TP Less Dates challenges lives dependent on track
Mar 19, 2013 0:04:58 GMT -5
Post by Jon on Mar 19, 2013 0:04:58 GMT -5
Hope Gharlestown Pols are reading this!
Loss of Turfway Park dates challenges lives dependent on track
Written by Jennie Rees
FLORENCE, KY. — Trainer Susan Anderson had worked at tracks that raced only two days a week. But that was in Dubai, where racing really is the sport of sheiks, if not kings.
Today, Anderson’s 14-horse stable is based at Turfway Park, where in February and most of March it has raced only Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons after racing three days a week in January.
Like many of her colleagues, Anderson said “it’s very tough” to make a living with the abbreviated schedule.
“In the wintertime, you’re just scraping by, trying to make ends meet, waiting for the spring and other tracks to open,” said Anderson, a Cincinnati native who has been at Turfway and River Downs since returning from Dubai a decade ago.
“It’s really hard to keep owners, because they have to at least try to pay their training bill or break even. And it’s hard when you don’t get to run. I’ve had one filly I tried to get in six or seven times and just couldn’t get in. There just weren’t enough races for all the horses.”
At least partly in response to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission giving Turfway’s September dates to Churchill Downs, Turfway cut back from its three-day February-March weeks and canceled some of its stakes in an effort to keep daily purses from further erosion
With full fields, Turfway did well enough in January to increase its dates from four to eight in February. And it will race Thursday through Saturday this week, highlighted by the $550,000 Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati Spiral Stakes, a Kentucky Derby prep.
In general, owners and trainers don’t look so much at total purses for a meet or a day, but rather the money up for grabs in individual races. The idea is that less would prove more.
While total purses paid are down more than $1 million from the same time frame a year ago, average daily purses are up 7.5 percent and the average race purse is up 19 percent, according to Turfway statistics.
Still, purses did have to be adjusted when Turfway, at the behest of horsemen, added a pair of weekends at the end of February.
With only 20 to 30 races a week, field sizes were strong most of the winter, averaging 9.6 horses per race vs. 8.3 a year ago, though the numbers have tailed off this month as racing resumed at Hawthorne in Chicago and Mountaineer in West Virginia. While large fields were good for horseplayers, trainers and owners had the added frustration of not getting into races when more than the capacity 12 starters were entered.
For many Turfway horsemen and riders, relief comes not on April 5 when Keeneland opens, but rather April 23 when Indiana Downs opens its six-month thoroughbred meet in Shelbyville, southeast of Indianapolis near I-74.
But Turfway remains important, because if trainers were forced to give all their horses a winter break from training, they wouldn’t be “ramped up for the big purses in April, May, June, July,” said trainer Jeff Greenhill. “You’ve got to keep some level of fitness.”
Greenhill has won nine of 31 starts in this meet, including two stakes with his Spiral contender Mac the Man. In 2012, his horses earned a career-best $814,340 in purses, his best since his $507,196 in purses in 1998. He says the difference now is that Kentucky no longer is a real circuit.
“I never had to leave the state to make a half-million dollars,” he said. “Now to make that, that trailer is hooked to that truck and it never comes off. I might be at Thistledown today, Mountaineer tomorrow, Presque Isle the next day, Indiana Downs the next.”
Doug Coyle has wintered at Turfway since 1978.
“Five days to three was bad enough,” he said. “Three to two was a major difference, too. ... It’s a long week waiting for the weekend — and then you don’t get in a race. It’s hard to tread water in this situation.
“A lot of the owners have downsized, backed out for the winter. An agent said a couple of days ago, ‘Well, we only have 12 more racing days here. But the bad part is it’s going to take a month and a half to do it.’ ”
Each year, more Kentucky outfits head elsewhere for the winter, largely replaced with smaller stables. Trainer Bill Connelly, who lives nearby, took the plunge this year, keeping four horses at Turfway and shipping the rest to Florida.
“I want to be at home if I could,” he said.
The limited opportunities impact jockeys as well.
“It’s not good,” Norberto Arroyo, the meet’s leading jockey in his first year in Kentucky, said of the two-day race week. “Fortunately, I’m doing well, so I guess that makes up for the days we don’t race. I really feel bad for the riders that are having a slow meet.”
Perry Ouzts, who in his 6,000-win career has spent scores of winters at Turfway, goes up to Beulah Park to ride Monday through Wednesday. “Two days a week, you can’t make a living doing that,” he said.
