When less isn't more ... which is most of the time

Steve Zorn -- a casual but respected online acquaintance of mine, blogger on the subject of the horse racing business, and managing partner of New York-based Castle Village Farm -- wondered in his latest posting whether it's time for the racing industry to engage in some "serious downsizing."

These thoughts have been raised by more than just Zorn. Short field sizes at Churchill Downs and the California tracks this year have led to questions about whether there's simply too much racing. So have declining on-track attendance numbers. And now, declining handle.

Trouble is, as the economy makes its way through the roughest stretch since World War II, if not the Great Depression, it's difficult to really get a grasp on what is a nightmarish downward trend for horse racing that will continue regardless of economic recovery and must be stemmed, and what is just a remarkably predictable decline in an entertainment industry (particularly as measured by handle), fully explainable by the staggering economy.

The U.S. economy shrank 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 and another 5.7 percent in the first quarter of 2009 -- is it a surprise that a recreational expense like gambling on horse races would decline for the year thus far by around 10 percent amid such contraction and job loss? Particularly when one response to the down economy in some jurisdictions has been to cancel race dates?

Handle on dark days at any given track is a highly predictable $0.

Decisions made out of fear at the height of a recession are decisions prone to be deeply regretted later. The vast majority of the sharp decline in handle is almost certainly a product of recession, not of racing's problems, though racing indeed has myriad issues that demand addressing.

My current profession, the newspaper industry, is busy laying off journalists left and right, eviscerating its product. When the economy improves, and it will, "readers" will have become "former readers," many of them never to return. It's because we will have shown that when times get tough -- and there's no less news to report, indeed, perhaps more -- we'll just shrink staff and the news product and leave our subscribers paying more for less.

How often has that been a successful business model?

I hear and read much about how over-saturated the racing industry has become. Fingers often get pointed at the lesser tracks, and at conflicting schedules diluting fields throughout a given region.

Indeed field size is important, particularly to horseplayers. But from what I see (check the entries at Equibase.com) the everyday tracks where there's racing year-round, i.e., Charles Town, Mountaineer, etc., are the ones that aren't short on horses. So from a horseplayer's perspective, those should be good races to bet, whether the ponies are stakes horses or $4,000, NW2L claimers.

Zorn notes that though the economy is suffering and the costs of buying a horse have declined (desperately bad news for breeders who sell to make a living), the cost of maintaining the horse in training are not declining. Certainly true.

But is it going to be more economical to prep and maintain a horse in race training when there are fewer opportunities for him to earn his keep?

Zorn attempted to draw a parallel between professional baseball and racing. He notes that in the 1948, there were hundreds of minor league baseball teams with attendance of 39 million. By 2007, there were only 160 minor league teams remaining, with attendance of 42 million.

I don't believe the major-minor league baseball analogy is much of a success story for racing to emulate. Among other things, the population of the United States essentially doubled between Zorn's stated dates of 1948 and 2007. (Census 1950 showed 151 million Americans; 2000 showed 281 million and rapidly growing; over 306 million as of 2009.)

That minor league baseball attendance "grew" from 39 million fans in 1948 to 42 million fans in 2007 is actually not "growth" at all -- it's a stifling contraction. Drawing 42 million in attendance in a nation of 300 million suggests considerably less popularity (almost a 50 percent reduction) for minor league baseball compared to attendance of 39 million in a nation of 151 million.

And lost in that contraction of minor leagues were the very roots of the game of baseball, and, I believe, no small amount of its populist appeal.

I grew up in an area where Class D teams were prevalent back in the 1940s and 1950s. Mickey Mantle played his first professional baseball games for the New York Yankees' Class D affiliate in Independence, Kan., in the county of my youth (albeit long before I was born). He was later promoted to the Joplin (Mo.) Miners. At both assignments, it was a short drive for thousands of southeast Kansans, northeastern Oklahomans and southeast Missourians and a few Arkansas natives to see future greatness. And in those days, fans of what was then America's inarguable pastime, took advantage.

Players who would one day be World Series heroes (and thousands who'd never throw a pitch or catch a popup in a league higher than Class D or Class C) rented rooms in the community. They were fixtures at soda shops -- or bars -- and became local celebrities. Major League teams had fans across the country not because of ESPN and DirecTV, but because their players had shopped at a Chanute, Kan., five-and-dime or walked the streets of Bartlesville, Okla., then in the evenings performed live before appreciative audiences in the coziest of venues, in the smallest of communities. Like those 1949 Class D Independence Yankees (four future big-leaguers!) of the Kansas-Oklahoma-Missouri League, in Riverside Stadium, where 33 years later I would play football as a member of the opposition from Coffeyville, and later still would report on many a sporting event for The Coffeyville Journal.

While it was really the Korean War (and resulting player shortage) and the advent of televised Major League baseball that would drive the Class D and Class C leagues out of existence, for the first half of the 20th century, minor league baseball was woven into the fabric of American small towns. The papers covered the games and the players like they were favored local sons. The stories old-timers tell of bigtime ballplayers getting their start in tiny burgs across the country are true Americana; and are (or were, for those no longer with us) told in no less reverent tones than the stories of those who "once saw Seabiscuit race at Narragansett Park."

Where's Narragansett Park now? ... Mostly under concrete. ... And another Seabiscuit haunt, Bay Meadows? A recently removed pile of rubble, destined to become an office complex and business center, you know, when they get around to it. ... And yet another, Hollywood Park, seemingly doomed to a similar fate, and it is not because there's too much racing, but because the general public cares about racing too little.

