Ride & Guide - which bits work best and what to use when
By Annie Lambert
It is a daily challenge for horsemen to put together bit and equipment combinations that draw out the maximum prowess of their trainees.
Bits and related training accessories are not all they depend on, however. The talented exercise riders they hire represent the hands using those bits, an important factor in the process.
Whatever bits and riggings a trainer prefers, they have a logical reason as to why their choices work within their programme. A lot of that reasoning is chalked up to trial and error experiences.
Bit Bias
Some bits are legal for training and racing while others are not allowed in the afternoons. The most recognisable of the morning-only headgear would be the hackamore. Using a hackamore requires approval from officials.
Danny Hendricks inherited his father’s talent for handling horses. His father toured the rodeo circuit performing tricks.
California trainer Danny Hendricks’ father and uncle, Lee and Byron Hendricks respectfully, toured the rodeo circuit with specialty acts, trick riding and Roman jumping over automobiles. They were superior horsemen that began retraining incorrigible racehorses. The brothers introduced many bits that race trackers had not yet explored. Danny was too young to remember those bits, but did inherit the Hendricks’ talent.
“I had a filly for Dick [Richard Mandella] way back that wouldn’t take a bit; she’d just over flex,” he explained. “If you just touched her she’d put her nose to her chest and go straight back. I put a halter on her with a chifney, so it just hung there, put reins on the halter and started galloping her. It took months before she’d finally take that bit.”
The majority of trainers shrug off which bits are not allowed in the afternoons as they are not devices they’d think of using anyway. In fact, most trainers never ponder “illegal” bits.
Based in Southern California, Hall of Famer Richard Mandella personally feels it’s easy to make too much out of bits. He prefers to keep it simple where possible and to change bits occasionally, “so you put pressure on a different part of the mouth.”
ABOVE: One of the most used snaffles is the D bit, while the Houghton (R) is reserved for horses difficult to keep straight
“I don’t want to hear a horse has to have a D bit every day or a ring bit every day,” Mandella offered. Adding with a chuckle, “It’s good to change what you’re doing to their mouth, which usually isn’t good with race horses.”
Mandella learned a lot from a Vaquero horseman, Jimmy Flores, a successful stock horse trainer. His father was shoeing horses for Flores, who encouraged Mandella, then eight or nine years old, to hack his show horses around.
“Jimmy would put a hackamore on them, to get the bit out of their mouth,” Mandella recalled. “He said to me once, ‘You don’t keep your foot on the brake of your car, you’ll wear the brakes out.’ He was a great horseman.”
Trainer Michael Stidham introduced Mandella to the Houghton bit, which originally came from the harness horse industry.
“The Houghton has little extensions on the sides and it is like power steering,” Mandella said. “As severe as it looks, it’s not hard to ride. We’ve had a lot of luck with horses getting in or out, it corrects them.”
David Hofmans, a multiple graded stakes winning trainer, did not come from a horse background. He fell in love with the business when introduced to the backside by Gary Jones and went to work for Jones’ father, Farrell, shortly after.
“We’re always trying something different if there is a problem,” Hofmans said of his tack options. “I use the same variety of ring bits and D bits with most of our horses. We use a martingale, noseband and sometimes a shadow roll. If you have a problem you try something different, but if everything is okay, you stick with what works.”
Michael McCarthy spent many years working for Todd Pletcher before moving his base to California. When it comes to bits, he hasn’t varied much from his former boss. McCarthy reminded, “When the horses are comfortable, the riders are more relaxed and everybody gets along better.”
“Most horses here just wear a plain old, thick D bit,” he said from his barn at California’s Del Mar meet. “Some of the horses get a little bit more aggressive in the morning, so they wear a rubber ring bit. In the afternoons, if we have one that has a tendency to pull, we may put a ring bit with no prongs.”
McCarthy discovered the Houghton bit in Pletcher’s where they used it on Cowboy Cal, winner of the 2009 Strub Stakes at Santa Anita. He uses the Houghton sparingly to help horses steer proficiently.
Louisiana horseman Eric Guillot said from his Saratoga office that he uses whatever bit a horse needs—a lot of different equipment combinations.
“I use a D bit with a figure 8 and, when I need to steer them, a ring bit with figure 8 or sometimes I use a ring bit with no noseband at all,” he offered. “Sometimes I use a cage bit and I might use a brush [bit burr] when a horse gets in and out. Really, every situation requires a different kind of bit.”
Control Central
An early background riding hunters and jumpers has influenced the racehorse tack choices of Carla Gaines.
