I first want to thank the thoroughbred racing industry for finally coming together and realizing the need for a national commissioner with real power. It’s the only way to get this industry we love on the right track to recovery. We all know that we have forfeited, through complacency and lack of vision and varying state regulations, the position of eminence we held in the sports world from the 1930s through the ‘70s. We all know that we lost our monopoly on legalized gambling and have not yet figured out how to cope with that, much to the detriment and demise of our industry.
Second, I want to thank the industry for selecting me as the first national commissioner. I have already surrounded myself with advisors who have well-documented success in business, the media, and the delicate and complicated relationship that exists among the diverse interests that pull and tug at our industry’s soul – the sports purists, the gamblers, and the breeders.
I make the following pledges as a contract with the industry:
1. My “cabinet” of advisors will include track owners, horse owners, breeders, trainers, jockeys, turf writers, racing officials, veterinarians, and business leaders outside the sport. They will help me develop a cohesive plan to seriously address the sport’s needs and challenges.
2, Our sport must have uniform national standards for licensing, drug-testing, and punishments. Assuming it’s true that illegal medications always will be ahead of the means to detect them, the sport must invest more in hiring investigators and cracking down on repeat offenders. In short, we must clean up our act.
3. I will aggressively work with the U.S. Congress and state legislatures to address such issues as the humane treatment of animals, taxation, and gambling. Our support has contributed significantly – disproportionately, some might say – to government over many years. It is now time for government to give something back to us, and I will pursue those avenues.
4. I will explore ways to rid our industry of the stigma caused by permissive medication. We are the only professional sport that condones the usage of drugs. The public has a problem with that. We need to address that problem and solve it in a way that’s acceptable to horseman, but, most importantly, convinces the public that our sport is doing everything to be scandal-free.
5. I will establish a program to educate and train Hispanic immigrants who legitimately want to become citizens of the U.S. Hispanics have contributed much to our sport’s history and we should honor that while also requiring them to honor the basic standards of citizenship. I will insist that we punish horsemen who disrespect the laws of our country by employing illegal immigrants.
6. I will instruct publicists to do a far better job of telling our game’s wonderful human-interest stories, which, after all, are our best asset. Americans love animals, particularly noble thoroughbreds such as Seabiscuit, Ruffian, Secretariat, Smarty Jones, and Barbaro. There are similar stories at even the smallest of tracks. We must win the hearts and minds of the public by doing a better job of telling them.
7. I will establish a historic preservation panel that will address the issue of maintaining the storied essence of our great tracks, national sports institutions, while also dealing with changes that must be made to accommodate the modern consumer. The best example is the unfortunate renovation at Churchill Downs that has saddened historians and cost the track its authenticity. But maybe we can still do something to salvage Hialeah Park, Santa Anita, Aqueduct and other tracks that play a big role in our history.
8. I will personally go to the television networks to discuss ways our sport can get more air time. I will personally visit the great newspapers of our nation to discuss the decline of racing coverage. I will point out how many Americans support thoroughbred racing on a daily basis through their gambling dollars. I will argue that the TV ratings for major races are skewed because they don’t take into account those who watch the race at simulcasting outlets or private parties.
9. I will ask the Breeders Cup to understand that thoroughbred racing is truly a global sport by considering the movement of its event to Hong Kong, England, France, Australia or other nations where thoroughbred racing currently is supported far better than it is in the United States. Just because we invented the Breeders Cup, Americans should not always have the “homecourt advantage.”
10. I will acknowledge that jockeys are the stars of our sport, similar to NASCAR drivers, and insist that we begin marketing them as unique personalities. I also will insist that jockeys, which we have long treated as second-class citizens, be given an equal voice at the negotiating table by owners, trainers, and track officials.
11. I will immediately institute a marketing strategy to get more “celebrities” involved in our sport through ownership of horses. Every year, the Derby – and other races – attracts stars from TV, the movies, and the sports/entertainment field. These individuals have a lot of disposable income. Yet few of them invest in the sport that once was supported by the likes of Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, George Raft, Jack Klugman,and M.C. Hammer. We need to work them harder.
12. I will encourage the trade publications – most notably the Daily Racing Form, the Blood-Horse, and the Thoroughbred Times – to look at our industry with a more critical eye. By failing to address the sport’s controversies and warts, these publications do the industry a great disservice. Changes in the industry have always been forged by reporting in the national media, but now we are in a time where the national media cares little about our sport, regardless of how many dollars are gambled on a daily basis.
13. I will encourage horsemen in every state, especially Kentucky, to aggressively lobby state legislators on behalf of tax breaks, incentives, and various forms of alternative gambling. Slots at race tracks are not a permanent solution to our industry’s problems, only a Band-Aid. Yet we must embrace them, however reluctantly, on a temporary basis, buying time to figure out new marketing strategies.
14. In an era where impatient consumers suffer from information overload at the same time they want instant gratification, we must emphasis the sport’s inherent simplicity and become more fan-friendly. Sometimes potential customers are intimidated by the mass of information. They are novices. But the sport needs to embrace them as fully as it embraces sophisticated gamblers.
15, I will work tirelessly to encourage tracks to identify their best customers, on a year-round basis, and treat them like royalty. The casinos are way ahead of race tracks in this area.
16. I will emphasize that veterinarians should be held strictly accountable – as much as owners and trainers – for their clients, and urge new legislation to hold them to their professional vows. Our sport has never adequately addressed the issue of unscrupulous veterinarians. If the buck stops here, with me, so does the head-in-the-sand approach to those individuals who cheat the betting public – or sales clients — by administering illegal medications designed to enhance a horse’s performance or physical appearance.
17. I will do whatever I can to make this organization a United Nations where contributors from other lands are welcomed and assured of being equal partners, without regard to religion or politics, so long as they agree to support the principles of fairness and decency I have outlined previously.
I’m sure there are other important issues I’ve neglected in this brief “state of our union” speech. If so, when they are brought to my attention, they will be considered seriously and addressed swiftly.
We must act now. We no longer have the luxury of time. And we must understand that just because we have squandered advantages and monopolies we enjoyed in the past, it’s not too late to make a comeback. The establishment of this office is an essential step in that direction. Our industry finally is unified. We must know move forward, secure in the courage of our convictions, to regain the confidence and support of the public.
Oh, yes. I forgot three other pledges.
18. I will always understand that the horse has the right of way.
19. I will always cry, for a myriad of reasons and emotions, when “My Old Kentucky Home” is played before the Kentucky Derby.
20. I will work to have Dancer’s Image declared as the official winner of the 1968 Kentucky Derby, and take measures to honor owner Peter Fuller for calling our weaknesses to our attention long before our industry was ready to acknowledge those self-evident truths.
I am humbled and awed that you have chosen me over such worthy candidates as former President Bill Clinton, former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, and former Kentucky Governor Brereton Jones. I will seek their wise counsel as I move forward, empowered by the courage of our mutual convictions.
Thank you.
Your commissioner
1 response so far ↓
1 JW // Jun 18, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Excellent! I congratulate you on your new commission.
It just might work.
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