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NYRA has no shame

Posted by noonante on August 22, 2014
Posted in: Horse Racing, Politics, Saratoga thoughts, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , . 5 Comments

Late August in Saratoga is a special time.  The temperatures are starting to moderate and the late afternoon sun bathes the race track in a special light.  Thursday was not such a day.  It rained all night, so that by early in the morning, the New York Racing Association postponed the steeplechase stake and took the remaining turf races off the grass.  After scratches, the remaining nine races saw three five-horse fields, three with six and two with seven.  With dark skies threatening more rain, it was not an auspicious day for going to the track.  This is what it looked like in mid-afternoon:

 

DSC_2009                     DSC_1995 PS

DSC_2018                       DSC_2028

DSC_2036 PS                       DSC_2022

 

NYRA announced the attendance as 18,093.  This represents a 31 per cent increase over last year’s number for the same day, when it was “fast and firm” for the whole day.  NYRA’s cooking-of-the-books on attendance has been written about previously, with Paul Post of The Saratogian discovering that NYRA counts some 6,000 season passes in the attendance figure, whether or not a pass holder actually comes to the track.

What is not clear is why NYRA persists in falsifying the attendance.  At this point they may feel backed into a corner.  But no one believes their numbers  –  neither the racing industry nor the fans who do show up.  My theory is that NYRA is little more than an arm of the Cuomo reelection campaign.  No straight talk, just happy talk.

There has been speculation in the mainstream media that Cuomo is seeking to drive up his victory margin  –  you know, just like Chris Christie did last year before “Bridgegate” broke.  I mean he has even sued to keep Zephyr Teachout off the ballot, as if she could possibly pose a threat to $30 million in campaign funds and an incumbent who still has decent favorability numbers.

Were it not for that pesky United States Attorney hauling members of his Administration before a grand jury, everything would be rosy in Cuomoland.  We’ll just have to put up with the ludicrous announced attendance figures as we await the end-of-the-meet press release breathlessly informing us what a tremendous success the meet has been.  Perhaps they will explain how attendance could experience such a dramatic increase, but handle is essentially flat as David Grening has been reporting in the Daily Racing Form.

Differing visions for New York racing

Posted by noonante on August 18, 2014
Posted in: Horse Racing, Political/Social commentary, Politics, Saratoga thoughts. Tagged: , , , . Leave a comment

Martin Panza arrived at the New York Racing Association late last year following the demise of his prior employer, Hollywood Park in California.  He is now the Senior Vice President of Racing Operations at NYRA, and is responsible for the selection of races that will be on a race card at the NYRA tracks.

Rick Violette has been training horses for over 30 years and is a fixture on the New York circuit.  He is the President of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association and, in that capacity, is an ex officio member of the NYRA Board.  He brings a different perspective to the discussion on the future of racing in New York than Panza’s.

Panza’s signature innovation this year has been the concept of “Big Days,” a notion he believes is the future for racing.  The first such “Big Day” was Belmont Stakes Day.  He moved three Grade I races, including the Metropolitan Mile, from Memorial Day to Belmont day.  So what had been a big day in New York on the holiday marking the start of summer became part of the under card for the final Triple Crown race.  Not surprisingly with California Chrome shooting for the sweep, 100,000 showed up at Belmont  –  a crowd consistent with prior attempts at racing immortality.

The next “Big Day” was July 5, where Panza moved two existing turf stakes for three-year olds from other days, but bumped the purses for each to at least $1 million.  Three additional graded stakes were part of the under card.  Total purse money offered was  $3.8 million.  A grand total of 11,118  showed up.  NYRA officials were practically giddy at the tremendous success of this event.  By contrast, Monmouth Park in New Jersey, the closest competitor to Belmont, offered $400,000 in purse money and attracted 8,782 fans.  Its feature was an ungraded $100,000 stake.  The almost 10-1 differential in purse money attracted a mere 2,400 more patrons.  When reality set in, NYRA actually blamed the weather from the day before as depressing the “Big Day” turnout.