“I like a snaffle, like an egg butt or D bit, or something that would be comfortable in their mouths,” she offered. “I use a rubber snaffle if the horse has a sensitive mouth. I don’t like the ring bit because it is extra [bulk] in their mouth.
“A lot of the jockeys like them because they think they have more control over them. I know from galloping that it doesn’t make them any easier; it probably makes them tougher.”
The beloved gelding John Henry will forever be linked with his Hall of Fame trainer, Ron McAnally. The octogenarian has stabled horses at the Del Mar meeting since 1948. From his perch on the balcony of Barn one he surveyed the track and pointed out changes he has seen made over his 70-year tenure there. During those years there have been fewer changes in the equipment he uses than those stable area enhancements.
“Basically a lot of the bits are still the same; they’ve been that way for I don’t know how many years,” he recalled. “Occasionally you’ll find a horse that tries to run out or lugs in, and they’ll put in a different kind of bit.”
According to McAnally’s long-time assistant trainer, Danny Landers, things stay uncomplicated at the barn.
John Sadler’s training habits have also been influenced by his days showing hunters and jumpers. Although he uses the standard bits, decisions are often made by the way horses are framed and balanced.
“I want to see horses carry themselves correctly,” he said. “I’ve always had really good riders since I’ve been training. That is very important to me.”
Sadler likes one of the more recent bits, the Australian ring snaffle, which helps with steering. The bit has larger cheek rings, which helps prevent pinching. He also employs a sliding leather prong.
British born Neil Drysdale, who was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2000, has been in the states his entire training career. His tack room is one of those treasure troves of equipment, much of which he has only used a time or two. He keeps choices simple and prefers to match each horse to the best bit for the individual.
A shadow roll, used to lower horses’ heads, hang over a rubber ring bit
“I’m not actually keen on the D bit,” he acknowledged. “I think it is quite strong. Every now and again you have to use something stronger, and we’ll use a ring bit or an Australian ring bit, which is quite different and I think it works very well. We have a Houghton which I use rarely; you hope you don’t get those problems and need it.”
No one will ever accuse Louisiana-bred trainer Keith Desormeaux of being anything less than frank when asked his opinion.
“I’m not a big believer in bits,” he said. “Being a former exercise rider, I have my own strong opinions about bits. My strong opinion is that they are useless. My personal preference is a ring bit, because they play with it, not because of its severity. People use it to help with control; you pull on the bit and the ring pushes on the palate.
“When horses play with the ring bit it diverts their attention from all that’s going on around the track. I don’t take a good hold; it just diverts them from distractions going on around them.”
TO READ MORE —
BUY THIS ISSUE IN PRINT OR DOWNLOAD
WHY NOT SUBSCRIBE?
DON'T MISS OUT AND SUBSCRIBE TO RECEIVE THE NEXT FOUR ISSUES!
A day in the life of Todd Pletcher
THIS IS A SCANNED IN ARTICLE - FROM OUR PRE DIGITAL DAYS!
This article first appeared in North American Trainer - May 2008 - issue 8
Tampa Bay Downs - from afterthought to success
Slowly, yet surely, Tampa Bay Downs is evolving from that "other track in Florida" into a viable winter/spring option for good and even great horses and horsemen."We were an afterthought," Tampa Bay Downs Vice-President and General Manager Pete Berube said. "But we've been able to dispel that stigmatism the last few years."
Bill Heller (01 December 2007 - Issue Number: 6)
By Bill Heller
Slowly, yet surely, Tampa Bay Downs is evolving from that “other track in Florida” into a viable winter/spring option for good and even great horses and horsemen. “We were an afterthought,” Tampa Bay Downs Vice-President and General Manager Pete Berube said. “But we’ve been able to dispel that stigmatism the last few years.”
Maybe it was the lush turf course added in 1997. Or the continuing development of a three-year-old stakes program highlighted by the Grade 3 Tampa Bay Derby, which attracted Bluegrass Cat in 2006 and Street Sense and Any Given Saturday in 2007. Adding a 22-acre, state-of-the-art golf practice facility - with wagering available in the pro shop - and the Silks Card Room didn’t hurt.
The bottom line is that track ownership and management has made a commitment to make the only track on the west coast of Florida an attractive destination for horsemen from December through May. “It’s changed, and it’s a good thing,” said trainer Jane Cibelli, who has been at Tampa Bay Downs since 1994 and was the eighth leading trainer there last year. “There was no money here before. Horses came from small tracks where the competition wasn’t so tough. Now those horses are having a tougher time. You see a better class of horse.”
