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A pessimist, or someone who practices the dark arts of humour, could distill our Round Table Discussion down to: We’re all going to die. Soon.
Sure, some of it was bleak. But, much of it was helpful in terms of identifying our biggest problems and offering suggestions for proactively tackling some of them. I encourage you to read the entire booklet (download a pdf by clicking on the “Learn More” section in the bottom left corner of our main page). It’s worth your time. Don’t be scared off by talk of our imminent, painful death. By necessity, some racing leaders have become like doctors berating patients who refuse to quit smoking.
The premise was to have nine bright minds come prepared to each discuss two ideas for saving harness racing. No other direction was given.
There was a little duplication of topics, but not much. In effect, 15 different subjects were discussed — some on the micro, some on the macro level.
On the micro level, there were a number of good, small ideas similar to those found under the Small Victories section that could be implemented immediately with not a huge expenditure.
Chris Roberts from Georgian and Flamboro Downs suggested tracks should partner with a county fair to keep racing alive at the grassroots level.
Awesome. DO IT.
Clay Horner suggested moving many stakes races to weeknights. “My personal experience is, when we invite people to come to the races with us on Saturday night, we frankly have a relatively low uptake, because people tell you about what else it is they have to do on Saturday night, either with their family or their other hobbies or their cottage or whatever it is,” Horner said. “On the other hand, if you said to 10 couples, ‘We have got a horse racing in a big race on Tuesday night, would you like to come and be our guest at the racetrack on Tuesday night?’ They would all come and they would all have a very good experience, and they might be likely to come back.”
Great. DO IT.
Drop purses five per cent and build up a war chest.
Incredible. DO IT.
Those are just three examples, of many small ones. The catch is finding enough people bold and motivated enough to implement some of the ideas not tomorrow, not soon, but now.
Yet, what struck me most from the discussion was something that came near the end, after everyone had digested what was said.
In essence, enough people concluded a huge asteroid was poised to obliterate all of harness racing and then started busting out some pretty wild schemes to save our world.
What if we landed on the asteroid and drilled nuclear weapons into the asteroid’s core? What if we build a giant rubber band and fired it at the asteroid to throw it off it’s trajectory? What if we build a giant force field out of cellular phone signals?
In the harness racing example, the opinion was that we’re so thoroughly effed that we should ask the government to implode harness racing as we know it and rebuild it from the rubble.
Now, I’m not going to quibble with the part about being in serious trouble. The numbers don’t lie. But, I agree with Alan Kirschenbaum who tried to put the brakes on the runaway train of self-loathing.
“Does anybody get a little queasy about the notion of going to a government who has already given this industry tens of millions of dollars in what is basically a handout and saying, ‘Oh, and by the way, we don’t know how to solve our own problems and we would like you to help us to solve them. In addition to all the money, we need you to solve our problems, too,’” Kirschenbaum asked.
I’m queasy about it, for sure.
It’s a little bit like your dad giving you, oh say, A BILLION-DOLLAR allowance, you losing all of it and then going back and saying, “Uh, dad. You know that billion dollars you gave me? Yeah, well, I lost it. Can I have another billion?”
Besides as far as cautionary tales go, we need look no further than Quebec, where harness racing got in bed with government and got thoroughly screwed.
Though, I get the general point. Horner compared racing to the domestic auto industry, which needed to be rebuilt with government assistance to better deal with its competitors. In many ways, that’s an apt comparison.
So, I offer the following compromise idea. In Ontario, at least, we have something of sympathetic ear at the Ontario Racing Commission (ORC), which despite many ills does more than most racing regulators to affect reasonable change.
In Ontario, we also have been — as a couple of Round Table speakers said — anesthetized by slot machine revenue and loathe to implement much-needed radical change.
I ask the ORC to schedule a week-long conference where mandatory attendance is required by ALL tracks and major industry shareholders (horsepeople, breeders, owners).
Don’t attend, and the ORC will pull your racing license.
Since inaction and the lack of legitimate strategic plan are another major crisis afflicting the industry, another condition of license will be that out of the conference come a signed document — a constitution, perhaps — that is arrived at by a two-thirds majority of conference attendees.
Beyond a general framework for the entire industry, including exactly how everyone will work together — Dean Towers said the tracks don’t even report their business numbers the same way. Incredible.
Some possible topics to address at the conference: reducing takeout; purse pooling; dropping purses marginally to grow a fund to implement necessary changes; improve the televised product; lobby the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency (CPMA) for more flexibility in wagers; improve distribution; lobby the federal government for the legal right to offer Internet wagering on other casino-type gambling; investing even more in integrity matters. And so on.
Of a list of smaller initiatives, the ORC could, again, make it a condition of license that 70 per cent of the items be fulfilled within a two-year window.