Whitney Stakes Day was the next “Big Day” where NYRA’s goal was to attract a Travers-type crowd of 50,000.  They fell short, drawing 36,318, or about three thousand more than last year’s attendance.  Of course, NYRA’s attendance figures are considerably suspect, as discussed in this post and this one.  One reason is that NYRA counts the 6,370 who purchased a season pass as attending, even if none of them actually showed.  If we make the generous assumption that half did appear, and subtract the other half from this year’s figure, the resulting number is actually smaller than last year’s crowd.

The next “Big Day” is, of course, the Travers.  The Travers is like the Kentucky Derby  –  it doesn’t matter what horses are entered or what the under card is.  I mean, do you think a Wicked Strong-Tonalist rematch is going to get the juices flowing?  It’s an event and people will show no matter the weather or the field.  Although if we had a match-up as compelling as Affirmed v. Alydar, we would expect a record-breaking card.  Even a California Chrome entry would make this year’s event much more compelling.

Panza may also be the inspiration for one of the most disturbing proposals in recent years in New York.  One morning I showed up on the back stretch and saw this:

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This is Clare Court, one of the most historic and picturesque locations at the Saratoga Race Course.  I was informed that this was a Panza brainstorm, replacing the white wood fencing with this metal monstrosity that he supposedly had back in his West Coast days.  While the fencing has since been moved, the dumpster still is there, not exactly contributing to the allure of this magical section of the back stretch.  I asked NYRA if the wood fencing was to be replaced, but they did not respond.

Panza’s latest headlines  –  at least in the racing media  –  were his thoughts on limiting the number of races run.  In remarks at the Jockey Club Round Table in Saratoga, Panza said that the declining foal crop meant the racing industry needed to reexamine the number of races it was running.  The numbers he cited are indeed disturbing.  From a level of 35,000 foals being born only a few years ago, the new normal seems to be 22,000.  That necessarily means there are considerably fewer horses that can fill race cards.  (New York, interestingly, has reversed a steady decline.  The foal crop increased by 19 per cent from 2011 to 2012.)

Panza raised the possibility of either reducing the number of race days or reducing the number of races run each day.  Other ideas that have been floated by NYRA’s Board include eliminating either the Belmont or Aqueduct tracks located down state, or even eliminating winter racing altogether.

Enter Rick Violette.  While he is no longer a voting member of the NYRA Board  –  his vote was taken away in Governor Cuomo’s legislation establishing the temporary and “new” NYRA  –  Violette is one of the rare members of the Board who is clearly knowledgeable about New York racing and its history, and is not afraid to speak his mind.  It is not clear, however,  if not downright doubtful, that independent voices are welcome in the rarefied chambers that now control New York racing.

But he is not a calcified remnant of the prior NYRA Board, having expressed his willingness to be open-minded and willing to experiment.  At last week’s annual seminar sponsored by Albany Law School, Violette did insist on fact-based analysis and a willingness on the part of those advocating experimentation to acknowledge when they are wrong.

The panel on which Violette appeared was entitled “NYRA Re-Organization:  Rounding the Far Turn.”  Reorganizing NYRA is one of the primary objectives of the law creating the “new” body, and is one of CEO Chris Kay’s three main objectives.  Kay declined repeated invitations to appear.  A NYRA Board member who did agree to show was a “late scratch.”

So Violette was left to explain how winterizing Belmont Park  –  and closing Aqueduct  –  was not only prohibitively expense and impractical, but would result in a diminished experience for those attending.  While he described Belmont as a “white elephant,” he said that adding a winterized surface inside the three existing tracks as would make it “like Gulfstream.”  It was not a compliment.

He went on to outline the devastating impact that stopping winter racing would have on New York’s racing and breeding industries.  According to Violette, many of the over 30,000 jobs dependent on those businesses would be lost.

Is Violette correct?  I do not know.  What I am fairly certain of, however, is that these issues require a full airing and discussion.  What we do not need is someone coming in and destroying a valuable part of an historic race track and also forcing dramatic changes on the racing program without a willingness to listen to contrary views, or to look at the objective evidence.

Why did NYRA start cooking the books on attendance?

Posted by noonante on August 3, 2014
Posted in: Horse Racing, Political/Social commentary, Politics, Saratoga thoughts. Tagged: , , , , . 6 Comments

In my review of the second week of racing at Saratoga, I opined that the increase in attendance was the big story for the week.  After a drop in 2013 attendance from the preceding year, NYRA reported an 11 per cent increase over 2013 and six per cent over 2012 for the same days.  (I omitted give-away days because NYRA had changed the reporting of those days from counting each purchase of a give-away coupon as attendance instead of just reporting those who actually pass through the turnstiles.)  It was good news for those hoping that New York racing thrive.

