Stuffed Shirts, Empty Suits, Clueless Clowns

[richiebee]

A few years ago we all discussed how it was important to the survival of Racing
for the sport to be marketed to young adults who were the future of the game.

Now it seems that most of these young adults are either unemployed or
underemployed; some are \"Occupying\" space in what seems to be a rudderless
movement,many others are occupying the bedrooms they grew up in in their parents\'
homes. The ones who are employed are facing inevitably higher levels of
payroll deductions for taxes and healthcare. Where is the disposable income for
pari- mutuelization?

One of the great documentary films of 2011 is a South Korean flick called \"Iron
Crows\" depicting the shipbreaking industry in Bangladesh. I would imagine it is
rather difficult to get a hold of, but there was also a well done \"60 Minutes\"
piece on shipbreaking a couple of years back. When I look at Racing I see an end
of life ship, about to be beached on a sandbar and dismantled. The signs are not
good-- purses inflated by casino gambling when added to a greatly weakened
thoroughbred (weakened through poor management of breeding stock, ie unsound
underqualified stallions and mares) eventually resulting in less starts per
runner (as I see it); a New Jersey facility which once offered top notch
thoroughred racing possibly no longer in operation; one of America\'s racing
treasures (Hialeah) relegated to hosting quarter horse racing; and absolutely
clueless management of racing in two key venues, New York and California.

It is going to take a lot more than an HBO series to revitalize racing.

[plasticman]

Great post.

Horse race betting is an incredible challenge, its the greatest game in the world, the greatest chess match of intellect and bankroll. Participants need guts, heart, soul and an incredible will to keep coming back for more in the face of tremendous adversity. Making a great score and being right, there\'s no better high.

I couldnt agree more with your points about clueless management. I sit back and watch the bumbling in horse racing and think \"its not hard,  you were given a few pages of advice a few years ago by Barry Meadow, Cary Fotias, Mike Maloney etc and nobody ever listened to it\". They made dozens of great suggestions and yet, to my knowledge, nothing has ever been implemented. The racing industry was \"Handed the keys to the Ferrari\" with these suggestions and they dropped them in the sewer instead of going for a joyride.

They probably took that horseplayer report and tossed it on a desk somewhere to collect dust.

No industry has less leadership than the horse racing industry. You have Magna Entertainment,Churchill Downs and NYRA as \'leaders\' in the sport and yet nobody can figure out anything. Nobody cares, nobody leads, nobody wants to take the reins and clean up the sport, nobody wants to make sure the bettors are getting a fair bang for their buck and nobody wants to do anything except bicker, fight and act like the world will come to an end if they actually try to win money at a slower rate. Las Vegas understands that you have to have a very small win margin on a lot of their games and that\'s why people bet in Vegas on Slots and table games.

It an absolute JOKE.

Nobody who\'s running major racetracks in America knows much about gambling, and odds and percentages...all they know is they have pretty horses running in circles and in order to get people to bet more money, they have to give out a free Stuff on opening day of a particular meet..THATS what they came up with as a \'solution\' to get more people to bet on the horse races.

[moosepalm]

Decrying the state of the \"industry\" is truly shooting fish in a barrel.  It\'s like suggesting the European economy might need a bit of retooling.  They\'re both essentially dysfunctional systems, with the seeds of self-destruction inherent in their configurations.  Horse racing needs a unified structure with leadership akin to Pete Rozelle or David Stern, only with different personalities.  But, that ain\'t gonna happen.  For one thing, politics is too seriously embedded in the operation, and they\'re not going to relinquish that role.  So, it\'s death by slow drip.  

I don\'t share the opinion that loss of vintage tracks is necessarily a bad thing for the overall sport, save for the pangs of nostalgia.  Yes, many of us would love to see the flamingos again, in the way that watching an old grainy NFL film with the likes of Y.A. Tittle and Chuck Bednarik, accompanied by the voiceover of John Faccenda, makes us yearn for a game without end zone choreography.  But, that\'s rear view mirror material, and the face of the sport needs to adapt to the next wave.  My teenager never picks up a telephone, and rarely even speaks on a cell.  Her generation is well past that, yet it\'s as if we\'re still wishing that we had rotary dials in this game, and that it\'s imperative to improve the system of landlines.  Yes, HBO movies, and the like, are, at best, band-aids on a gaping wound, but they add a touch of cachet to a sport teetering on the brink of irrelevance.  If only Steve Jobs had been a horseplayer.

[miff]

There are app 33 separate States involved in the racing Industry. All racing controlled by the disingenuous politicians and their politically appointed stooges, virtually impossible to overcome to make them a cooperating group.

Sweeping changes, bold innovation and some contraction is the only chance for some type of survival of the game.Smaller foal crops will surely lead to less racing days,less races per card, shorter fields.Less cards filled with cheap slow rat slug NY bred maiden claimers will be a forced welcome in NY.

Clueless smug clowns at NYRA, while deaf, may be the last bastion of hope for a major venue,by default,due to windfall slot money.An infusion of new top management with an understanding of the it\'s core customer and their rather delicate psyche could possibly turn things around in NY.Incidentally,what is the name of the person responsible for player retention/development at NYRA and what is his plan?

Would be unfair not to mention the worst economy in modern times as a major part of racings current demise.