For God’s sake, don’t go with hat in hand to Queen’s Park at large or the Ontario Lottery and Gaming corporation (OLG) which is much more a competitor than an ally. That’s not politically savvy.
The ORC at least understands the industry has fallen off the wagon — still drunk on slots 10 years in — and has a big enough gun to force us into rehab.
In the meantime, don’t cower in the corner. We’re not going to die, at least not imminently, unless we refuse to stop smoking and drinking and fail to remove our collective heads from our posteriors.
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1.
July 27, 2010
2:40 PM
2:40 PM
Hi Dave,
Nice post. Certainly the ORC should schedule something that you allude to. It would go a long way towards making something happen.
About five years ago on a chat board I asked participants if they would allow the ORC to take a small percentage off our purse checks when we get them, just like the trainer and driver fees are taken off. Instead of $1350 from Kawartha, you'd get $1325 or whatever. Drivers, who have really made some money from slots purses (Doug Brown in 1985 would take home $70k or so a year for a decent living, now Tim Tetrick takes home more than a vascular surgeon makes due to slots), I would ask them to take a cut as well. All this new money would go into a slush fund to be distributed on three or four main themes: Marketing, player rewards (lower takeouts), seeded pools, signal distribution etc - with one theme in common: Customer based cultivation.
There were about ten responses, all echoing the same thing: "Great idea, but take money from "X" not me".
I truly think for anything to be done it must be mandated. We are like children in our sport it seems - so we must be treated like it. if we don't want to give up a piece of chocolate cake, it must be taken away from us by someone with authority.
About $2B in slots cash has been distributed in Ontario for racing. What could we have done with $100 or $150M of it if planned correctly?
Major league baseball has a resurgence due to MLB.com and other initiatives. The PGA Tour is funded and has a great presence virtually everywhere. We could have a bigger budget than those two sports for things like this with our slots cash. That's only for starters.
Money to distribute our signal to Sweden, or Australia. Studying a betting exchange concept, or fixed odds, or something new and fresh. The sky could be the limit. It does not mean they will all work, but it would mean we are doing something.
Anyway, nice piece and good luck in trying to lobby for this concept. The horseplayers are waiting, and waiting and waiting for the status quo to leave the building...... so they can stay in it. From my perspective, I think we only have about five years left to get this right. The time, to me, is now.
Best regards,
Dean
Nice post. Certainly the ORC should schedule something that you allude to. It would go a long way towards making something happen.
About five years ago on a chat board I asked participants if they would allow the ORC to take a small percentage off our purse checks when we get them, just like the trainer and driver fees are taken off. Instead of $1350 from Kawartha, you'd get $1325 or whatever. Drivers, who have really made some money from slots purses (Doug Brown in 1985 would take home $70k or so a year for a decent living, now Tim Tetrick takes home more than a vascular surgeon makes due to slots), I would ask them to take a cut as well. All this new money would go into a slush fund to be distributed on three or four main themes: Marketing, player rewards (lower takeouts), seeded pools, signal distribution etc - with one theme in common: Customer based cultivation.
There were about ten responses, all echoing the same thing: "Great idea, but take money from "X" not me".
I truly think for anything to be done it must be mandated. We are like children in our sport it seems - so we must be treated like it. if we don't want to give up a piece of chocolate cake, it must be taken away from us by someone with authority.
About $2B in slots cash has been distributed in Ontario for racing. What could we have done with $100 or $150M of it if planned correctly?
Major league baseball has a resurgence due to MLB.com and other initiatives. The PGA Tour is funded and has a great presence virtually everywhere. We could have a bigger budget than those two sports for things like this with our slots cash. That's only for starters.
Money to distribute our signal to Sweden, or Australia. Studying a betting exchange concept, or fixed odds, or something new and fresh. The sky could be the limit. It does not mean they will all work, but it would mean we are doing something.
Anyway, nice piece and good luck in trying to lobby for this concept. The horseplayers are waiting, and waiting and waiting for the status quo to leave the building...... so they can stay in it. From my perspective, I think we only have about five years left to get this right. The time, to me, is now.
Best regards,
Dean
~ Dean Towers
2.
July 27, 2010
3:15 PM
3:15 PM
Dave, I agree with you 100% that we must never run to the government to solve our problems. The Ontario govt. has been very fair with us and has given us a chance to survive and improve our sport and the horse racing business. We have enough money within harness racing right now to do what we need to do. It will just take a small % of this money, invested wisely, to make a big difference in our future.There are lots of great ideas out there so now we have to take the steps needed to get the ball rolling. Thanks for keeping this crucial issue on the forefront.
~ Jack Darling
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