You don’t get much classier than Bluegrass Cat, Street Sense and Any Given Saturday. Bluegrass Cat was attempting to give trainer Todd Pletcher his second victory in the Tampa Bay Derby following Limehouse’s win in 2004, but he was upset on the track’s Festival Day by Deputy Glitters. Bluegrass Cat then finished second in the Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes and Travers Stakes.
In the 2007 Tampa Bay Derby, Pletcher’s Any Given Saturday and Street Sense, trained by Carl Nafzger, staged an epic head-to-head battle through the stretch before Street Sense prevailed by a nose. Street Sense went on to win the Kentucky Derby, Jim Dandy Stakes and Travers. Any Given Saturday finished eighth in the Kentucky Derby then won the Grade 2 Dwyer Stakes, the Grade 1 Haskell Invitational and the Grade 2 Brooklyn Handicap in his first start against older horses.
Pletcher, seeking his fourth consecutive Eclipse Award as the country’s outstanding trainer, cited two reasons he continues to use the Tampa Bay Derby as an early Kentucky Derby prep for his top three-year-olds. “It has the reputation as a very safe track,” Pletcher said. “And, more important for me, is that they offer a mile-and-a-sixteenth opportunity. To me that’s really important. With developing three-year-olds, you want to go that mile-and-a-sixteenth, and the Tampa Bay Derby is a good one to do that. In some ways, it worked out well for Bluegrass Cat and Any Given Saturday, as well as for Limehouse. They didn’t win the Derby, but I think that it had a lot to do with their positive development.”
Track management, of course, couldn’t be happier to host Pletcher’s three-year-old colts in Tampa. “Todd’s been able to have success over here,” Berube said. “I’m glad were in his rotation. But it didn’t just happen. It’s been a plan we’ve had for a number of years: developing the three-year-old program. It can only help us in the future.”
In the past, Tampa Bay Downs couldn’t even settle on its own name. The track opened in 1926 as Tampa Downs, then became Sunshine Park in 1947 and was frequently referred to as “the Santa Anita of the South.” In 1965, the track was renamed Florida Downs, which stuck until 1980 when the name was changed back to Tampa Downs. When evotook over as owner in 1986, the track was rechristened Tampa Bay Downs.
Thayer, a 66-year-old attorney and native of Tampa, is also the president of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Tampa General Hospital Foundation and the University of South Florida Foundation. Previously, she served as president of the Thoroughbred Racing Association from 1999-2001 and has owned Thoroughbreds with her brother, Howard Ferguson, since 1986.
Under Thayer and Berube’s stewardship, Tampa Bay Downs has prospered. Berube, whose retired dad Paul was a long-time president of the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau, joined the Tampa Bay Downs management team in 1995 as comptroller. He was promoted to vice president of finance in 1998, then to assistant general manager in 2000, and finally to his present positions on May, 2001. He defers credit for Tampa Bay Downs’ growth: “I think it was having the ownership that’s willing to re-invest in the facilities.”
The ownership was also willing to create new facilities, none more vital to Tampa Bay Downs’ growth than the installation of a 7/8-mile turf course with a ¼-mile chute. “Probably the wisest investment we ever made was putting in the turf course in 1997, and it was done by in-house staff,” Berube said. “Within a year, it paid for itself.”
That’s because turf races attracted larger fields, which quickly led to increased handle, especially through simulcasting. “It really put us on the map,” Berube said.
So has Tampa Bay Downs’ program for three-year-olds, which continues to benefit from the absence of mile-and-a-sixteenth dirt races at that other Florida track, Gulfstream Park, because of its remodeled configuration.
To maximize the appeal of its three-year-old races, Tampa Bay Downs increased the purse of the Sam F. Davis Stakes, a prep for the Tampa Bay Derby, from $50,000 to $150,000 in 2007. Next year, it will go for $200,000, which Berube hopes will induce the graded stakes committee to recognize the race as a Grade 3. “It should be a graded stakes,” Berube said. “It hurts us.”
That’s because graded stakes earnings are the deciding factor in determining which horses get to start in the Kentucky Derby.
Tampa Bay now has two graded stakes, both Grade 3: the Tampa Bay Derby and the Hillsborough, a turf stakes for older fillies and mares. The Florida Oaks was a Grade 3, but lost its graded status. “It’s a frustrating process,” Berube said.
Regardless, the track re-packaged its two-year-old stakes races in December and three-year-old stakes leading up to the Tampa Bay Derby. “We’re trying to build a strong three-year-old program,” he said.
