What's Going On Here : saratoga

New York State of Mind - by Dan Liebman

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 13:41:00 GMT

After many years in the same profession, it is not uncommon to feel the need for a new and greater challenge. Charlie Hayward fit that bill, so in November 2004, following a lengthy career in publishing, Hayward was named the president and CEO of the New York Racing Association.

If it was a challenge he wanted, Hayward was in the right spot.

In fact, he was brought in, Hayward said Sept. 13, “to fix things.” And there was much to fix.

At the time of his appointment, NYRA was operating under a court-appointed monitor overseeing its operations after the organization was being indicted and fined $3 million for its role in a tax-fraud scheme by employees. Investigators had uncovered widespread abuses; NYRA was bleeding millions month after month; the battle for a new franchise agreement was looming.

A challenge? You might say that.

In November 2006, a non-binding decision by the Ad Hoc Committee on the Future of Racing recommended that Excelsior Racing Associates be awarded the franchise to run racing at Aqueduct, Belmont, and Saratoga racetracks.

At about the same time, NYRA filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, claiming the state’s failure to approve a long-stalled casino project for Aqueduct had pushed it toward insolvency.

The committee was formed under the administration of Gov. George Pataki. Following the election of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a full review was made and final bids for the franchise were accepted last year from four groups—Excelsior, NYRA, Capital Play, and Empire Racing Associates.

In the end, after much negotiation and political give-and-take, Spitzer formally recommended that NYRA receive a new 25-year franchise agreement. A key was NYRA’s release of a claim that it owns the land upon which the three tracks sit, acreage presently valued at $1 billion.

On Sept. 10, signatures were placed on 17 different documents, and the following day the bankruptcy court signed off on things. On Sept. 12, it was announced NYRA had emerged from bankruptcy and was officially the new franchise holder.

The state is also giving NYRA $105 million to help it emerge from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

A key question remains: Who will operate the video lottery terminals at Aqueduct? Three entities are bidding for the right to install the 4,500 machines.

Asked his three priorities for the new NYRA, now incorporated as a not-for-profit company, Hayward said the first will happen by the time this column is read by most.

“On Wednesday (Sept. 17), we are meeting with our employees to thank them for their hard work, their good frame of mind through everything, and to talk about the future,” Hayward said.

Second…“We won’t have any revenue from VLTs for at least 15-18 months, so we need to do priority planning. We are working on a long-term plan for our facilities.”

Third…“From a business perspective, we need to work with the OTB network. We need to consider rationalization and consolidation. It is a broken system.”

There are those on both sides of the argument as to whether or not NYRA should have received the new franchise agreement. Certainly the state gaining title to the land was a huge bargaining chip.

The state also has more oversight, the new board consisting of members chosen both by the state and the racing association.

New York is the most important racing circuit in North America, and its survival is critical to the entire industry. At the three tracks operated by NYRA, 23% of all graded stakes are run (110 of 481), and 35% of grade I contests (38 of 110).

The handle by New York citizens, and the total handle on New York races, is second to none, and the purses paid to horsemen, partly due to a strong state-bred program, are also significant.

NYRA has a new life, but many challenges lay ahead. The entire Thoroughbred industry needs to help the new holder of the franchise more than it helped the former franchise holders.

Get a Handle - by Dan Liebman

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:39:00 GMT

The single most significant number relative to a racetrack’s business is handle. Pure and simple. It not only fuels the second-most-important number—purses—but is clearly reflective of the acceptance of a track’s racing product by the wagering public.

In August 2007, Churchill Downs Inc. announced it would no longer publicly release handle figures for its four racetracks because it did not consider them an important metric of how the company as a whole is performing. Instead, it would discuss its complete financial reports during its quarterly earnings conference calls.

That decision, and the logic behind it, is ludicrous. But now comes an even more preposterous decision.

The Jockey Club Information Systems has discontinued providing The Blood-Horse handle numbers provided it by Equibase, making it more difficult to report racetrack’s meet-to-meet numbers.

Equibase was founded because, prior to its existence, racing’s data was collected by Daily Racing Form, a privately-owned enterprise. Racing wanted to collect and own its data, as it should.

Equibase is a joint venture of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations, an organization comprised of racetracks, and The Jockey Club. To get the business off the ground, The Jockey Club provided $3.6 million in 1990, and the collection of data began the next year. Today, countless tracks provide their fans programs displaying Equibase past performances.

