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SELF-INTEREST RIGHTLY UNDERSTOOD hen Viscount Alexis de Tocqueville journeyed from France to philosophize about “Democracy in America” in the early 1800s, he didn’t have racing in mind as he developed his observations on that distinctly American virtue of self-interest rightly understood. Over the last halfcentury, however, I’ve often thought of them as I’ve observed the evolution of our racing, particularly in California, first from the standpoint of track operators, and lately from the standpoint of horsemen. I was originally a suit with responsibilities of marketing and managing Santa Anita, later adding Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows. I brought a perspective to my work that began with horses, since my earliest profession in the sport was handling their cleanliness and bodily functions. As with so many of us. I always wondered at and about the majesty and attraction of racing to the masses, over centuries, which seemed to survive and prosper despite our many gross mistakes and calamities in its management. Wherever in the world you look, racing has been a regulated sport from its very earliest days. Which is to say that governmental authorities learned almost from day one that complete freedom in its operation would lead inevitably to scandal and swindle involving one participant or another. Most often, the “public” would be victimized; this led to regulations constantly citing the “public interest” upon their promulgation. And that, in turn, led to innumerable scandals and swindles based on various official scoundrels reaping their own harvests off unsuspecting victims, always in the name of the “public interest.” I cite this sordid history not to entertain but to educate: what is loosely referred to as “the free market” doesn’t exist in contemporary racing. If it ever did, in fits and starts, it was squashed, altered, or hindered. By statute, regulation, and rule. Even the vaunted principle of caveat emptor, which is the mother’s milk of buying and selling horses, has been under
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TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 45
Viscount Alexis de Tocqueville
assault by regulators and governments forever. Yes, the buyer should beware, but first let us accord him the government’s “protection” in all kinds of ways (just read the fine print in any sale catalogue), and provide him access to courts if he still claims to have been unaware of his risks. And then there’s the routine interference in the “free market” by stud books themselves, and their own rules. Let’s see now . . . requiring live cover? Is that really in the best interest of the horse or the breed? Is it justified by anything other than economic interests of the few as opposed to the many? The very idea that there are true free markets even for our breeding and selling is sheer nonsense. Right now, throughout America, but particularly in California, we’ve reached yet another crisis point because tracks (supposedly in righteous observance of free-market principles) are reluctant to impose stall limits on mega-trainers. Were the situation we face not so serious, this would be laughable. Of necessity, the tracks themselves don’t operate in anything like a free market, subject to onerous regulation beginning with their licensing, as to racing dates, not to mention takeout, purses, and other essentials. For their part, horsemen sign stall applications with fine print so dense that almost none of them bother to read it, relinquishing some of the most precious rights they enjoy outside the track enclosure.
Over the last 25 years or so, the elimination of stall limits at operating tracks has perhaps been the most pernicious factor in the overall decline of American racing, causing great harm in a gradual and subtle way. Tracks are charged above all in making the contests, race after race, day after day, that present attractive betting propositions for the public. That’s where stall limits came from in the first place. In California, the stall limit was 32 per trainer for decades. Decades of ever-increasing prosperity, I might add. The more trainers who operated at or near the limit, the better and more attractive the sport was for the betting public. To the contrary, it is never in the track’s interest, or the public’s, to have dozens upon dozens of horses of the same conditions concentrated in mega-barns. Most important, it’s therefore not even in the enlightened longer-term interest of those relatively few barns! Or the horses’ interests themselves. Or the sport’s. Anyone’s. One of the very few things we can all agree on is that betting fuels the entire economy of racing, from bloodstock prices to purses to operating returns on track investments. In a world now saturated with competitive gaming opportunities, we owe it to ourselves and our sport to provide only the best possible betting contests. That means optimal field sizes with diverse and independent interests that the public wants to bet on enthusiastically . . . which has become increasingly less likely as the mega-barns accumulate stock and control. Even the mega-trainers and their clients should willingly embrace the axiom that the horse and the sport must come first, before their own selfish short-term interests, “sacrificing” to ensure a long term. For many reasons, even their own self-interests (rightly understood) demand stall limits, and the intricate but broad, productive free-market ramifications they engender. Especially for themselves! Tocqueville believed that in America, the pursuit of self-interest was enlightened, resulting in great virtue for the common wealth. And great wealth in the bargain.