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CALIFORNIA THOROUGHBRED TRAINERS
Hope smiles
W
HEN Tennyson wrote, “Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering ‘it will be happier,’” he may as well have been penning an anthem for every breeder, owner, trainer, and horseplayer. In California, with the closure of iconic Hollywood Park after three-quarters of a century, and the transferral of its racing dates to Santa Anita, Del Mar, and Los Alamitos, the sport is relying on that smile more than ever. The next several months are a critical period of transition, since California’s racing leadership spent nearly a year of angst before agreeing to an expensive stabling and training proposition – using Santa Anita, San Luis Rey Downs, Los Alamitos, and Barretts Racing at Pomona – to provide facilities for the 3,400 or more horses required to populate competitive fields for the new year-around calendar. Critical to the plan is the appearance in 2014 of two-year-olds in comparable numbers to previous years, so that the crown jewel of California racing – Del Mar’s summer season – can continue to sparkle, and lead to healthy programs at Santa Anita come fall and another Breeders’ Cup meeting. Objective data are ominous, since Thoroughbred foal crops around America continue to decline to modern lows. Even so, a fragile growth trend in California’s numbers had appeared the last two years, and analysis indicated that the Golden State had increasingly been a destination for greater numbers of Thoroughbreds from outside the state, replacing the losses in regional foal crops. Whether this will continue in 2014 is anyone’s guess. Still, in a data-driven world, there are other sobering facts which must be considered, and ignored at our collective peril. Over the last 20 years – both in California and elsewhere in North America – we have
06 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 31
By Alan F. Balch CTT Executive Director
“From the standpoint of healthy business conditions, however, the advent of the public mega-stable may be of even more concern.” witnessed significant consolidations in the racing picture. In terms of track management, where previously we had robust competition among operators regionally, as well as nationally, we have transitioned to an era of mega-ownership. Two operators dominate the nation. One operator dominates California. Similarly, we have gradually entered an era of mega-trainers, where a relative few professional horsemen now dominate each circuit, and the national scene. It is difficult to see how these situations serve the future vitality of the sport as well as greater diversity would. In the past, diversity among track managements led to rivalries, which no matter how collegial, were actually very competitive. Tracks competed for horses, and they did so by competing for superiority in terms of conditions offered for horsemen, and of attendance and wagering, in order to have the purses necessary to attract the best horses, trainers, owners, and riders. There are doubtless many economic factors in the consolidation we’ve seen, but one certainly is the re-making of the sport into ever more of a commodity, given the advent of the Internet, simulcasting, and Advance Deposit Wagering. As one example, the rivalry that existed between the Hollywood Park and Santa Anita brands, for decades, sharing the same Southern California market and the same legal
framework, was of great benefit to fans and horsemen alike. Competition led to innovations in marketing, management, customer and horsemen services, and a booming gaming environment, one that is now nearly forgotten. Each track and its racing program had its own identity and advantages. It is no accident that Del Mar’s ascendancy in popularity occurred over roughly the same period that competition between Santa Anita and Hollywood Park declined. The same situation was evident nationwide, where historically the major tracks were all owned and operated by separate interests. From the standpoint of healthy business conditions, however, the advent of the public mega-stable may be of even more concern. After all, track management, even consolidated track management, needs as a fundamental proposition to produce racing programs which are attractive to the gaming public. The trend to concentrate more and more horses in the hands of fewer and fewer trainers, at the same time as coupling for betting purposes of horses owned and trained by the same interests has been relaxed or eliminated, undoubtedly deters confident betting. Moreover, average field size has almost certainly been reduced by these factors, as has starts per runner. And another contributing factor can’t be overlooked: rules previously restricting jockeys’ agents to one journeyman and one apprentice have also gone by the wayside, which is one more simultaneous business “consolidation,” at least in California. There have always been leading private and public trainers, of course . . . but modern communication and travel, as well as the elimination by associations and horsemen’s organizations of stall limits at operating tracks in California, have combined to enable those leading trainers to amass numbers of horses under their supervision that would have been unthinkable when racing led the nation in sporting attendance and interest. Historically, 80% of purses have been won by about 20% of interests, and that remains true today. The difference is that those 20% of interests are concentrated among far, far fewer trainers than ever before. In the long run (if we actually have a long run still ahead of us), the self-interest of those mega-trainers, and the track operators, would be to stimulate the viability of aspiring, smaller trainers. Each mega-trainer was once aspiring himself; each of them is undoubtedly a creature of the previous system where stall limits dictated that owners needed to look beyond a very few big names when placing
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