Racing Maiden America: Is the tail wagging the dog?

[richiebee]

A slow night at work, an informal survey, a few thoughts.

A quick look at DRF entries for last Wednesday, November 22, revealed the following: Aqueduct ran 4 maiden races on a 9 race card; Bay Meadows (3 maiden races, 8 race card); Beulah (1/9); Charles Town (2/10); Churchill (3/10); Delta Downs (3/10); Evangeline (4/11); Hawthorne (2/9); Hollywood (4/8); Hoosier (3/10); Laurel (4/9); Penn National (0/9); and Woodbine (3/8). At these 13 racing venues, a total of 120 races were run; 36 of these 120 races were limited to animals who have yet to visit the winners circle for a photo op.

The number becomes a bit more alarming if one focuses on the facilities in what have historically been called \"major\" racing centers. At Aqueduct, Churchill, Hollywood, Laurel and Woodbine, nearly 41% (18/44) of all races run on 11/22 were maiden heats.

In the mid 60s and early 70s, when the first multi- million dollar stallion syndications were done (Northern Dancer, Secretariat, Nijinsky) they were based on a model whereby forty or so seasons for each stallion were sold for each year. The thinking behind this was rooted in economics (the limited number of foals would increase each foal\'s value) and traditional notions of stallion management that dictated that breeding a stallion more than 40 - 50 times per year would have an adverse effect on the stallion\'s health, well being and eventually his potency.

Fast forward to the late 1970s and early 1980s, and JT Lundy, the architect of Calumet\'s demise, is being skewered by his fellow Kentucky hardboots for breeding Alydar nearly 100 times per year, for shuttling stallions to the Southern Hemisphere for stud duty. In retrospect, Lundy\'s ambitious and aggressive breeding of the Calumet studs was a measure of desperation to cover cash flow problems, but he was able to show that doubling the workload of a world class stallion such as Alydar really did not have an adverse effect on his potency.

At about the same time Lundy was finishing off the Wright family\'s fortune, the commercial breeding market, driven by the Sheiks and the Coolmore people and Robert Sangster and Klein/Lukas, began to take off. Prices for yearlings, stallion shares and breeding stock increased seemingly without boundaries,and everyone managing a stallion began to breed him every time he was able to make wood, sometimes covering two mares a day.

It used to be that these runners had to succeed on the track for their breeders/ owners to prosper; that is really not the case anymore. Pinhookers buy and sell these young prospects, sometimes 2 or 3 times before these prospects even breeze. (A summary of these transactions is presented succinctly on the TG sheets). As long as this market exists for unproven weanlings and yearlings, you will continue to see stallions in a mass production mode.

This is all only a problem if you think that 40% of all races run on a given day being maiden races is not good for racing. When you add the supersized foal crop to the fact that older horses are racing less frequently (which is facilitated by larger purses, fueled by slots or state breeding enhancements), what you will get is a lot of maiden races.

Solutions to this problem:

1) Limit the size of the foal crop and/or establish minimum standards (based on race track earnings) before a stallion prospect can stand stud.

2) Maiden races (not all of them) conducted on a \"trial\" or \"qualifier\" basis without pari- mutuel wagering, putting the pressure on the Racing Office to hustle more non- maiden races.

3) More accountability on the part of the Racing Office vis a vis high volume trainers. In the 1980s, I had to beg Bob Kulina (Monmouth) and Euall Wyatt
(Meadowlands) for 5 stalls for my string of non descript claimers; they would
interrogate me without humor as to how many starts I thought each horse would
make at a given race meet. The larger stables which support the overnight and
graded stake programs undergo no such scrutiny, so if Todd Pletcher is given
160 stalls by NYRA, he probably has 40 or so stake horses but also probably has
70- 80 maidens in various stages of preparation for racing.

Is the tail wagging the dog? The business of breeding horses used to support the sport of horse racing; it seems now that Racing merely exists to support breeders and pinhookers, to the detriment of racing fans and handicappers.

[NoCarolinaTony]

Richiebee my friend,

As mentioned before in other studies, using one point of data vis a vis whole body of work to make a point is not the best approach (fundamentally) as I am sure there will be other data to refute your position.

here is some data for the current AQU Meet:

      Horses Wnrs  Win  W+P  ITM    WROI  PROI  SROI   $AvgM   $20+  High  I.V.
ALL   1557   187   ---  ---  ---    0.85  0.81  0.80   $14.2    0035   $113  1.06

Al/Stk 512   069   13%  27%  40%    0.79  0.72  0.76   $11.7    0009   $56   1.09
Clm    396   049   12%  25%  37%    0.97  0.83  0.84   $15.7    0009   $77   1.04
Msw    411   042   10%  20%  31%    0.83  0.84  0.80   $16.2    0010   $113  1.03
Mcl    238   027   11%  23%  34%    0.86  0.89  0.86   $15.1    0007   $51   1.02
FTS    158   012   08%  16%  25%    0.99  0.88  0.76   $26.1    0005   $113  0.74

As a gambler, what races would you rather play looking for value? (on the input form it\'s lined up well, on the preview screen it garbles up the spacing)

Some of what you seen, my be a result of the time of year it is.

NC Tony

[Thehoarsehorseplayer]

It dawned upon me a couple of years ago that if Racing is viewed as a pyramid game the people at the very top are the breeders whose stallions are covering--what a  hundred mares a year?--at $500,000 a pop.

The status quo is working for them.  They have no reason to change the status quo.  They have the money to insure the status quo is not changed.  Ergo, the status quo remains the status quo.