For several years after Equibase came into existence, it had chart callers at racetracks along with those from Daily Racing Form. This meant each race had two data collectors, which caused discrepancies in information. In 1998, the two reached an agreement for Equibase to collect the data; Daily Racing Form shut down its track and field operations.

Until now, there never appeared to have been a conflict of interest between the racetracks and Equibase. But obviously with TRA member tracks owning half the company, it can exercise leverage over what data is made available.

Equibase and Jockey Club officials claim there is a distinction, with racing information being data it collects and handle being data supplied by racetracks. In fact, the tracks are still supplying handle figures, but The Blood-Horse, rather than obtaining those numbers through a previously provided tool, would now, it is told, have to add the figures from race charts.

The Blood-Horse news story in August 2007 announcing Churchill’s change in policy contained comments from company spokeswoman Julie Koenig Loignon. According to the story, though Churchill would not release the numbers, Koenig Loignon noted the figures are public information and available through other sources, such as Equibase and state racing commissions.

They are available from Equibase, if one wants to add up numbers from hundreds of charts. As for state racing commissions, they do not get the information in a timely manner.

Handle numbers are important to handicappers wishing to see the size of pools they have wagered into. But they also are important to owners, trainers, and breeders who wish to see how a track’s business is doing. And they are important to the media, which not only has a duty but an obligation to report statistics and trends to the industry.

In the last week, numbers were released by several racetracks following the close of meets, among them major players such as Saratoga and Del Mar, and a smaller track, Evangeline Downs. Others also routinely provide similar figures.

Tracks that release such information, understanding the industry’s right to know, should be applauded. Those that do not, such as those owned by CDI, despite being a public company and government regulated, should have a board of directors that insists it do what is right.

Equibase and The Jockey Club Information Systems should realize they are not helping the industry by their decision.

Star Power - by Dan Liebman

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:38:00 GMT

Just three months after it was announced he was being pensioned, Storm Cat was represented by the top price Aug. 5 at the Fasig-Tipton Saratoga yearling sale. How fitting.

The success enjoyed by the 25-year-old son of Storm Bird is obvious. Storm Cat made Overbrook Farm what it is today because he has sired 13% stakes winners, which ranks him among the best stallions of our time. His progeny’s racetrack success allowed his stud fee to rise to the highest in recent memory, $500,000.

But Storm Cat has been a huge commercial success as well, which is important to breeders taking his sons and daughters to market, and buyers hoping not only for top racetrack performance, but significant future residual value as well.

Over the past 32 years, 109 stallions have been represented by at least one offspring sold at a North American yearling sale for $1 million or more. That group of stallions has sired 718 seven-figure yearlings, and of that total, a remarkable 90 are by Storm Cat.

Thus, 12.5% of all yearlings ever sold in North America for $1 million or more are by one stallion.

(For the record, the next highest total is the 52 sired by Storm Bird’s sire, Northern Dancer.)

A group of 34 colts and fillies by Storm Cat are cataloged to the Keeneland fall yearling sale that kicks off Sept. 8. This is a comparable number to last year, when 37 were cataloged and 23 sold for an average of $536,739.

This year’s list is like a “Who’s Who” of pedigrees. Nine of the yearlings are out of grade/group I winners (three champions) and eight are full or half-siblings to grade/group I winners (four champions).

With numerous offspring still to go through an auction ring, it is possible Storm Cat could become the first triple-double stallion—more than 100 stakes winners (he has 166 to date) and more than 100 yearlings sold for $1 million or more.

Stallions like Storm Cat do not come along very often. But they are the dream of everyone who retires a horse to stud, and like a couple of other horses in the news lately—Danzig and Theatrical—prove the best do not necessarily start in the breeding shed with a high stud fee.

Storm Cat may have commanded $500,000 for six years, but his initial fee was just $30,000 (and later $20,000).

Danzig, who first stood for $20,000 and saw his fee rise to $250,000 no guarantee, recently became the first North American stallion to sire 200 stakes winners. Danzig, who died in 2006, is from the same sire line as Storm Cat. Danzig is by Northern Dancer, sire also of Storm Cat’s sire.

The mark of 200 stakes winners is impressive for Danzig considering he stood at Claiborne Farm, which has never bred books as large as many other farms. Danzig’s largest crop was 59 foals. His percentage of stakes winners, 18%, places him among the elite stallions of all time.

