Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance : Churchill Downs

Louisville Floods & Racing History

cdawahare — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:42:00 GMT

By Lisa Grimm, Superfectablog.com

It's typically an extremely rare occurrence when my worlds collide - oddly, this is the second time it has happened this year.

As many in the archival world know, I write about horse racing. And some in the horse racing world have a vague idea that I'm an archivist, but people in both spheres are probably a little unclear about what happens in the other one.

Here's the short version for each group - first, for the archivists: horses run around a track and I comment on it. American horse racing has a long and storied history that could be more (and here I'm dropping in a professional buzzword) accessible - but more on that later. For the racing folk: archivists preserve documents, photographs, ephemera, etc. from the past so that people (and not just historians) can learn about (and from) that shared past. We also do a lot of complicated things with digitization and metadata - while the usual adjectives employed to describe our profession are 'dusty' or 'musty,' that's only a small part of what we do.

Quite often, the archives (and the archivists who work there) are located in the basement - and that becomes a major issue in, say, a flood. The Kentucky Derby Museum at Churchill Downs just completed a renovation to their basement (where the storage and, as ever, archives are), including new shelving, when they were hit by a flash flood yesterday.

New shelving to an archivist is a precious commodity - we are rarely lucky enough to get shelving that is truly designed for archival use and it is difficult to raise money for it (as we have been doing in our archives for many a long day) because it's not immediately apparent to someone outside the profession how much the right shelves help protect and maintain the collection.

But of course, even the best compact shelving cannot save the collections from the archivist's second-greatest fear - water. At least one of the comments on the Courier-Journal article by Jennie Rees is wondering why the historical collections were stored in the basement, where they would be subject to flooding - and while that may seem unusual to the public, that's essentially standard practice; except for the few institutions that have successfully implemented a visible storage project, cultural institutions cannot take up exhibit space with shelves and processing space - and you need a large open space for most useful shelving systems. Best practices may seek to get the archives and artifact storage above the flood line, but it rarely happens - indeed, when our archives moves into our new building, we will again be in the basement. (It may come as something of a surprise to some to discover that water damage happens even when collections are stored on higher levels - leaky pipes are a constant source of worry in the archival world).

Regardless of how the water gets in, archivists usually respond in just the way the Derby Museum staff did - by creating a human chain to get the materials and artifacts to higher ground. To add insult to injury, several museum employees lost their cars to the floodwaters while working to save the collections - but the good news is that it seems nothing was lost - just made very wet. Conserving wet materials is not as easy as just letting them dry off - the most effective approach is to have them freeze-dried and dealt with by a disaster mitigation firm. Obviously, that's not cheap, but some organizations are lucky enough to have insurance to cover those costs - I don't know whether that's true of the Museum, but I hope they are able to get their collections back to the pre-flood state I enjoyed when visiting the Museum only last month.

Public libraries are rarely that fortunate - and the Louisville Public Library sustained very serious damage to both the physical plant and the books and computers (as did several of the branch libraries). In their case, a fund has been set up and donations are being accepted; keeping libraries running can be a challenge under the best circumstances, but the combination of a down economy and a major disaster is one that no library director wants to face - it's a worthy cause.

I mentioned accessibility above and the lack of accessibility to horse racing history was, rather serendipitously, the topic of Teresa Genaro's article in The Saratogian today (a note to the archivists reading - Teresa writes the rather wonderful Brooklyn Backstrech blog and was one of my co-bloggers for BelmontStakes.com this year). She noted how difficult it was to authoritatively establish basic facts not only from the more distant past, but even statistics from recent years - and as someone on both sides of that fence, I couldn't agree more with her conclusions. American racing history is fairly widely dispersed - there's the Keeneland Library, the currently-damp Kentucky Derby Museum, the International Museum of the Horse, the National Museum of Racing and the National Sporting Library and while there is some crossover, for the most part, each has a different collection policy and research goals.

That list does not even begin to take into account an individual racetrack's holdings (and who knows what happens when they close - where are the records of Ak-Sar-Ben? Who will take on those of Hollywood Park?) including their film and video storage. Other sources of racing history, like the Daily Racing Form or Equibase, tend to be considerably more proprietary about their information. Unlike the aforementioned libraries and museums, making their information accessible is not the goal - and while that makes a certain amount of sense in their business models, it would be nice if they turned their data over to one of the aforementioned institutions or had a records management policy that involved making that data available online (with a preservation copy elsewhere) after a certain time period - I'd be happy to recommend a number of Kentucky-based archivists for the job.

