CALIFORNIA THOROUGHBRED TRAINERS
ALAN F. BALCH
C
Competing?
OMPETITION is essential to sport. In our sport – the greatest of them all – we have many creatures of various descriptions and talents who actively join together in the teams competing in each race. Unique among them is the amazing non-human who naturally and instinctively competes. Anyone who has ever had the privilege of sitting on a Thoroughbred trying to catch another one, or keep another from passing, knows the pure, sheer thrill and exhilaration of the true competitive instinct. That’s the fundamental reason that publics the world over delight in betting on a great horserace. Business in our capitalistic age is also based on competition. Sadly – especially for a business based on competitive sport – our most prominent California racing leaders seem not to understand or be willing to invest in the necessary tools to compete and compete successfully. Do they not see a future for their business (which is our business, too, as horsemen)? Would they rather be in another business (real estate, for instance)? In this space in the last issue I asked why it is that these leaders are failing to wield the tools available to them, the obvious tools of advertising and pricing and marketing rightly understood. We are now, perhaps, starting to see some answers. A horseman stood up at the April meeting
of the California Horse Racing Board and made this most telling point: a convenience store owner who fails to turn on the lights and the store’s sign isn’t going to be in business very long! Similarly, the owner of a complicated and valuable enterprise like a racing association who fails to use all the tools at his command to inform and motivate the public to patronize the racetrack isn’t either. Unfortunately, the horsemen who manufacture and deliver his “product” – the races themselves – won’t be either. Track managements everywhere knew their responsibilities to the racing community writ large, or should have, when they got into our game. “The highest and best use of the real estate” is a phrase I’ve heard, respected, and understood since my earliest days in racing, 45 years ago. Those who love racing, and who understand it, have always seen the clear danger that ever-increasing real estate values present to large, valuable, properties devoted to it. Once upon a time, serious strategic planning was continually undertaken to confront those obvious threats, and included the proper respect for the perspectives of horsemen – owners and trainers alike. As Gretzky, Jobs, and Buffett counsel, our community strived to skate to where the puck was going to be, not to where it has been. Lately (and I mark the change to the passing of Santa Anita’s Robert Strub in 1993), going back about 20 years, with a
very few notable exceptions such as the leadership of Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, a succession of ownership groups in California racing have increasingly substituted a new competitive sport, mind games, for strategic business planning. This new approach appears to be based on hidden agendas, where a commitment to develop real estate has replaced the desire to market racing and compete successfully with other gaming, sporting, and recreational enterprises. Its “rules” permit blatantly ignoring written agreements and disregarding clear commitments. Here’s the latest sophistry: to compete successfully and provide a proper return on investment in their valuable land, leaders must invest in expert racing marketing and management. That requires money. But, so the current circular argument goes, we’re not making enough money to invest in marketing, and therefore we must close tracks. Or, a basic threat is advanced: we intend to start marketing, but only when various competitors or critics within our own sport are removed or overtaken. If that’s a strategy at all, it isn’t one that serves the goal of preserving racing. Success in marketing does require money. More, it depends on integrity and rigor in cost/benefit analysis. And most of all, it requires passion for what is marketed, belief in our game, and deep understanding of its appeal. The intersection of racing, horses, sport, and return on investment, has always been complex and inscrutable, never more so than now. But the mixture of sophistry, cynicism, and intimidation which has been advancing on California lately will not save our racing. It is deadly. n
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Lately, a succession of ownership groups in California racing have increasingly
substituted a new competitive sport, mind games, for strategic business planning. This new approach appears to be based on hidden agendas, where a commitment to develop real estate has replaced the desire to market racing and compete successfully
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with other gaming, sporting, and recreational enterprises 6
TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 36