Now, since being critical is not the same thing as thinking critically, I\'m always reluctant to criticize without being able to propose a reflective remedy. But in this case I don\'t have one to offer. (I\'ve played with the notion that stud fees should be subjected to a tax earmarked for drug testing and back stretch living improvements, but doubt such legislation could prevail against the liquidity of the special interests),   Yet, I do believe that if the top breeders really wanted to clean the game up, it would be cleaned up.

From this perspective the wagging tails have been swishing away the flies of reform for quite some time.  Never forget, the game, as is, is working for them.



 

[TGJB]

Hoarse-- Agree. What\'s worse, the breeders are not really part of the racing industry-- they are suppliers of product for the industry, and the more they make, the worse it is for the industry (operating costs for those in the industry are higher). Yet they have worked themselves into positions of extreme influence-- and their agendas have nothing to do with the best interests of the game or those in it.

[richiebee]

NCT:

   I do not know if it is baked in to your figures, but I am sure that average
win mutuel/ ROI are directly related to field size. Maiden races tend to produce
the largest fields, no?  Lets get to the point where we have large fields of
runners with more quality.

   Day to day, Racing in NY is broken and needs to be fixed. There were less than
5000 people at Aqueduct on a beautiful Saturday to see arguably North America\'s
most talented runner. At the end of the day, the brilliance of Nobiz and Discreet
were bigger stories and more important for Racing long term than the fact that
a 40/1 maiden got brave on the lead in the second race. And it was great to see
Mike Smith closer to the inside rail than the outside rail in the Demoiselle.

   Yes maiden races produce large mutuels, but the argument then becomes that
what we would all agree is \"bad\" racing is \"good\" when it produces large
mutuels.

[davidrex]

There is a white knight knight in the horizon...that is also a possible death knoll.
THE GAMING INDUSTRY.
They will shift the balance of power back to track ownership and/or mngmnt.
The % of take-out for racing will stay the same,but days of operation and conditions can be altered to such a degree that KY. horses could get shut out of many a lucrative race.
What happened to Empire Racing Assoc.,with the N.Y. matriarch in their barn,could be just the beginning.
It\'s a whole new game, and the breeders\' are lining up like everyone else to protect their young.

[marcus]

That part about conditions etc sounds very intersting and it certainly would be a kind of genisis for New York Racing . Hopefully it bring\'s NY Racing Bussiness Practactice\'s ( currently running 3 1/2 leanths behind it\'s own tail ) all the way from the 19th into the 21st century , it\'s a BIG step - but it can happen  . I wish all you guys on this thread and quite a few others from this board , could be there when it\'s time to do the deal ...

[NoCarolinaTony]

Richie,

I like to bet on certain Maiden races for the better returns. I also agree they tend to have larger fields which also contributes to that.

Aside from that I just think the product is totally over exposed. Too many races to fill across the country. Back in the day, everyone kind of shared a slice of the pie. Now everyone is eating the pie. It\'s not that the tail is wagging the dog, it\'s that the dog is a dog, if you get my drift.

NC Tony

[richiebee]

NCT:

    Your contention that there are too many races to fill nationwide is
intriguing to me. Without access to the necesary data, my guess would be that we
are running about the same number of races that we were 25 years ago, with a
slightly larger foal crop.

    Again without having or having access to the necessary data, I would say that
in those same 25 years purse money has increased at a greater rate than the cost
of supporting a racehorse.

    Because of the purse structure, trainers/owners have the option of resting
animals with slight injuries, whereas 25 years ago these runners had to be held
together and raced 12- 18 times per year to earn their keep.

    Just shows how complex a game this is, if high purses are part of the
problem.
   
    So many problems facing this Sport/ Business right now, especially here in
your old stomping grounds. Right now New York racing reminds me of George
Costanza\'s onion: \"The more layers you peel away, the more it stinks\".

[hooper]

Richie,some stats from the last decade regarding purses and foal crops.
http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/allaboutpurses/2006table1.pdf

[richiebee]

Thank you.

Between 96-06, a small increase in the number of runners, a decrease in the
number of races run, and a large increase in purses.

All of these would seem to be fairly healthy vital signs.

To make the statistics applicable to this particular thread, I would relish the
opportunity to see the same statistics for maiden races (number of maiden races
run, number of runners in these races, and average purse of a maiden race over
that 10 year period.)

I just think there is something out of balance if Aqueduct and Hollywood run 17
races on a weekday chosen at random, and 8 of these races are for maidens, and
that it might be part of the reason Racing has growth problems in terms of fan
base.

[Ill-bred]

I honestly enjoy watching and betting on open company maiden special weights. They are among my favorite races! I like watching and judging talent in young developing horses.

I do think there are too many mcls and state-bred maidens.

[NoCarolinaTony]

Richie,

What would really be interesting to know is the AVG number of races per runner and how that changed. You simply cannot divide the two here. You would need the mean.

By the time this info was available, the commitment to winter racing in the Northeast was already was well underway. It would be more interesting to see what it was like back before all of the Northeast winter racing. With Simulcasting available to all, why dilute the quality of product,when clearly centralization is screaming out at this industry. the problem is there is no true governing body.  Does the industry really need all of these race tracks?

The racing entities do not get together, like the NFL, does to optimize the profits for all.

Even if they consider themselves as competing entities, no one other than Keeneland  is trying anything innovative and new (poly aside), and even then you get the anti change group screaming about that. A good percentage doesn\'t want change, but the industry has changed. They need to be run by people who know how to run businesses and not those people who are appointed by who they know or what family they were born into. They grossly underpay key personnel so they don\'t attract the best people they possible could to get the job done right.

I would like nothing more than to see this industry improve for the better. Better management would be a starting point.

NC Tony

[Michael D.]

i enjoy wagering on a field of well bred maidens, especially routes on turf.