It's difficult enough for researchers to find the information they are looking for under normal conditions; dealing with a disaster like the flooding in Kentucky makes the archivist's goal of preserving the past and providing access that much more difficult. The only potential upside is that the spotlight these cultural institutions unwittingly find themselves in brings in some much-needed funds for repairs and, hopefully, future improvements that serve both the collections and the public.

A Beautiful Day for a Night Game

Blood-Horse Staff — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:10:00 GMT

By Frank Vespe, That's Amore Stable, LLC

“It’s a beautiful day for a night game.”

So said the Fordham Flash, baseball Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch, sometime around 1935. Which almost makes it sound as if the good Jesuits at Fordham were churning out classes of Dizzy Dean-wannabes in the early part of the last century.

Nonetheless, the reason he would have said such a slightly off-kilter thing in 1935 was because that was the year the Cincinnati Reds, in their electrified Crosley Field, played the first night baseball game, against Philadelphia. By 1941, most major league teams had begun playing night games, and though World War II prevented some clubs from hopping on the bandwagon, virtually all had by the late 1940s. (Except for the Cubs, who held out until 1988).

Playing games at night revolutionized baseball and helped cement our national love affair with the game. It allowed the working man — it was widely assumed that the fan was a man (sample grab from the New York Mets’ theme song: “Bring your kiddies and your wife, guaranteed to have the time of your life!”) — to attend games, rather than merely listening to them.

These days, the vast majority of major league games are at night. And attendance has climbed from a shade under 6,000 per game in 1935 to about 30,000 per game today.

Coincidentally — or perhaps not so — the attendance at Churchill Downs for its three recent Fridays of night racing averaged almost exactly 30,000.

Which is another way of saying that it has taken racing about 74 years to discover — and, surely, that’s the wrong word — that scheduling races at a time convenient to fans is a way to encourage more of them to come out.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Seventy-four years is a long time, and a lot of things have happened since then: the US population has more than doubled, as has the number of teams in Major League Baseball. Wars, technological innovations, natural disasters, and economic dislocation have all left searing marks on our world.

And, now, at long last, a major racetrack has introduced night racing.

Truly, the wheels of change oft grind slowly — but this is ridiculous.

On the other hand, it whets your appetite for what comes next. I’ve heard of this newfangled thing called a television that lets you watch actual moving pictures right inside your home. Maybe we could get some races on that…

Rethinking the Breeders' Cup

Blood-Horse Staff — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 16:58:00 GMT

By Valerie Grash

As a fan, call me underwhelmed. The Breeders’ Cup returns to Churchill Downs in 2010 (but perhaps only if the state of Kentucky can be extorted into extending a pari-mutuel tax exemption), and, once again, horse racing has missed the boat in terms of updating what has become, unfortunately, “the” defining event of America’s thoroughbred industry. The time has come to either totally rethink the Breeders’ Cup event or eliminate it altogether—for the good of the sport of horse racing.

Once upon a time thoroughbred owners actually campaigned their horses throughout the year, with major stakes races as targets and champions decided by the sum total of their achievements, not a single race. Sadly, as the breeding industry in this country as evolved into a nearly out-of-control entity—breeding horses to breed, not to race—the all-too-appropriately-named Breeders’ Cup has become nothing more than a much-desired notation on sale catalog pedigree pages. It is truly a group of races for breeders, not for fans, as star horses often run as little as possible as they aim for the BC, resulting in a litany of historic races with short fields light on talent and with very little actual competition.

