – Del Mar and Santa Anita – now that Golden Gate has been closed, and that both are struggling to maintain fields while cutting purses to deal with declining revenues. Unlike most major U.S. racing circuits, California receives no subsidies from casino gambling. While Fenton did not directly ask for a cut of revenues from the rich subsidies that are currently propping up racing in New York and, especially, Kentucky, his comments hinted that such requests may be in the offing. “California is actively seeking ancillary revenue streams within and outside our state to increase purses and lead to economic growth for both California and the rest of the country,” Fenton said, in a live broadcast from the paddock of Del Mar racetrack. “It is priority number one.” The transfer of racing subsidies from one state circuit to another would be a difficult proposition. Nearly all casino gambling subsidies to racing are enshrined in state legislation under the reasoning that healthy racetracks generate increased local economic activity, and so a direct transfer would at the very least be considered politically impractical, if not outright impossible. But there could be creative solutions to the idea, Fenton suggested, while asking the Round Table audience to imagine California racing with a much stronger purse structure. “How much more successful do you think premium brands like Santa Anita Park or Del Mar would be with subsidies?” Fenton said. “The incremental increases would carry forward and dramatically increase the bottom line of every sector of American racing.” Fenton also said that the racing industry as a whole needs to do a better job at presenting its product to potential gambling customers, an issue facing racing circuits everywhere. And he warned that the continued decline of California racing presented dangers for the industry nationwide. “If California has issues, it isn’t just a California problem,” Fenton said. “It’s a Kentucky problem. It’s a New York problem. It’s a Florida problem. We are all connected.” Fenton’s comments came at a Round Table that mostly dealt tangentially with racing’s current problems, which have been decades in the making. Despite the explosion in sports betting across the U.S. over the past five years, racing’s total handle remains stagnant. While purses have doubled in Kentucky over the past 10 years and are stable in New York, many circuits are struggling to attract horses, amid a collapse in most states' breeding activity. And racing still faces deep public-perception problems among newer generations who are increasingly concerned about the use of animals in economic endeavors. However, on the public-perception front, racing has currently made significant strides in lowering fatality rates, not just on individual circuits, but nationwide. In the last quarter, the rate was 0.76 per thousand starts at tracks under the jurisdiction of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, according to HISA, or roughly half the rate of the second quarter of 2023. Since 2009, the fatality rate at all U.S. tracks has dropped 34 percent, according to the administrators of the Equine Injury Database. On the California circuit, the rates have been in a consistent decline since 2019, when a spate of fatalities at Santa Anita boosted efforts to outlaw racing in the state altogether – and led racing officials in the state to band together to search for solutions. Dr. Dionne Benson, the chief veterinary officer for 1/ST Racing, which owns Santa Anita, Gulfstream Park, and Laurel Park, followed Fenton’s Round Table presentation with her own, outlining the most recent efforts by 1/ST to exploit new technology in an effort to drive the rates even lower. At Santa Anita, Gulfstream, and Laurel, 1/ST is using high-resolution cameras during training and racing hours to build massive databases of the individual strides of thousands of horses on the grounds of the three tracks, Benson said. That data is being sent through a machine-learning program to better identify horses traveling abnormally. In real time, stride abnormalities generate alerts to racetrack and regulatory vets, which can use that information to intervene or mark the horse for a follow-up exam, Benson said. In addition, those records are fed into an integrated software suite used by vets, the racing office, and trainers that allows for better management of the horses on the grounds, including identifying horses that might be at a higher risk of injury. The efforts have paid off, Benson said. Last year, Santa Anita went 363 days without a racing fatality. In the first two months of the year, the track had zero racing facilities and a 40 percent decrease in training fatalities compared to the same months in 2023. “These results are not an anomaly,” Benson said. Keynote: Focus on modern racetrack design The keynote speaker of the Round Table was Todd Gralla, the director of equestrian services for the architectural design firm Populous, the go-to company worldwide for racetrack projects. Gralla took the Round Table audience through a series of projects designed by Populous that are currently underway, including the complete rebuilding of Belmont Park on Long Island and a renovation of the façade at Keeneland in Lexington, Kentucky.  