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CALIFORNIA THOROUGHBRED TRAINERS
Present vs. Future
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N my academic and theoretical years, which were many, I was always fascinated by the tensions between short-term and long-term thinking and acting, as well as by the contradictions between words and deeds. It seemed to me then (and still does) that when things don’t make sense in the real/practical world, the root causes could often be found in those tensions and contradictions. And so it was that I ran into Professor Edward Banfield, who had written the landmark book The Unheavenly City (1970), about all the contradictions, successes, and failures in urban planning and government assistance programs. He had found that class distinctions in society were largely based not on race, as has been argued perpetually, but on “orientation.” The so-called “lower classes” (regardless of race) shared an orientation toward the here and now, toward instant gratification, toward the present. They would gladly sacrifice investment and saving for short-term gratification. The “upper classes,” on the other hand (regardless of race) believed in and acted with a future orientation, that is to say leaning toward short-term sacrifices in the service of investment in a long-range goal. These two perspectives or orientations are not mutually exclusive, mind you. And to fully appreciate the ironies of considering both, everyone reading this should stop and think for a moment or two about their own behaviors – particularly at the racetrack. Horsemanship itself, and particularly horsemanship as applied to the racehorse, is nothing if not fundamentally a contest between short and longer-term interests. It always has been. So too is betting on the races. And managing race tracks. (Or any other business.) I am one of those who decries the increasing concentration on short-term gratification at the expense of investment for the longer term. But it seems as though we’re living in a short-term world, and not just in horsemanship and racing. Will it ever change now that it’s gone as far as it has? And what will happen if it doesn’t?
08 TRAINERMAGAZINE.com ISSUE 24
By Alan F. Balch CTT Executive Director
“Exotic wagering on the races has proliferated to the point where an enormous share of the wagered dollar on the races is risked in increasingly un-winnable bets” When Professor Banfield wrote about “present orientation,” one of the examples he used was gaming. All gaming has historically relied on the “lower classes,” regardless of race – the grocery money, not to mention a college education, might well be sacrificed for a chance bet on a quick score. Lotteries, as we all know, are a disproportionate tax on the less affluent, less educated, and most present-oriented classes. In contemporary history, betting at the racetrack preceded the resurgence of state lotteries (which were theretofore largely illegal) by several decades. Lawmakers justified the legality and regulation of racing because of the economic stimulus – especially agriculture and agricultural employment – that racing provides in comparison to other forms of gaming. As a tidal wave of other gaming opportunities nationally and internationally has swept over racing and all its historic markets in the last 25 years or so, the short-term orientation of those publics seems also to have taken over the management of horses and racing themselves. True horsemanship, as my generation was taught, starting with a necessary study of potential pairings to breed a better horse, is inherently “upper class,” which is to say future-
oriented. It is a real investment in every way. The object is (or was) to breed a stronger horse as well as a faster horse, for the classics. And the classics did not really begin until three-yearolds faced older horses. That was the test of breeding: the mile and a half of the Belmont Stakes followed by the open races at the end of the year, and particularly in the years following. But the gambler’s mentality – I need a big score now! – has overtaken everything in its path. Exotic wagering on the races (with accordingly high takeouts) has proliferated to the point where an enormous share of the wagered dollar on the races is risked in increasingly un-winnable bets. Worse, we see the same mentality in charge almost everywhere we look: from breeding for the commercial quick score, to racing at sprint distances (or shorter, if that’s possible, but you know what I mean) for 7 out of 10 races at times, to emphasizing two-year-old racing only as preparation for the three-and-final-year-old races that are now the ultimate goal. And then off to the breeding shed to try for even more quick scores. Ultimately – meaning now – this is all selfdefeating. We sense it. We even know it. But we can’t seem to talk about it because nobody, least of all me, knows what to do about it. The bell has been rung. We hear that bell echoing when we read that governments are asking what sense it makes to fund purses from slots when so few people are betting the races and so many are engaging in pushing a button (I was remembering the onearmed bandits but they don’t really exist anymore, as such, but the name was true) to try for that quick score. “Betting the races is too much work.” Everyone who loves New York racing (I said RACING) needs to contemplate the downside risks of the mega-purses they are starting to see, and just how long they will last. Real horsemanship is hard work, too. And the opposite of present-orientation. But breeding or training a horse to go long…and to last in other, more important ways…seem to have become lost arts. What else should we expect? In a world of earnings-per-share-this-quarter, “financial instruments” that are nothing other than megaexotic bets without rules or meaningful supervision, and betting on the races through companies and exchanges prospering to the detriment of both tracks and horsemen, our plight is apparently routine and irreversible. Under these circumstances, it seems to me that the strength and appeal racing still has are all the more remarkable. But just imagine for a moment what it could have been if we had managed, innovated, and invested in it for the long term all along. n