Doing so entails maintaining a balance between stakes purses and overnight races. “We understand where our bread and butter is, and that’s in the overnights,” Berube said. “I think there has to be a balance, and, since I’ve been here, we’ve maintained a balance, about 85 percent to overnights and 15 percent into stakes. But you have to be able to attract top horses. And the public has responded.”
So have horsemen, who made a record 333 claims last year during the 94-day meet. “The increase in the number of horses claimed is a positive sign in the barn area, indicating a solid horse population,” said Racing Secretary Allison De Luca, who will be starting his second year at Tampa Bay this winter when racing resumes December 8th.
Last year, leading trainer Jamie Ness arrived at Tampa Bay with eight horses and returned to his base at Canterbury Park in Minnesota with 27.
“I’ll tell you what, I’m a claiming trainer,” the 32-year-old native of Heron, South Dakota, said. “I pay attention to every circuit. It seemed like there are good horses to claim in Tampa. I decided to go out on a limb, pack up and try it two years ago. It worked out very well. I had a good first year. Last year, I had a great year. I claimed a lot of horses. I’ve probably claimed and lost more horses than anybody there.”
He’s going to have to go some way to make a better claim than Lookinforthesecret. Ness, who won last year’s training title with 38 victories, claimed Lookinforthesecret for $12,500, January 5th, 2007, and won three stakes with him: the $75,000 Turf Dash Stakes at Tampa Bay last March 16th, and two others at Canterbury. “He’s a once-in-a-lifetime claim,” Ness said. “I take notes on every horse. It’s been a pretty good ride with him.”
He is understandably delighted to be part of the growth of Tampa Bay Downs, even if means more difficult competition. “It’s gotten tough,” he said. “For the facility and the weather, the track is good. The turf course is second to none, and the main track is good, too. It’s deep and sandy. It’s very good for horses.”
It’s good for Tampa Bay Downs’ business as well. “The bettors love to bet Tampa because there are full fields,” Ness said.
Last year’s average field size of 8.85 led to a record all-sources daily handle average of more than $4.1 million on live races. Records were also set for single-day attendance - when 11,014 showed up on Kentucky Derby Day, a number enhanced by a cooler-bag giveaway - and for all-sources single-day handle when $10.9 million was wagered on Festival Day, last March 17th. Average attendance of 3,437 was down a tick from 3,501.
“Last year was kind of the changing of the guard with a new racing secretary, and a lot of new stables came in,” Ness said.
They may just keep coming.
Stakes purses for the 2007-2008 meet will be a record $2.6 million with total purses a record $16 million. On December 29th, Tampa Bay Downs will offer the Cotillion Festival Day, featuring a variety of races for two-year-olds on both grass and dirt, highlighted by the $65,000 Inaugural Stakes for colts and the $65,000 Sandpiper Stakes for fillies, both at six furlongs on the main track.
Festival Preview Day on February 16th features the $200,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes at a mile and a sixteenth, the $150,000 Endeavour Breeders’ Cup for older fillies and mares at a mile and a sixteenth on turf and the $75,000 Suncoast Stakes for three-year-old fillies at one mile on dirt.
The $300,000 Tampa Bay Derby is the marquee attraction on Festival Day, March 15th, which also offers the $200,000 Florida Oaks for three-year-old fillies at a mile and a sixteenth on dirt, the mile-and-an-eighth $175,000 Hillsborough and the $75,000 Turf Dash at five furlongs.
Six $85,000 stakes races for Florida-breds will be held on Florida Cup Day, April 5th.
The attractive stakes program will allow the track continued growth. Already, more people, both horsemen and fans, are focusing on Tampa Bay Downs than ever before. Asked what he’d like people to think of when they hear the name Tampa Bay Downs, Berube said, “A great track to race on, a very forgiving surface and just a very horseman/customer friendly racetrack.”
Are purses restraining growth?
In 1953, the average cost of a Cola drink at a U.S. racetrack was around ten cents; the minimum bet on a race, two dollars. In 2007 the average cost of a Cola drink at a U.S. racetrack is around a dollar seventy-five; the cost of a bet, in most places, still two dollars.
Caton Bredar(19 May 2007 - Issue Number: 3 )
By Caton Bredar
In 1953, the average cost of a Cola drink at a U.S. racetrack was around ten cents; the minimum bet on a race, two dollars. In 2007 the average cost of a Cola drink at a U.S. racetrack is around a dollar seventy-five; the cost of a bet, in most places, still two dollars.