On Wednesday this week, I watched the racing from the backstretch.  The emptiness of the grandstand was of concern, particularly since the preceding Wednesday saw a three-year low of 8,044 in attendance.  When I say empty, I’m not talking about empty seats;  I’m talking about empty sections, some of which literally had no one sitting in them.  So I was flabbergasted when I saw that NYRA reported attendance of 18,500 for the day.

On Friday, I went over to the backstretch again, but this time took photos:

These two are of the clubhouse:

DSC_1917       DSC_1920

These are of the last six sections in the grandstand:

DSC_1926      DSC_1928

These photos were taken around 3:00, about halfway through the card.  Back in the grandstand area, there were minimal  –  if any  –  lines, at betting windows or concession stands.  The area around the paddock had a number of patrons, but I saw empty picnic tables.

NYRA reported attendance of 24,205 for Friday.

I’m no expert on estimating crowds from personal observation, but 24,000 people have to go somewhere, and these photos indicate they are not in the grandstand.  (I apologize that the club house photos are not that clear.)  A partial explanation arrived with a news article by Paul Post in The Saratogian.  He reported that NYRA counts all season passes in the attendance total whether or not the pass holder attends that day.  NYRA heavily promoted the passes this year before they “sold out,” and ended up selling 6,370 this year compared with only 1,402 in 2013.

Post quoted NYRA spokesperson John Durso:  “This policy is not new and was in place last year.  It is also the same policy used by professional sports such as Major League Baseball and the NFL.”

Neither part of Durso’s statement is actually true.  Let me rephrase that.  If the first part is true  –  that counting the passes as attendance is standard policy  –  those running NYRA should have some serious concerns.  It would mean that the 8,044 attendance on that Wednesday included 6,370 pass holders and only 1,674 paid admissions.  Monday of that week’s paid admissions would have been 2,974.

Durso’s comments regarding other professional sports also cannot be accurate.  The NYRA clubhouse season pass costs $50, as compared with a pay-as-go approach of $320 for the 40-day meet.  I could call the Boston Red Sox ticket office to see if they have a similarly discounted season pass, but know what the answer would be.

If Durso means that baseball and football count reserved seat tickets in the attendance whether or not the patron shows, that sounds right.  (Indeed, those same Red Sox were being ridiculed two seasons ago for claiming sell-outs when there were clearly thousands of empty seats.)  But, if he is talking about the reserved seat sales for Saratoga, that raises the question of whether those admissions are being counted twice.  The holder of a reserved seat ticket does not present it at the admission gate because the cost of the ticket does not include the admission price.

When NYRA changed its policy of counting “spinners” in the attendance on give-away days, Chief Experience Officer [sic] Lynn LaRocca said that the inflated attendance “adversely skewed the far more important business metric of on-track per capita spending.”  CEO Chris Kay has identified per capita spending as the measure of customer satisfaction with the NYRA experience.

As a matter of simple logic, if you include in the attendance figures people who are not there, you lower per capita spending  –  meaning, according to Kay, dissatisfaction with NYRA.   Monday, Wednesday and Thursday of the past week provides a remarkable contrast to the same three days last year.  According to NYRA’s attendance figures, total attendance for the three days in 2014 increased by 14,071, a remarkable 41 per cent boost.  What is more remarkable, however, is that the total handle decreased.  So, 14,000 more people were in attendance and bet less money!  The average daily per capita wagering fell from $175 in 2013 to $119 in 2014.  So, if we use Chris Kay’s formulation, customers are about 2/3 as happy with NYRA as they were a year ago.

I also did a simple calculation to determine what the real attendance figures might be this year compared with 2013.  I subtracted giveaway days from the total attendance.  Then I assumed that one-half of the increased pass holders actually showed up each day  –  a generous assumption I thought  –  and subtracted the other half from the total.  The result?  Attendance is down from 2013.