And that's a very different problem.

So horse racing today is wondering whether less is more. Usually, it isn't.

With simulcasting and the ability to wager from home (for many horseplayers, though not for me in North Carolina) there's less reason to attend the races in person, except for special events. ... Of course, it used to be that racing was special. Back when many of the best horses ran on for season after season, building a fan following. And you didn't have to wait eight or 12 or 15 weeks for the next time your favorite horse would race.

So it isn't that there needs to be less racing; there needs to be better racing, and more racing by top horses, and better-marketed racing. Some say fewer races will make it easier to make those reduced dates seem special. Maybe, but I doubt it.

However, Churchill scored an undeniable hit with lights and Friday racing at night. Welcome to the 21st century.

To paraphrase another great Yankee, Yogi Berra, if the fans don't want to come out to the racetrack, you can't stop 'em.

Rather, somebody needs to convince 'em to get started coming out again.

And "Welcome to the new American horse racing -- now with fewer opportunities to watch!" just doesn't strike me like all that great a sales pitch to potential fans who already find our sport all too easily ignored.

Hollywood Park is dead. So belittle the trainers and blame the Indians.

The Inglewood City Council on Wednesday approved both a final environmental impact report and a "significant land use revision" that just about drive the last nails in the coffin of Hollywood Park, a California racing institution since 1938.

The property will be turned into a 238-acre mixed-use development.

Three trainers -- John Shirreffs, Jack Van Berg and Kathy Walsh -- are to be commended for speaking up on behalf of the track and the hundreds if not thousands of people employed at, or in connection with, the facility. They also brought up the track's history. Not that anyone was going to be convinced.

"Hollywood Park can't race five days a week," said Councilman Ralph L. Franklin, according to The Blood-Horse. Franklin was noting the track had reduced dates due to lack of horse inventory. "There is a need for us to make a change."

So go on and bulldoze the place, Mr. Franklin. A devastatingly permanent solution to a horse-shortage that is certainly a temporary problem.

Most residents who spoke were in favor of the demolition and reinvention of the property, a plan developers Wilson Meany Sullivan have called "Hollywood Park Tomorrow," which, translated, means "To Hell with Hollywood Park."

Please don't patronize racing supporters by tearing down history and acting like the completely unrelated development is in some way paying homage to the landmark you destroyed.

Van Berg pleaded with the council not to give away an industry with such history.

"There's nothing to compare with it," he said. "Inglewood lost the Lakers and the Kings. The track is something that draws people to the city."

Wilson Meany Sullivan is an affiliate of Stockbridge Capital Partners, which owns Bay Meadows Land Co. (A triumvirate so established and successful that it appears two of their three Web sites are still under construction.)

Walsh made the pertinent point that Bay Meadows Land Co. secured similar permission from the city of San Mateo to raze another iconic racetrack. Now Bay Meadows Racecourse is just a pile of rubble, she noted, while BMLC has put its plans for that property on indefinite hold.

"I think it would be a shame to drive down Century or Manchester," Walsh said, naming the roads that border Hollywood Park, "and see four or five piles of rubble."

Since the truth hurts, a representative of the developers fired back at Walsh with at best a half-truth, and one that shows BMLC, et. al., might not really appreciate what they're killing in Hollywood Park.

"Let me acknowledge our friends and associates in the horse racing business. I understand they have nowhere to direct their anger," said Christopher Meany, I can somehow imagine in a tone as condescending as the words read. "Let me remind you that horse racing is in decline in California for reasons that have little to do with what we do here tonight. Horse racing is in decline in California because of the rise of Native American gaming facilities in the state."

I find that difficult to believe. I know horseplayers; lots of them. I know casino-goers; quite a few. While the camps aren't mutually exclusive, I don't believe they cross-over as much as people might have us think. Yeah, some handicappers also play poker or blackjack (or some other casino game). But most are not, particularly, slots-players -- the style of wagering is entirely different, with one (horseplaying) taking considerable forethought and the other being essentially brainless.

And if casinos are what's killing Hollywood Park, then invite the Indians over. There's precedent that just about any piece of property in which a recognized "landless" tribe has a stake in California can be developed for gaming. Why not give some tribe a cut of the action from a potential "racino" at Hollywood Park?

Meany repeated the mantra that there aren't enough horses in California to race five days at Hollywood. Like horses don't breed new baby horses when we put mommies and daddies together in the same place while nature does its magic. And as if the breeding and racing businesses won't pick back up when this recession is put to rest. When Hollywood Park canceled a date on April 30 for a shortage of horses, it cited the recession limiting the number of horses in training. Again, a recession isn't a permanent problem, so why pursue a permanent solution?

It never ceases to amaze me when city councils, developers and others get together to infringe upon or outright tear down history -- whether it's a racetrack, a Civil War battlefield, an old school, a neighborhood of historic homes, or what have you -- to replace it with buildings that in 25 or 30 years all too often become outdated in appearance or amenities, or have fallen by the wayside as population shifts and even-newer facilities draw shoppers and businesspeople elsewhere. Then the shopping centers and office complexes that seemed like such a great idea not that long ago, such that a place like Hollywood Park would be obliterated for them, are themselves razed to pave the way for somebody else's "forward-thinking" development plan that'll be dated and dying in less than a generation.

I'm not dead-certain I'll live long enough to see that happen to significant chunks of "Hollywood Park Tomorrow."

But I'd bet it if I could get 5/2 or better.