In 1953 John Ward, Sr., a respected Midwest horse trainer charged $13 a day to train a racehorse. That thirteen bucks covered labor, feed and daily care of your horse…costs which ran Ward around $11.34 a day.
Flash forward to 2007. Trainers based on major racing circuits in the Midwest or East will charge between $85 and $100 a day to train your racehorse. Even at one hundred dollars a day, most trainers say their actual costs run significantly higher. The cost of just about everything is up, with the exception of the minimum wager. And while wagering in the US, the vehicle which drives purses, is up over-all, purses have, with a few exceptions, remained stagnate.
For most trainers in the United States winning may not be everything. But it is pretty much the only thing keeping them economically viable. And in order to survive, regardless of what level they compete at, trainers almost have to win every time.
Ward’s son, John, Jr., reached the pinnacle of American racing in 2001 with a win from John Oxley’s Monarchos in the Kentucky Derby. Today, Ward and Oxley, one of the more dynamic stables in the Midwest and East, continue to pare down that stable, from, at one point, as many as 200 horses to the 40 they now have either in Kentucky, Florida or New York.
“It’s a purging process,” Ward explains, “We’re trying to be cost effective while not lowering the quality of the stable…or of the care they receive.” The fifth-generation horseman says the goal is a “leaner, meaner” racing operation, where the average earnings potential of each runner is realistically taken into consideration, in relationship to the costs that runner will incur. According to Ward, it’s a business plan most trainers have failed to develop. And even if they have, it’s a plan very difficult to put into practice given the economics of today’s game.
“It’s tough,” he offers. “Most trainers train below their actual costs, in the hopes of getting better horses.”
Ward lists rises in employment taxes—major adjustments in workman’s compensation insurance post September 11th as just one cost, often absorbed by the trainer, that has gone up significantly, particularly in the last five years. Ward’s annual workman’s compensation bill runs approximately $250,000 a year. That, for a trainer who modestly describes himself as “middle of the road”, at least as far as the size of the stable goes. For the newly ordained “Mega Trainers” trainers like Todd Pletcher or Doug O’Neil, who deal in high numbers of horses, Ward says those costs are even greater.
Some obvious costs, according to Ward, have gone up. Over the past two years, with rising gas prices, feed and van companies have to pass their added costs on to their customers. While shipping is often paid directly by the owners, trainers generally pay for feed directly then recoup some of that cost through their daily rates. With higher prices due to fuel surcharges, they recoup less.
And trainers aren’t immune to higher gas prices. “If you spend $25 to $30 a day in gas,” Ward explains, “and you train 30 horses, that’s $1 a horse,” or one less dollar a trainer actually makes on that horse, or puts toward his out of pocket costs.
Those costs--gas bills, cell phone bills, even rental rates, both in terms of housing the human help as well as housing horses—have all gone up over the past few years and are all costs Ward considers “hidden”, and most of the time, for trainers, unrecoverable. While labor costs (with the exception of workman’s compensation insurance) have remained fairly consistent over the past few years, it’s those “little” things that have actually driven up the costs of training.
“It’s really hard on the trainer himself, and the organization he runs,” says Ward. “It forces him to be taking away from the available cash flow. On the other side of it, we haven’t had purses go up to be commensurate with the costs. Purses have been stagnate for the last five to six years. Trainers are caught in a squeeze.”
A slow, steady squeeze, it would appear. To the point about purses, an NTRA Wagering Systems Task Force report, released in 2004, titles Chapter 2 “Handle Up, Revenue and Purses Down” and goes on to state, in part, “Handle Up, Purses Down is not a new occurrence specific to 2003. In general, purses have not grown as fast as handle for more than a decade…”
The lack of parity, between purses and handle, can be attributed, in part, to the boom in off-track wagering. Tracks receive a significantly lower percentage of revenue toward purses, from dollars wagered off-track than they do from live, on-track wagers. The effect on purses, and therefore, trainers, is profound.
The report goes on to say that, from 1995 to 2003, total Thoroughbred handle grew by 45 percent, while total purses paid to horsemen grew only 38 percent. In some particular cases, the statistics are even more dramatic. According to statistics released by the Jockey Club, in 1995, the average available money per race for 63 days of racing at Gulfstream Park in South Florida, was $27,941. Ten years later, in 2005, for 86 days of racing, that number went up less than $2,000, to $29,561.
