By Steve Zorn
The Breeders' Cup is over. So let's get on to the
important stuff. Which is that racing
returns to Aqueduct on Wednesday.
Well, OK, perhaps Aqueduct isn't the center of the
racing world any more - though it did host the Breeders Cup in 1985 - but for
some of us in the game, it can be the center of our economic, if not aesthetic,
lives.
And for the New York Racing Association (NYRA),
which operates the rusting old track on the fringes of JFK Airport,
Aqueduct is, bizarrely, its most reliable profit center. Sure, Belmont
and Saratoga
have the famous races and, occasionally, draw the big crowds, but it's Aqueduct
that actually generates the cash.
For those who haven't had the pleasure of spending
quality time at the Big A, here's a video clip that can give you a bit of a
feel for the ambience:
True, the clip is 40 years old, and the crowds are a lot smaller these days,
but some things never change.
The original Aqueduct track opened in September
1894. At the time, long before there was an airport there, the area was
farmland, and still independent of New
York City. In
1941, a new clubhouse and track offices were built. The whole plant was razed
in 1956, just after the New York Racing Association was formed, consolidating
the then-four major New York
tracks into a single entity, and a new "Big A" opened in 1959.
That new Big A is now approaching 50, and its age is
showing. The plant that held over 40,000
for the Breeders Cup back in 1985 now draws an average weekday "crowd" of
perhaps 1500. The cavernous grandstand
has been closed off for years, awaiting the installation of slot machines that
were approved by the New York State Legislature in 2001 and are, at latest
report, going to be ready - perhaps - by 2010. Unlike most tracks that operate
in the winter, Aqueduct has no indoor seating from which to watch the
races. If you want to see them live,
rather than on a TV screen, you have to venture out into the often-frigid box
seat area, where the paint peels from the iron rails, and feeble electric
heating elements shine a dim yellow light that one can pretend has some warmth
in it.
But,
to look on the bright side, Aqueduct is the only track in America that has
its own subway stop. In fact, you can stand on the subway side of the clubhouse
and see the skyscrapers of Wall Street in the distance. The folks betting the
daily double are probably doing better these days than those guys in the
skyscrapers
And don't forget the racing itself. In 1975, an
inner track, which miraculously resists freezing, was built to accommodate
winter racing. Once the horses move to the inner track - usually from December
through March - there's no turf racing, and the distances are a relentless
parade of 6-furlong, 1 mile 70 yards and 1 1/16th miles, with a few
longer routes thrown in very occasionally for variety. The intrepid handicapper gets very accustomed
to seeing the same horses, in pretty much the same conditions, running against
each other every other week. From a handicapper's point of view it's pretty
ugly; the inner track is relentlessly speed-favoring, especially when it's wet
(which is often).
On the bright side (at least it's bright if you're a
very young rider), most of the top jockeys head south for the winter, so
there's almost always room for an unknown apprentice or two to break through
into the standings, a pattern that's helped along by the speed bias. Trainers put a 105-pound bug boy (or girl) on
their horse and tell them to just pop out of the gate and hold on. If the horse is fast enough to clear the
field, and the jock doesn't fall off, they're on their way to the winner'
circle.
In an ideal world, you might think, Aqueduct would
just go away, we'd race at Belmont from, say, March through July, go the summer
camp for racetrackers, i.e., Saratoga, for August, then back to Belmont through
maybe Thanksgiving. And, in the winter,
horses could go to beautiful old Hialeah or Gulfstream,
or just take a few months off and frolic in the pastures of South Carolina. Oops, John Brunetti's intransigence and the
demographics of South Florida seem to have doomed Hialeah, and Gulfstream is no longer either
old or beautiful. And most of us who own
horses can't afford the luxury of a winter vacation.
Certainly there have been attempts from time to time
to close the place. To understand why it
endures, and why some even love it - well, perhaps love is too strong a word;
how about have a secret, well-guarded fondness for it - one needs to understand
the crucial role that Aqueduct plays in the economics of New York racing.
There are four different
interests whose need Aqueduct serves very well: (1) New
York State and its
politicians; (2) NYRA itself; (3) owners and trainers who race in New York; and (4) New
York thoroughbred breeders.