To answer the question of why did NYRA start cooking the books, I think the key day is that Wednesday when attendance was only 8,044.  I think they panicked, and saw their talking point of a vastly improved NYRA going down the drain.  So they came up with a way of inflating the attendance figures.

Spokesperson Durso came up with the typical refrain, according to Paul Post, that the “paid attendance figures are consistent, accurate and  –  as opposed to the past where spinners were counted in attendance figures  –  fully transparent.”  Well, we’re not talking about spinners.  NYRA’s change in that regard is the correct one.  We are talking about six sections of empty grandstand when NYRA reports attendance of over 24,000.

The NYRA response is the opposite of transparent.  They can report actual attendance figures but, according to Post, declined to do so.  (Durso also did not respond to my requests for information about either the make-up of handle figures or whether they have changed the way they counted attendance between this year and last.)

Why is true transparency  –  or honesty, if you prefer  –  important?

  • Call me a naive fool in Andrew Cuomo’s New York if you will, but I think government agencies  –  as NYRA is  –  have a legal and moral imperative to be open, accountable and truthful;
  • Obscuring the true attendance figures obfuscates the effect of the admission price increases NYRA implemented this year;
  • Inflating attendance figure prevents a meaningful comparison of Cuomo Administration’s NYRA policies and performance with those of the prior NYRA.
  • NYRA is supposedly preparing to return racing to a non-public structure as required by the law establishing the government-controlled NYRA.  The need for accurate attendance figures should be painfully obvious;
  • Most importantly, it prevents a meaningful assessment of the state of New York racing and the nation’s premier race meeting for 2014, and inserts in its place political calculation and manipulation.

The NYRA approach on this issue assumes we are all stupid.  No one with whom I spoke last week believed the NYRA attendance figures.  Some even laughed.  But there are thousands of livelihoods dependent on New York’s continuing to have vibrant racing and breeding industries.  I understand that those running the show may have different personal or political agendas, but please stop playing us for fools.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spa’s first week

Posted by noonante on July 23, 2014
Posted in: Horse Racing, Political/Social commentary, Politics, Saratoga thoughts, Uncategorized. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Saratoga’s first week is in the books.  As with so much else that differentiates summer in Saratoga during the race meet from the rest of the world, a week is not seven days.  The first week is only four days and the remaining six are six days.  Here are the observations of one person:

  • Quality of the racing cards is generally good:  In recent years, there has been an abundance of 5 1/2 furlong turf races and low level claimers, many of which were at six furlongs.  So far, we have been treated to a variety of races, including honest-to-goodness allowances.  Only three claiming races of $20,000 were run, and only six turf races at 5 1/2.  The fields were of good size except for the number of short fields on “giveaway Sunday,” where five of the races had fields of six or fewer.  I hope that is not an indication that NYRA thinks they can get away with short fields if they are giving away what they describe as a “premier prized mementos.”
  • But how much longer will these stakes retain their grade?  The opening day feature has been the Grade II Schuylerville.  This year’s running attracted a field of only five, forcing NYRA to make it the third race on the card to make for more attractive betting opportunities in the later multi-race exotic wagers.  I read somewhere that the winning Beyer was only a 68.  The CCA Oaks on Sunday was a Grade I event that attracted all of six entrants, none of whom had yet won a Grade I.  The purse was $300,000, which makes the running of Tapiture  Untapable in the Haskell a sensible decision given that a second-place finish there would be a larger purse than winning a race that had been a significant event for three-year old fillies.
  • Is attendance up or down?  It is going to be somewhat difficult to make meaningful comparisons between this year and previous ones since NYRA has decided sensibly to no longer include the “spinners” on giveaway days in the paid attendance.  But the Friday, Saturday and Monday attendance was about where it was two years ago, with the average for the three days being 56 customers higher this year.  Last year saw the meet open with such oppressive heat that the biggest discussion on Opening Day was whether to cancel.
  • NYRA’s cosmetic changes are mostly positive:  The new monitors are an improvement, and the added picnic tables in the backyard are less obtrusive than I expected.  Enlarging the downstairs clubhouse restaurant removed some of the benches, but still left some in place.  One negative on the picnic tables, however, is that by placing them so close to the paddock, the ability of fans to go to the paddock has been seriously restricted.  On the weekend, some of those tables near the paddock were covered by tents, meaning access was even more limited.
  • Who are the guys with NYRA badges who seem to have nothing to do?  I spent a delightful Monday afternoon just walking around in the backyard area.  I was struck by seeing several employees with the NYRA name tags who seemed to have nothing to do.  I realize they may be yet more customer service representatives  –  in addition to those at the “May I help you” stations upon entering the track  –  but it was kind of puzzling.  Perhaps if there was a bigger crowd they would have some work.

