I think the media knows that, first off, I’m going to speak my mind. Second, I’ve always made it clear that if I ever have a special horse, I was going to make him very accommodating and accessible to the fans. And I’ve done that.
I’m all for full disclosure. But with full disclosure has to come education of the sport. Full disclosure without education will lead to an even quicker demise of the sport. We have done a horrible job of educating our fan base. And . Until you educate and market the sport properly, how can you fully disclose things that people won’t understand.
You’ll have fans thinking minor (procedures and ailments) are serious.
For example, take pinfiring. Probably a third of two year-olds get pinfired. If you mention the term “pinfiring” to the average racing fan, or someone who’s new to the game, they’ll probably say “Oh my God! That sounds serious.” All it really means is that they probably bucked shins, and they need thirty days of rest, and thirty days of galloping, and they come right back.
I just don’t think there’s enough education out there. You say that you pinfired a horse - and a third of them probably get pinfired - and if the horse gets hurt, people are going to say “It must be because he was pinfired. That’s why he got hurt.”
If you’re ready to educate and market the sport better, then you can fully disclose and explain to the fans why this thing is happening, or why that thing is happening. The average racing fan doesn’t know about this.
I also think there are some people who are not focused on the good of the sport and who have an agenda. I don’t have an agenda. My agenda is that I love horse racing, and I want to see it be the most popular, biggest sport in the United States.
So how would you go about accomplishing that? If you were commissioner for a day, what would you do?
If I were commissioner for a day, I think the first thing I’d do is get all the major racetracks in a room together, and get them to work together. California cares about California racing. New York cares about New York racing. New York and New Jersey are trying to put each other out of business. Florida cares about Florida racing. Kentucky cares about Kentucky Racing. Santa Anita, Gulfstream, Churchill, Belmont, they all need to work together.
I’d also make it a priority, as I’ve just talked about, to educate the fans. I’d go after new fans. I bring so many people to the track, and a lot of times, I wind up being the educator. They’ll ask me, “Mike, what’s an exacta box?” or “Maiden special weight to maiden claimer. What does that mean?” If I weren’t there to help explain things, they’d pick numbers and names. And I think a lot of people do that.
You could go to a racetrack, spend $200, have a great meal, spend five or ten dollars a race, and maybe even walk home with some money. If you go to a restaurant, and you have a great dinner, not only do you go back, but you also tell your friends about it.
With horse racing, people go to the track, and they don’t want to go back because, a lot of times, they don’t know how to enjoy they experience properly. At the end of the day, you’ve got to educate people on how to do that.
And I think there are such great stories out there in horse racing. They just need to be told. Whether it’s John Velazquez winning the Derby after Uncle Mo scratches, or Kathy Ritvo winning with Mucho Macho Man in New Orleans after a heart transplant, there are so many great stories.
Let’s go back to the Breeders’ Cup. If I were marketing the sport, and I looked at the owners of the Breeders’ Cup horses over the two days last year, and I saw Bobby Flay (owner of More Than Real, Juvenile Filly Turf winner), Mike Repole, and Kevin Plank (CEO of Under Armour, owner of Shared Account, Filly and Mare Turf winner), I would say “Please God, let these three guys win races.” Three guys, all between the ages of 38 and 45. You’d think that somebody would be smart enough to say, “Wow. Here we’ve got three young entrepreneurs, that aren’t traditional, Kentucky blue-blood, 85 year old men, who can add value to the sport, and leverage this into something bigger for the game.”
And, you know, I saw one article (that called us the) “Young Turks.” I saw one or two others here and there. But, overall, no one has the national best interests of racing at heart. There are people who have the best interests of New York racing at heart. There are people who have the best interests of Kentucky racing at heart. But no one has the best interests of national racing at heart.
Imagine the NBA without David Stern. Imagine the NFL without Roger Goodell. How would they work?
They would work the way boxing works. Which is to say, not very well.
Exactly. And that’s why the UFC has come along and stolen a lot of boxing’s thunder. You have the Nevada commission, let’s say. And the Jersey commission. And one of them will say that a certain fighter can’t fight in one place - they revoke his license in one place - but not in another. Boxing’s a dead sport. And we’re headed down that path.
So if the powers that be approached you, and they asked you to assume a formal position of some kind, to get out there and help promote the sport, would you consider it?
I’m an advocate for the sport, and I love the sport. That’s a little different than being a poster child for the sport. I do this because I love it. I do this because I have a passion for it. I fell in love with horses when I was 13 years old, just watching them run down the stretch. I love handicapping. I love ownership. I love the competition. Love being around my yearlings. I love being around the barn for it. I love being at the track. I have a true love for the sport.
I think that, in a way, I’ve already become an advocate for the sport because I have decent horses and because I have such a passion for it.
So I think the answer would be yes because I think the sport needs it in the worst way. But the only way that would ever happen is if there were a national governing body.
Can the NTRA be that body?
No. The tracks need to buy in. The organizations that are out there now haven’t gotten the major tracks to buy in.
I think what’s going to happen is that one of the states will get it right - and get it right in a big way. And they’ll become an example for some of the other tracks. New York, California, Kentucky, Florida, let’s get the big fish first.
Right now, we haven’t gotten it right. I’ve been an owner for seven years, and I think that, in a way, it might be getting worse. For a guy who loves the sport (as much as I do), that’s hard to accept.
People ask me, do I encourage other owners to get into the game? Absolutely.
But, to get back to education, there’s education as a fan, and education as an owner. If you were an owner, and you went to trainers and bloodstock agents - ninety-five percent of them - and you said “I’m willing to spend five million dollars” on Tuesday, you know how much you’d have left by Friday? Zero.
A real trainer, or a real bloodstock agent would step back and say “Let’s invest two million the first year, two million the second year, and let’s evaluate how we’re doing. And if we’re making money, we’ll increase our investment.”
But that’s not how people think in this game. This whole game is about short-term thinking. There’s no long term thinking. There’s no long-term vision. There’s no long-term strategy for this sport. And until somebody sits back and says; “Where is this sport going to go two years from now? Five years from now? Ten years from now?” This sport will continue to go backwards, and lose its fan base, and have four or five horse fields at Aqueduct. I don’t blame NYRA for this. But some of the fields at Aqueduct have been horrible - horses that should never be running in New York.
A quick note: This conversation took place last Wednesday, shortly before Uncle Mo was officially diagnosed with cholangiohepatitis. I did ask about Repole about Uncle Mo’s status, but given the new information of the last few days, I now consider his answer to be irrelevant, and am, thus, withholding it from the transcript.