At a time when many are questioning the durability of the Thoroughbred and commercialized focus of breeders, there is Theatrical, who will never be thought of as flashy or dazzling, but has consistently rewarded those who bred to him, and whose progeny have an average winning distance of 9.5 furlongs.

A product of the highly successful breeding program of Bert and Diana Firestone, Theatrical, by Northern Dancer’s son, Nureyev, recently sired his 22nd grade/group I winner, Winchester, a Firestone homebred.

The Firestones raced Theatrical and later took on Allen Paulson as a partner in the horse. He first stood at Paulson’s Brookside Farms and now stands at Hill ‘n’ Dale Farms near Lexington.

Theatrical has sired 77 stakes winners (8%), but consider that 28.5% have won a grade/group I race.

Percentage of stakes winners should still be the most important measure of a stallion’s success.

An Original - by Lenny Shulman

Blood-Horse Staff — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 13:54:00 GMT

At the tender age of 85, after nearly three decades in the business of owning and running horses, Harry Aleo finally felt the love of the racing gods.

They delivered unto him the horse that would fulfill his wish to travel his beloved United States of America and run that horse in top stakes races, earning cheers of fans from coast to coast. Decked out in his Western-style suit and cowboy hat, Aleo gave off a contagious boyish enthusiasm that would have been remarkable from a man half his age.

The beauty of him, though, was he felt the same joy when he’d come out to Golden Gate Fields on a Tuesday morning to watch a horse work.

“Lost in the Fog was the pinnacle,” said trainer Greg Gilchrist, the only conditioner Aleo hired in his 30 years in the business. “But he had that same enthusiasm for a $10,000 claimer. He missed three races in 30 years of running his horses. That’s how much he loved the business and the horses and the people who worked around them.”

Harry Aleo was what people like to call an American Original. As far as I can discern, that goes to being honest, hardworking, fun-loving. A person who says what he thinks, proper etiquette and political correctness be damned.

The great thing about Aleo—and his kind are all too rare—is although he was outspoken in his politics, he didn’t judge you on your political beliefs or the cut of your hair. If you measured up as a person, he embraced you and let you inside his world.

A lot of that world was his horses and his beloved San Francisco. He lived and worked virtually his entire life in Noe Valley, in the Mission district of the city south of the skyscrapers. His parents ran a grocery store in the neighborhood, and Harry drove the delivery truck. Between runs, he became a regular at John’s Pool Hall, two doors up from where he would eventually open his realty office. Billiards was not his thing; laying 50-cent bets on horse races with the bookie in the back room was.

On his 22nd birthday, Dec. 7, 1941, Aleo climbed to the roof of his apartment building and oversaw a darkened city, its electricity turned off to thwart a possible Japanese air strike.

Shortly after, Aleo wore the uniform of the Army’s 87th infantry, fighting in France and Germany and serving under Gen. George Patton in the Battle of the Bulge.

Returning home, he opened Twin Peaks Properties on 24th Street. He did well in business, and equally well by people, keeping rents affordable even after gentrification of the area led others to make “killings” in the market.

Aleo didn’t much care for the gentrification or the alternative lifestyles that took root in the city. He kept a shrine to Ronald Reagan in his storefront to tweak his political adversaries. But he also fought like hell to keep chain stores out of the area, fearing they would hurt the small businesses that made up the fabric of the neighborhood. He served on various boards and in organizations to fight for the independents, and today 24th Street bears the fruits of his labors.

Walking into his office was like entering a time tunnel. The wood-burning stove, 1940s-era radios, papers and files stacked everywhere. The one computer, on Harry’s desk, he employed to track his horses, not realty. The walls were adorned with photos of Joe DiMaggio; Sonny Shy, his first winner; and Lost in the Fog, his great champion.

Oh, how he loved where Lost in the Fog took him. After watching him win the King’s Bishop Stakes (gr. I) in 2005, Aleo gushed, “I love Saratoga. All those big Victorian homes with the porches, dormers, an American flag in every yard. People lined up at 6:30 a.m. to get into the track. Musical groups everywhere. That’s my kind of place.”

When the multi-million-dollar offers started flying in to buy his star, Aleo was shocked; and then flabbergasted at the people who said he should go ahead and sell.

“All those millions wouldn’t change my life, and I wouldn’t have the horse that has given me all this excitement and enjoyment,” he explained. “I’m not in the selling business. I’m in the racing business.”

Said Gilchrist after his client and friend passed away too soon June 21 at the age of 88, “The problem is, when we lose guys like Harry Aleo, there is nobody to replace them.