But jockey Ben Creed says that, especially with high gas costs, it’s not financially viable to drive to Grove City, Ohio, from his home in Georgetown, Ky., given that Beulah’s purses are lower than Turfway’s. Instead, he spends the other mornings working horses at Turfway and in Lexington to drum up business.
“It’s a huge struggle for everybody, not just the jockeys,” Creed said. “The owners, the trainers, exercise riders, the (jockey) valets, everybody involved — everybody gets cut.”
Creed, third in the standings with 22 wins, says his financial goal for the winter is to break even before riding at Indiana Downs and River Downs.
“As long as you’re winning, you can make enough to pay your bills,” he said. “… I didn’t think it would affect me as much as it has, just losing that one other day. (But) if they don’t have the money for the purses, they just don’t have the money.”
But once Indiana starts, the Taylorsville product said, “the purses and jocks’ fees are so good up there that I can make more money up there and not even win a race than I can winning races here sometimes.”
Turfway general manager Chip Bach says no one is happy about such a diminished race schedule and that he understands the hardship put on horsemen, as well as track and commission employees who work only on race days.
Repeating the mantra of former Turfway president Bob Elliston, he notes that Turfway is one of the few tracks in the region that doesn’t have another funding mechanism for purses besides wagering — whether it’s slots, Instant Racing that resembles slots, horse sales, or the Derby. He says that if Instant Racing, also called historical racing, is declared constitutional in court, Turfway will install those machines.
Bach said losing the September meet sparked Turfway to try something different.
“The perception was we had lower-level, mediocre racing and they wanted the quality of Kentucky racing to be elevated,” he said of the commission’s decision. “… Not that this is an excuse, but we had maybe a week to come up with an entire scheme on how to do that.
“We figured out what we earned a year in purses, conservatively, and worked toward a number that was sufficient for the racing commission. Their goal for us was like $170,000 a day, and I think we ended up at $140,000. The only way to do that was to significantly reduce race days.”
Bach said that after the Derby, Turfway officials likely will meet with regulators and horsemen to discuss the meet.
“We’ll talk about what worked, what didn’t work,” he said. “We’ll analyze the situation and come up with the best plan we can for everybody.”
www.courier-journal.com/article/20130317/SPORTS08/303170093/Loss-Turfway-Park-dates-challenges-lives-dependent-track
Loss of Turfway Park dates challenges lives dependent on track
Written by Jennie Rees
FLORENCE, KY. — Trainer Susan Anderson had worked at tracks that raced only two days a week. But that was in Dubai, where racing really is the sport of sheiks, if not kings.
Today, Anderson’s 14-horse stable is based at Turfway Park, where in February and most of March it has raced only Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons after racing three days a week in January.
Like many of her colleagues, Anderson said “it’s very tough” to make a living with the abbreviated schedule.
“In the wintertime, you’re just scraping by, trying to make ends meet, waiting for the spring and other tracks to open,” said Anderson, a Cincinnati native who has been at Turfway and River Downs since returning from Dubai a decade ago.
“It’s really hard to keep owners, because they have to at least try to pay their training bill or break even. And it’s hard when you don’t get to run. I’ve had one filly I tried to get in six or seven times and just couldn’t get in. There just weren’t enough races for all the horses.”
At least partly in response to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission giving Turfway’s September dates to Churchill Downs, Turfway cut back from its three-day February-March weeks and canceled some of its stakes in an effort to keep daily purses from further erosion
With full fields, Turfway did well enough in January to increase its dates from four to eight in February. And it will race Thursday through Saturday this week, highlighted by the $550,000 Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati Spiral Stakes, a Kentucky Derby prep.
In general, owners and trainers don’t look so much at total purses for a meet or a day, but rather the money up for grabs in individual races. The idea is that less would prove more.
While total purses paid are down more than $1 million from the same time frame a year ago, average daily purses are up 7.5 percent and the average race purse is up 19 percent, according to Turfway statistics.
Still, purses did have to be adjusted when Turfway, at the behest of horsemen, added a pair of weekends at the end of February.
With only 20 to 30 races a week, field sizes were strong most of the winter, averaging 9.6 horses per race vs. 8.3 a year ago, though the numbers have tailed off this month as racing resumed at Hawthorne in Chicago and Mountaineer in West Virginia. While large fields were good for horseplayers, trainers and owners had the added frustration of not getting into races when more than the capacity 12 starters were entered.