To make matters worse, the Breeders’ Cup does not even do a good job marketing itself. Calling itself the “World Championship of Horse Racing” is a complete public relations snow job (not to mention a tad jingoistic) as very few of the truly great overseas runners show up, unlike the Dubai World Cup which provides financial incentives for genuinely international fields. The so-called “Win-and-You’re-In” races (which guarantees a spot, but not payment of hefty entry fees) are neither well-planned out over the course of the racing year, nor complete enough in every category (such as female sprinters, etc.) to guarantee even a casual interest by fans—and key races are not broadcast on a national television channel. Come October, the offensive “Filly Friday” not only segregates a race card by gender to a day not traditionally associated with stakes-quality racing, but also is relegated to lowly ESPN2. Only four of Saturday’s races (the ill-named Marathon, Turf Sprint, “Dirt” Mile and Turf Mile) are worthy of ABC; the much-lesser watched ESPN gets to air the crème de la crème races—from 3:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET. Do not even get me started on the marketing geniuses who indicate that their “research” finds people do not know the meaning of “distaff”, yet agree that anthropomorphizing horses by calling them “Ladies” is somehow inoffensive.

I know the sport of horseracing is no longer an integral part of the American psyche as it was in its heyday, replaced by “sports” such as poker, BMX racing and ultimate fighting in broadcast and print media. That does not mean it has to remain so. Tinker with the Breeders’ Cup format from top to bottom, or abolish it altogether, because as it exists now it does very little for the sport beyond filling the pockets of breeders, bloodstock agents and pinhookers. The aging fan base is not being rejuvenated with enough younger fans as things stand. It is time to think outside the box, to shake up an institution that has, to be honest, lost its way.

From BC-specific to broader industry changes, here is what I propose:

•    Instead of holding the event at only one track every year, spread it over several weekends and several venues. Share the pageantry, the carnival-like atmosphere with as many racing fans across the country as possible. Have dirt races on dirt tracks, like Churchill, Belmont, or Oaklawn. Hold turf races run over the magnificent courses at Arlington or Woodbine. Allow artificial surface specialists to run over their preferred surface, at Santa Anita, Hollywood or Keeneland. Three meets, spread over three weekends, at three different venues. Thus, no one could worry that a Classic run over Pro-Ride puts dirt horses at a disadvantage—and neither Jess Jackson (and Curlin) nor IEAH (and Big Brown) would have any legitimate reason to avoid one another due to concerns about the surface. Run horses on the surface that best suits them, whether turf, dirt or the artificial stuff.

•    Establish a point system and chart standings for horses racing throughout the year. Award points for racing in graded stakes, and continually publish rankings based on accumulated points. The BC races would be part of that system, and establish an agreement that end-of-the-year awards such as the Eclipse be based on total yearly performances, not a single race. Members of the TBA (http://thoroughbredbloggersalliance.blogspot.com/) and individual bloggers such as Kennedy’s Corridor (http://kennedyscorridor.blogspot.com/) have advocated the use of standings for years. Let us think seriously about it as a method of sustaining fan interest—emotionally invested fans draw in family members, friends and acquaintances as new fans through their enthusiasm for the sport. Give them something to invest themselves in more than just a couple days a year.

•    Additionally, there must be a consolidated effort throughout the year to schedule properly races nationwide, both by date and by post time. Not only do fans crave this, but so too do bettors. Bigger, more competitive fields result in bigger pools worthy of risking one’s money against other horseplayers. How many times this year did major stakes races go off with fields of five or less horses? A better job needs to be done to ensure large fields, even if that means lessening the number of races, race dates and even racetracks. Mies van der Rohe’s adage “less is more” is so apropos to horseracing. More quality racing, from bottom-level claimers to Grade 1 stakes, will result from lessening the number of races run, thus leading to bigger fields and better competition overall.

•    The “less is more” concept should apply to the Breeders’ Cup races themselves. For example, are there enough races run at 12 furlongs and above to warrant a “Marathon” race? In Europe and Australia perhaps, but American racing appears to favor 8.5 to 9 furlong races. If you want to continue to have a “Marathon” race, then make it a real marathon—two miles at least. True stamina needs to be reintroduced into American bloodstock, and rewarded. I recognize that if my first suggestion were implemented—scheduling three meets of races at three different venues—it would result in an increased number of BC races, and that is justified. Tossing in juvenile turf races just because you can hardly appears rational when so few juveniles are tested in graded turf stakes.

Conceptually, the Breeders’ Cup should be a series of races that serve as a platform for displaying the sport’s best horses for the racing fan instead of a monolithic self-indulgent money-grab for the breeding industry. If the sport does not once again focus itself on breeding to race—and actually race those horses—then the sport dies. It is as simple as that. Maybe the Breeders’ Cup needs to go the way of the dinosaurs as well.