Both projects aim to create a more “intimate connection” between racegoers and the horses at the center of the show, Gralla said, and both exhibit connections to racing’s “rich history” while fulfilling the “experiential” needs of the next generation of sports fans. “The significance of architecture and design innovation has never been more important than it is today,” Gralla said. He emphasized that all modern sporting facilities need to provide fans with a variety of “experiences” as they travel through the facility. Populous was also the design firm for the $200 million paddock renovation that Churchill Downs unveiled this year. Although the new paddock received rave reviews from most attendees and architecture critics, Gralla said that the design itself generated some grumbling from within and outside the racing community, with one specific element drawing the most criticism: a decision to create luxury seating areas separated from the saddling stalls by one-way glass. Gralla said he welcomed the criticism. “Unless we are able to challenge conventional ideas we will miss opportunities for unique products and better experiences,” he said. Populous is also working on the redesign of Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, which will be torn down later this year and rebuilt over the next three years. He said the design process had led to some “breakthroughs” over the past several weeks, but that he was not able yet to share those designs. The new designs are expected to be ready for release in the “next few weeks,” Gralla said The rebuilding of the tracks hosting the second and third legs of the Triple Crown, plus the nearly constant renovations at Churchill Downs, indicates that U.S. racing is beginning to commit to a “renaissance” of its facilities after “four decades of neglect,” Gralla said. “The level of investment occurring currently in North America is historic,” Gralla said. “Right now, this is our moment. It’s our moment in time to take the reins and urge a renaissance in racing ahead. We have incredible people across the industry with the leadership and vision to re-imagine how people experience horse racing and engage more people in our sport.” Stuart Janney, the chair of The Jockey Club, referenced the reconstructions of Belmont and Pimlico in his closing remarks as signals of the racing industry’s resilience. But he followed that remark with a long list of problems facing the industry – including its politically fragile reliance on casino subsidies, the “devastation” of regional breeding industries, and infighting among racing constituents over the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority – to urge the racing industry to pull in the same direction. “To move this sport forward, we all need to be connected and work together,” Janney said. In other presentations at the Round Table: * Meghan Rodgers, the senior vice president of public affairs for the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, urged the racing industry to provide financial support for a multimedia campaign launched earlier this year by the NTRA called “Safety First,” which is intended to emphasize the racing industry’s efforts to improve the safety of horses. Rodgers said that the campaign is “resonating” outside of racing, but she said that the campaign needs to be funded year-round to be most effective. The current campaign, including development and media buys, has cost $5 million, with funding from a variety of racing organizations. More racing organizations need to step up to ensure that the message remains effective, Rodgers said. “It is our responsibility to continually inform and reassure the public that horse racing today is the best and safest it has ever been, and that a deep-rooted love for these magnificent Thoroughbreds is at the core of the sport,” Rodger said. * Joe Asher, the former chief executive officer of William Hill US, a bookmaking firm, said that racing could better capitalize on the explosion in sports betting by spending the “incremental revenue” that would give racing more visibility on sports-betting apps. He also said that racing needs to develop more tools for new players that would simplify the process of selecting which horses to bet. “You have the content,” Asher said. “It’s just a matter of getting it in front of people with a proclivity to gamble and an easy way for them to form an opinion on what to bet.” * Jim Gagliano, the president and chief operating officer of The Jockey Club, said that the organization has recently provided funding and support for an effort to develop a rating system for North American horses similar to those used to write races in many countries in Europe and Asia. A pilot program for the rating system is expected to be launched by the end of the year, Gagliano said. Unlike the U.S., most racing countries do not use claiming races to generate competitive fields for middle-class and lower-class horses. Instead, they use numbers developed by teams of handicappers that assign horses numerical ratings based on previous performances. In races using ratings, horses are eligible to enter a race as long as their rating fits within a certain range specific to the race. Implementing a rating system in the U.S. would require buy-in from horsemen, many of whom are comfortable with the claiming system. On the flip side, many horseplayers and some horsemen have grown frustrated with the increasing complexity of race conditions at U.S. racetracks, and some have advocated for a simpler system. * Nancy Kelly, who worked at The Jockey Club for 32 years and helped raise money for numerous racing causes, was posthumously honored at the Round Table with the Dinny Phipps Award, which was created by horsemen Earle Mack in 2017 in recognition of outstanding service to racing. Kelly, who retired in 2019, died earlier this year at the age of 71 of ovarian cancer. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.