That Monday walking around made me realize how much we can take the Saratoga experience for granted.  While going to any race track can be a venture from the real world to a different, totally contained one, Saratoga is more akin to a fantasy.  It’s a beautiful facility located in the nice part of town, and features the best race meet in this country if not the world.  And it is but a short walk to a vibrant downtown or a short drive to beautiful country, whether it be the farms five miles away or the start of the Adirondack mountains 30 miles from here.

Yet it is a fragile environment for racing in New York.  The government-controlled NYRA is preparing a plan for the future structure of racing in New York.  One news report said the draft would be ready next month, but there is no indication that NYRA will share it with either the public or the tens of thousands whose livelihood depends on the racing and breeding industries.

Then there are the signs that NYRA’s management just doesn’t get it.  There is the limited access to the paddock.  They stopped selling clubhouse passes after marketing them in what I thought was a great way to blunt the criticism for increasing prices this year.  It is hard to believe that they are so strapped for cash that they would curtail one of the best fan-friendly initiatives they have  –  with the increased handle that would accompany those going more often because of the pass.

In a press release they issued after the first weekend, they actually hailed an event that show-cased an “all natural, cold-pressed, no concentrate, no sugar added juice” that you may only have seen in Thruway rest stops  –  I’m not making this up.  This would be the same weekend in which they gave up on an ill-conceived idea to limit the availability of a beloved, free newspaper, The Saratoga Special, which has done more to promote interest in Saratoga’s racing than all of their over-the-top press releases.

We should not lose sight of the fact that this is Chris Kay’s second year at the Spa.  After the fiasco the Belmont Stakes was for many fans  –  with no apology forthcoming  –  he continues to make rookie mistakes.

What is NYRA thinking on this one?

Posted by noonante on July 19, 2014
Posted in: Horse Racing, Political/Social commentary, Politics, Saratoga thoughts. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

There are many things that happen that simply defy belief.  There are the tragedies that seemingly occur everyday in our world.  Then there are the more prosaic matters that make wonder how anyone could be this stupid.  That brings us to the New York Racing Association and The Saratoga Special.

For those not familiar with the Special, it is a daily newspaper published during the Saratoga meet, distributed for free, and all about racing at the Spa.  That’s it, nothing but photos, articles, handicapping and thoughts about racing at Saratoga.  It doesn’t engage in gossip or negativity.  It is published by racing journalists who come to Saratoga from their Maryland base, rent a house, and then literally work as close to 24/7 as one possibly could.  I have never heard a negative comment about the paper or its chief honchos, brothers Sean and Joe Clancy.  That alone makes it a unique institution.

So why would NYRA want to restrict the distribution of a high-quality  –  and let me say it again, free  –  paper that promotes the Saratoga racing experience as no one else does?  If that level of obtuseness is not maddening enough, they dropped this proposal on the Special‘s crew the day before the meet began on Friday.  That’s right, a group in love with Saratoga moved into their rental house, passing up any other opportunities they may have had while devoting themselves to this project, and are told the day before that NYRA had a different idea.

NYRA’s leadership claims to have the goal of enhancing the customer experience and attracting new fans to the sport.  The Special furthers each of those supposed priorities.  I am starting to think, however, that the real priority of CEO Chris Kay and his bevy of recently hired managers is the perpetuation of their own existence.  There is a clear party line emitting from all those working for NYRA in a public capacity that things have never been better and will only get even more so.  So perhaps a straightforward and professional journalistic enterprise that does not spew the party line has no place in the “new” NYRA.

The Saratoga Special has been an important part of the Spa experience ever since they began publishing 13 years ago.  There are many things that are unique and special about Saratoga and the Special is one of those.  The current NYRA leadership should aspire to enter that fabric rather than trying to suppress an important voice.