Gulfstream Park may be an extreme example; many tracks, such as Keeneland, Churchill Downs, or Saratoga in New York, posted gains over the ten-year period of at least $20,000 more available in average purse money per race. Still, over the course of ten years, that’s just a gain of $2,000 per race per year—and that’s the best-case scenario, and not the case for every category of race.
It’s actually at the lower end of the scale, that Ward, the nephew of a Hall of Famer, believes it’s possible to remain economically viable. “The guys who are making the most,” states the 61-year-old, “are the claiming horse trainers. They don’t have the big investment in the horses, they can drop horses in for a cheaper price, they can keep churning out starts, to keep commissions coming in.” And in theory, adds Ward, “there may be fewer expenses connected to running a claiming horse operation, because generally, although not in every case, the size of the labor force is smaller”.
Purses, of course, are smaller, too, but it’s the differential, Ward claims, you have to consider. The difference in a trainer’s ten percent commission on a win in a $15,000 claiming race at most tracks is only a few hundred dollars at the most, less than his stake for a win in a $7,500 claiming race. A claiming trainer, therefore, has more flexibility, and stands to make almost as much for a win in either case, as opposed to a trainer of higher caliber horses running almost exclusively in allowance races or stakes.
“The quality guys, the trainers who deal primarily in better-bred, or higher priced horses…” says Ward, “The trainers who take their time, give their horses a lot of time in between races, those trainers either have gone out or are going out of business, because it’s such an investment, and they’re losing money every day.”
Regardless of locale, Ward says the economics are the same. “In Eastern circuits, you make more money, but it costs more to operate and live there. The squeeze is there. Midwest, California, it’s all the same. The same hidden, overhead costs have been driven up everywhere.”
And the same applies to the Mega-trainers. While the trend is to blame at least a portion of the racing industry’s woes, on trainer’s who appear to have the lion’s share of the horses…and the majority of the purses, Ward doesn’t believe they are immune to the economic disasters striking so many in these difficult times.
“While Mega Trainers, to some extent, can do what claiming trainers can do,” says Ward, “but they operate on a much larger scale, which, in turn, costs a lot more. Think what Todd Pletcher’s workman’s comp runs. Mega trainers will feel it, too.”
Ward, like many in racing, believes casino wagering could be at least be a help to the present financial plight of the trainer, and the sport itself. Case in point, Mountaineer Park, who was on the brink of closing in 1994, when the state passed video lottery legislation. In 1995, according to the Jockey Club statistics, Mountaineer was down to an average $2,886 available per race. Average daily purse distribution at Mountaineer was 22,000 dollars and at nearby Charlestown, thirty-six thousand dollars a day. By 2005, both tracks were giving out more than $100,000 a day. At Mountaineer, in 2005, the average daily purse was up to $15,728, and that number is sure to be even higher for 2006. Still, Ward believes casino wagering is not necessarily a pancea.
“The slots have helped Gulfstream so far, somewhat,” he reports, “But it’s been an interesting phenomenon. They had a tremendous opening. Now they’re starting to lose those crowds. More and more people are going to the dog track, or the other facilities with casinos. So it can only help so much, unless it’s controlled completely by the tracks and there’s no competition. It’s looking like slots and racing have to go hand in hand.”
A few fundamental problems, according to Ward, remain and, if not addressed, may jeproadize everyone’s stake in the game…not just trainers.
“In 1945, a coke was a nickel and the game revolved around the $2 bettor. It’s 2007, and everything costs at least twenty times more. But racing is still chasing that two-dollar bettor. By today’s standards, the minimum bet should be forty dollars.”
“Racetracks are taking more and more of the things they used to give in the past. Instead of a fifty-fifty partnership, it’s at the very best, forty-sixty.”
If it costs $50,000 a year to train an allowance horse, that horse should have to earn a minimum of $65,000 in that year to pay his way. Even at a day rate of fifty dollars a day, for a claiming horse, a $20,000 horse according to Ward has to win around $26,000 a year. Given the current purse structure of tracks across the nation, Ward sees the situation as bleak.
“You’re seeing people go out of business, and I think you’re going to see more and more leave, as the cost breakdowns go up every month. If trainers don’t charge according to what it costs, they’re going to go out of business. If money is lost, you’ll lose owners. As there are fewer owners, you’re going to lose trainers. It’s a free-fall inside the business over the next few years.”
“If you don’t win a five million dollar race, you’re out in the cold. And there’s a whole lot of people who don’t even ever run in a million dollar race. My father made a dollar fifty a horse per day in 1953. Today, most trainers are losing twice that every day just in costs. It all goes back to the purses.”