Tina Bond launches 'The Heart of Horse Racing' campaign

Tina Bond, the president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, has launched a website that uses testimonials from trainers, jockeys, backstretch workers, and other racing participants to talk up the positive aspects of the sport as part of a larger campaign to draw people to the races.

Called “The Heart of Horse Racing,” the campaign began collecting market data in June of this year, filmed dozens of interviews at Saratoga this summer, and launched the website this week. Management of the campaign is being coordinated with the New York-based marketing company FINN Partners.

Bond said she first had the idea of using testimonials from racing personalities to drive a marketing campaign ten years ago. But the main thrust of the campaign – the love and respect of the horse – did not become apparent until she began filming the interviews.

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“Once they started doing the interviews, the same message kept coming across,” Bond said. “We didn’t ask them to talk about anything. But every single one of them talked about how, to them, it was all about the horses. It all came back to their love for horses.”

In the videos, Todd Pletcher, Jena Antonucci, Tom Amoss, John Velazquez, and Frankie Dettori are among the high-profile racing personalities who voice their love for racing and the sport’s athletes. The video also includes footage from the trainer James Bond, Tina’s husband.

“We already knew we were going to call it ‘The Heart of Horse Racing,’ and then when we got all these interviews back, we couldn’t think of anything that fit better,” Tina Bond said.

The campaign is one of three public-relations start-ups to be launched by racing organizations in the last year to address the perception of racing.

Earlier this year, a campaign managed by the National Thoroughbred Racing Association called “Safety First” developed commercials and promotional materials related to the industry’s efforts to reduce injuries that received heavy rotation during the Triple Crown races. In addition, “Light Up Racing,” a campaign designed to educate racing participants on how to address difficult questions from outsiders, launched late last year.

Bond said that her campaign now forms a third prong in public relations that can build off the other efforts.

“My ideas and vision are a bit different from theirs,” she said. “We can hit on multiple issues this way.”

Seed funding for the campaign has been provided by the NYTHA, enough to take the effort through the first quarter of 2025. Bond said she would be seeking additional funding from a wide variety of racing constituencies for the next six months, and the website also asks industry participants to provide their own testimonials about the sport.

FINN Partners also collected more than 10 hours of footage from other racing personalities and racing fans late in the Saratoga meet, and those interviews are expected to be added to the testimonials already on the website.

According to data collected by FINN during its market analysis provided by Bond, 62 percent of people have a favorable perception of the sport, compared to 10 percent that have an unfavorable perception. Still, 27 percent of the survey respondents had concerns “over horse welfare,” and 79 percent did not view the sport as “family-friendly and inclusive."

“I think we have an opportunity to turn this around,” Bond said. “But we have to do it now.”

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