First, the state. Since Albany
takes a very big cut from the betting dollar, Albany has mandated that NYRA run many, many
racing days each year. These days, the
Aqueduct "season" runs from late October through the end of April, with only an
11-day break at Christmas. The rest of
the time, the live racing show must go on.
Second, there's NYRA. Strange as it may seem, NYRA makes a profit
at Aqueduct. Sure, on-track attendance
is low, and so is on-track handle. But the Aqueduct simulcast signal, sent
through the statewide network of OTBs and to virtually every pari-mutuel
betting outlet in North America, brings in
much appreciated dollars. At the same time, purses are much lower than at Belmont and Saratoga. Hardly any of those pesky Grade I stakes that
cost the track money, but there are lots of NY-bred maidens and allowances, and
lots of low-level claiming races, with appropriately low purses. Generally,
NYRA breaks even, more or less, at Saratoga -
huge handle, but correspondingly huge purse distribution - and loses money at
the Belmont
meets, which don't have the huge attendance, but do have lots of rich stakes
races. This year, NYRA has cut back
Aqueduct purse levels by 10%, so even with an expected decline in handle, there
should still be a profit.
Third, Aqueduct is the savior
of the average working horseman. When
the big outfits, with their million-dollar yearlings, roll into town for the
summer, it's pretty hard for a small stable, with modestly priced horses, to
compete. But when we move to Aqueduct,
all of a sudden there's room in the winners' circle. As Pletcher, Zito,
McLaughlin et al. head south, the rest of us begin to see spots in the condition
book where we can compete. (My own
modest stable, Castle Village Farm, was leading owner at the Aqueduct spring
meet in 2006, something we'd have no hope of accomplishing at, say, Saratoga.) Stables
that have lots of New York-breds tend to do particularly well at Aqueduct,
because the racing secretary needs to fill races, and there are lots of
NY-breds at the track, so there are often four or five NY-bred races on a
nine-race card. And those races draw full fields, which makes NYRA and the
state happy as well, since betting handle is pretty much proportionate to field
size.
Finally, because of its
reliance on NY-breds, Aqueduct is a major force propping up the New York breeding
industry. Thanks to the efforts of horse
owner and retired State Senate majority leader Joe Bruno, New York has one of the richest state-bred
programs in the country, with substantial bonus payments to the owners,
breeders and stallion owners of NY-bred winners. For a good-sized breeding farm, those bonus
payments are like annuity checks, rolling in every two months. Without the heavy diet of NY-breds running at
Aqueduct, a lot of those farms wouldn't survive.
So I don't see Aqueduct
fading away any time soon, no matter how much the NY Port Authority would like
to grab the land for airport parking. Neither the state, nor NYRA, nor a good
portion of the horsemen could survive a long winter break. And Belmont,
where the grandstand faces into the north wind, and there's virtually no
heating, would require a billion-dollar makeover to handle winter racing. So that leaves Aqueduct as the only feasible
winter track.
But the old decrepit Aqueduct
that we have such an intense love-hate relationship with may, finally, be in
for a change. After years of delay, the Albany politicians have
at last agreed on an operator for the (as yet totally imaginary) 4,500 slot
machine palace at Aqueduct. The lucky
company is Delaware North, which also runs the slots at the Saratoga Harness
track and at Finger Lakes, the only New
York thoroughbred track that's not part of NYRA. Construction may finally get under way any
day now - well, more likely sometime next spring. And after that, it's mere months, well
perhaps 15 of them, until the slots are in action and the profits are flowing,
in distinctly unequal shares, to the state, Delaware North, NYRA and, finally,
purses for the horsemen. (Oh, and the breeders, connected as they are in Albany, get a share too.)
Delaware North has, in fact,
put forth a vision of the new and improved Aqueduct, complete with a convention
center, hotel, shops and restaurants (gee, sounds almost like Frank Stronach's
fiasco at Gulfstream; let's hope not):
Any
resemblance between that drawing and Aqueduct past, present or future is, I'm
sure, purely coincidental. But it's nice
to dream.
Meanwhile,
I'm entering my NY-bred filly in one of the extras for opening day at Aqueduct.
I can hardly wait.