For many Turfway horsemen and riders, relief comes not on April 5 when Keeneland opens, but rather April 23 when Indiana Downs opens its six-month thoroughbred meet in Shelbyville, southeast of Indianapolis near I-74.
But Turfway remains important, because if trainers were forced to give all their horses a winter break from training, they wouldn’t be “ramped up for the big purses in April, May, June, July,” said trainer Jeff Greenhill. “You’ve got to keep some level of fitness.”
Greenhill has won nine of 31 starts in this meet, including two stakes with his Spiral contender Mac the Man. In 2012, his horses earned a career-best $814,340 in purses, his best since his $507,196 in purses in 1998. He says the difference now is that Kentucky no longer is a real circuit.
“I never had to leave the state to make a half-million dollars,” he said. “Now to make that, that trailer is hooked to that truck and it never comes off. I might be at Thistledown today, Mountaineer tomorrow, Presque Isle the next day, Indiana Downs the next.”
Doug Coyle has wintered at Turfway since 1978.
“Five days to three was bad enough,” he said. “Three to two was a major difference, too. ... It’s a long week waiting for the weekend — and then you don’t get in a race. It’s hard to tread water in this situation.
“A lot of the owners have downsized, backed out for the winter. An agent said a couple of days ago, ‘Well, we only have 12 more racing days here. But the bad part is it’s going to take a month and a half to do it.’ ”
Each year, more Kentucky outfits head elsewhere for the winter, largely replaced with smaller stables. Trainer Bill Connelly, who lives nearby, took the plunge this year, keeping four horses at Turfway and shipping the rest to Florida.
“I want to be at home if I could,” he said.
The limited opportunities impact jockeys as well.
“It’s not good,” Norberto Arroyo, the meet’s leading jockey in his first year in Kentucky, said of the two-day race week. “Fortunately, I’m doing well, so I guess that makes up for the days we don’t race. I really feel bad for the riders that are having a slow meet.”
Perry Ouzts, who in his 6,000-win career has spent scores of winters at Turfway, goes up to Beulah Park to ride Monday through Wednesday. “Two days a week, you can’t make a living doing that,” he said.
But jockey Ben Creed says that, especially with high gas costs, it’s not financially viable to drive to Grove City, Ohio, from his home in Georgetown, Ky., given that Beulah’s purses are lower than Turfway’s. Instead, he spends the other mornings working horses at Turfway and in Lexington to drum up business.
“It’s a huge struggle for everybody, not just the jockeys,” Creed said. “The owners, the trainers, exercise riders, the (jockey) valets, everybody involved — everybody gets cut.”
Creed, third in the standings with 22 wins, says his financial goal for the winter is to break even before riding at Indiana Downs and River Downs.
“As long as you’re winning, you can make enough to pay your bills,” he said. “… I didn’t think it would affect me as much as it has, just losing that one other day. (But) if they don’t have the money for the purses, they just don’t have the money.”
But once Indiana starts, the Taylorsville product said, “the purses and jocks’ fees are so good up there that I can make more money up there and not even win a race than I can winning races here sometimes.”
Turfway general manager Chip Bach says no one is happy about such a diminished race schedule and that he understands the hardship put on horsemen, as well as track and commission employees who work only on race days.
Repeating the mantra of former Turfway president Bob Elliston, he notes that Turfway is one of the few tracks in the region that doesn’t have another funding mechanism for purses besides wagering — whether it’s slots, Instant Racing that resembles slots, horse sales, or the Derby. He says that if Instant Racing, also called historical racing, is declared constitutional in court, Turfway will install those machines.
Bach said losing the September meet sparked Turfway to try something different.
“The perception was we had lower-level, mediocre racing and they wanted the quality of Kentucky racing to be elevated,” he said of the commission’s decision. “… Not that this is an excuse, but we had maybe a week to come up with an entire scheme on how to do that.
“We figured out what we earned a year in purses, conservatively, and worked toward a number that was sufficient for the racing commission. Their goal for us was like $170,000 a day, and I think we ended up at $140,000. The only way to do that was to significantly reduce race days.”
Bach said that after the Derby, Turfway officials likely will meet with regulators and horsemen to discuss the meet.
“We’ll talk about what worked, what didn’t work,” he said. “We’ll analyze the situation and come up with the best plan we can for everybody.”
www.courier-journal.com/article/20130317/SPORTS08/303170093/Loss-Turfway-Park-dates-challenges-lives-dependent-track