Mike

[richiebee]

miff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
 
> Would be unfair not to mention the worst economy
> in modern times as a major part of racings current
> demise.

Miff:

After the Genting money begins to roll in after January 1, Clueless Charles will
no longer be able to use the \"bad economy\" excuse.

If he was able to break away from the stranglehold the NY Greeders have on NY
racing, he (or his replacement, sorry for dreaming out loud) could begin to
offer a racing/stabling opportunity to some of the NJ outfits which might be
faced with one week (the Atlantic City meet) of live racing per year.

Agree that NYRA is in a position to return to prominence through mismanagement on
other circuits, but Hazel Dukes... er Charles Hayward is probably not the person
to lead this effort.

[miff]

\"but Hazel Dukes\"


Bee,

..the idea that a Hazel Dukes could be CEO of a multi million dollar gambling business is the poster child for politically appointed stooges.She once said \"don\'t smoke outside the OTB branches on the stoops, the PEOPLES don\'t like it\" Brilliant!

A ray of light for NY racing is the appointment of Bennett Liebman(Deputy Secretary of Racing and Gaming) by Gov Cuomo. At least the man \"knows\" is respected and is willing to listen. Not sure of the level of his involvement but hope he is more than a token appointee and gets into NY racing in a meaningful way.

Mike

[TGJB]

Miff and Moose-- agree. The structure itself is a big part of the problem. There is some major stuff going on right now but it\'s like herding cats. About the only organization that both has money and is looking at the industry as a whole (as opposed to simply furthering its own interests, often at the expense of others) is the Jockey Club. The McKinsey report was the first step in attempting to identify what needs to be done, the next is to try and act on it. It won\'t be easy.

Re Luck (I read the pilot script, taped but haven\'t watched it yet)-- I was struck by how much Milch\'s characters talk just like the cops on NYPD Blue, which I had taken for granted was just the way cops really talk. Like, \"That would be you saying that\". It\'s not the way Milch talks. He was a horseman client a long time ago (15-20 years), total maniac, back then. If you ever want to read something totally unbelievable, read the piece he wrote for Bloodhorse on his gambling history. That publication is usually a namby-pamby, vanilla industry organ that doesn\'t have a bad word to say about anyone. His piece was was the most self-flagellating self-excotiating thing I have ever read.

Re being judged by who you hang out with and the image of racetrackers-- when I first started going out with my girlfriend her extended family had no idea what to do with me, how to place what I do in context (which is true for most of NY, by the way). Then one day the NY Times ran a piece on me, front page of the sports section on Derby day (I got knocked off the front page of the whole paper by the fight between the Knicks and Heat, according to Privman, who wrote it). The following week Chris\' brother got married. At the wedding, all of a sudden, I was very popular. Every single person came up to me to say hello.

[TGJB]

The second most amazing thing about Dukes\' tenure took place at a press conference when she was asked why OTB didn\'t hire more Hispanics. She said \"There are plenty of jobs waiting table in this town\".

The first most amazing was that she didn\'t lose her job.

Let\'s end this subject here before it goes in a bad direction.

[Boscar Obarra]

Aren\'t you glad you\'re not a Wall St Banker?

 How to live that down?  Horseplayer, model citizen by comparison.

[Rich Curtis]

Plasticman wrote:

\"Horse race betting is an incredible challenge, its the greatest game in the world, the greatest chess match of intellect and bankroll. Participants need guts, heart, soul and an incredible will to keep coming back for more in the face of tremendous adversity.\"

Yes, yes, yes. Never have so many owed so much to so few as the world owes to these shining examples of the indomitability of man, these horseplayers, who every day leave a stamp on our collective psyche with their guts, their heart, their soul, their incredible will in the face of hitherto unthinkable adversity. And they manage this feat with such heroic grace, at all times eschewing the maudlin and the tendency toward self-pity.

...and all that they ask in return is that they be portrayed in this manner on TV.

[TGJB]

Oh, knock it off. Nobody said we were owed anything. And as a group we pay our way.

I happen to agree that Luck (from my reading), Let It Ride, etc., give a poor (and false) representation of the game and players. It would be fine if they weren\'t the only ones, and that was one of the things I was trying to correct with the thing I wrote. Milch read an early draft, by the way-- waiting to see if any of it shows up, but given where it looks like he\'s going it\'s very unlikely.

[Rich Curtis]

Well, maybe we should just stipulate that we and the people we see at racetracks are all guts, heart, soul, and incredible will, and then get back to the important business of taking shots at the TV show for being unrealistic.

[moosepalm]

Actually, I\'m betting my unmarried female friends wish I associated with someone who looked like Jason Gedrick.

After Deadwood, I became convinced that Milch writes for Milch.  He will find a tone that fits the milieu and then create characters and dialogue that interest and amuse him.  In hindsight, I\'m pretty sure he was probably doing the same thing with the cop shows.  However interesting we may like to think we are, few of us lead lives that would make compelling viewing.  JB, I\'d love to read your script some time as long as the lead character isn\'t some dashing, uber-hip purveyor of handicapping data, who winds up with Chantal Sutherland.

[TGJB]

Not at all. I modeled him after Len Friedman.

[moosepalm]

TGJB Wrote:
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> Not at all. I modeled him after Len Friedman.


Well it would make for interesting casting calls.