In our last one<\/a>, we promised that the Chicago native, Za-Za, would share his \u201ccure-all\u201d for harness racing, and we shall do so a bit later in this column.<\/p>\nAgain, just as the 36-year-old Nigerian C.E.O. of Red Lobster, Damola Adamolekun, read\u00a0complaints from customers \u2014\u00a0and did something about it\u00a0\u2014 to pull the chain out of bankruptcy into profitability, we have hope that it\u2019s not too late to pull our sport out of its fan erosion and pari-mutuel wagering deterioration to guarantee a healthy future.<\/p>\n
But misery loves company and harness racing has a lot of it as competition has taken away an untold amount of betting dollars through not only competition, but, the inevitable that claims everyone.<\/p>\n
The difference is that other sports and industries replace and restock to keep going \u2014 like items sold in a grocery store or restaurant or any supply store or any major, or minor, sports teams as players retire only to be replaced by kids that have graduated from high school and college sports programs to minor and, finally, the \u201cmajors\u201d like the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS. I call them the Big 5.<\/p>\n
Our grand sport is different.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a dog-eat-dog environment trying to make a living \u2014 very tough living in hours and dollars and cents \u2014 maybe that should read sense, not cents.<\/p>\n
Yes, a few of the young are brought up with horses but the vast majority are not anywhere near a horse and aren\u2019t even allowed near a pari-mutuel track and never are introduced to it.<\/p>\n
Yes, we have fairs throughout our land and the HHYF, which are so valuable to us, but it\u2019s a\u00a0drop-in-the-bucket number in our population of 330 million, compared to the sports that are peppered on our television just about every single day.<\/p>\n
It takes new seeds planted every day to keep growing and the only part of our collective industry that has\u00a0done so, literally, are the breeders, as we have witnessed the greatest speed explosion in history \u2014 some say that can never be witnessed again. How much faster can a\u00a0standardbred horse travel in one mile?<\/p>\n
As to one subject on which we have harped in the past \u2014 our aging fan base \u2014 well, that has been, pretty much, ignored the past 40 years as, virtually, few seeds have been planted to insure a future after we are \u201cclaimed\u201d one-by-one.<\/p>\n
BDHC member Marty P. probably had the best take on the subject saying, \u201cI\u2019m no genius, I like to bet horses proves that, but I think the value of land has helped kill the sport in the big cities, the populous cities, like Chicago, L.A. and Detroit and it certainly killed Roosevelt on Long Island. But it didn\u2019t stop there. Take, Philly and St. Louis, many others.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy place\u00a0[Chicago]\u00a0got the worst of it because we had Sportsman\u2019s, Maywood, Washington Park, Balmoral.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hawthorne\u2019s still there.<\/p>\n
Marty P.:\u00a0\u201cC\u2019mon, J.B., they are picking up a few scraps left on the ground. It has just about wiped-out horsemen. Just about every major large city found that their land values went so high that they didn\u2019t want to waste the land that was worth millions more. No matter how much someone in charge loves our sport,\u00a0I guarantee you\u00a0that, if some serious dollars are put on the table, all of a sudden, they don\u2019t love our sport quite as much anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, what does that tell you?<\/p>\n
Marty P.:\u00a0\u201cWhat does that tell me? What does it tell you?\u201d<\/p>\n
It tells me that our sport is only important to the individual participants, a handful of fans that can pick any track that are still racing on which to make a wager, and it\u2019s not important to the vast majority of our population. I\u2019m getting to believe that it\u2019s not important to the legislatures that support the tracks and the only thing important to the casinos is to find a way out of\u00a0the money they shell out to support racing. There are already questions popping up in some legislatures on why they spend so much on racing and get nothing in return.<\/p>\n
Now, on to the plenty of company we have in our \u201cmisery loves company\u201d headline.<\/p>\n
A.J.A. has made a yearly trek to Las Vegas, Sin City, for years to celebrate her birthday, and says that the casino industry is also feeling the misery as changes overtake the industry.<\/p>\n
The casino industry has come a long, long way since its days as a barren desert a century ago, when Bugsy Siegel opened his Flamingo Hotel in 1946. While Las Vegas became THE place as the gaming Mecca in the U.S., the scene is quite different today, as we know as there are at least 1,000 casinos and, some say, are as many as 2,200, all vying for the gambling and entertainment dollar.<\/p>\n
So, how was your birthday trip to Las Vegas?<\/p>\n
A.J.A.:\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s always great to get away there but it has been different over the last couple of visits.\u201d<\/p>\n
In what way, or ways?<\/p>\n
A.J.A.:\u00a0\u201cWell, when I first went there years ago, the buffets were affordable, maybe $15 or $20, depending on where you went. Now, you can\u2019t get a brunch for under $60, and go up from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pretty steep, but I am sure they are top notch.<\/p>\n
A.J.A.:\u00a0\u201cYeah, I am sure some are cheaper, some places but, when I celebrate,\u00a0I celebrate, and it\u2019s only once a year for a few days on the strip, and yes, they are very good but I weigh only 105 pounds and there is only so much I can eat. A few bites and I am done; 10 bites and two drinks and I\u2019m done. I couldn\u2019t afford this more than once a year. I think many other tourists are thinking the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
What other changes?<\/p>\n
A.J.A.:\u00a0\u201cResort fees. When I first came to Vegas, I could get a room for under $30 per night, and some places were less than that. Now they have a resort fee they tack on when you check out, and that can be, like, 50 bucks a night, just tacked on. Stay a few days get a massage and use the spa and nice dining and your hotel bill is $2,500. This isn\u2019t Dubai, it\u2019s Vegas, so it\u2019s that and what you lose playing the slots and seeing a show and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
See any good shows?<\/p>\n
A.J.A.:\u00a0\u201cThat\u2019s another thing. For me, they have priced themselves out of the market \u2014 $300 per ticket for some \u2014 and parking is very expensive. Personally, I think they are cutting their own throats; raise prices, less people come here. I have friends here that say the same thing. There are still people here, but not as many. One more epidemic and they\u2019ll all close down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Going back there for your next birthday?<\/p>\n
A.J.A.:\u00a0Probably not. I will save flight costs, hotel costs, buffet costs, resort fees, and whatever else, and just go to the Hard Rock, a few miles from home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yes, misery does love company! now, on to Za-Za.<\/p>\n
Za-Za is a Chicago native \u201cup-in-years,\u201d his words, who thinks harness racing needs a national audience, and here\u2019s his idea:<\/p>\n
Za-Za:\u00a0\u201cJust as we have a national lottery in most of the States,\u00a0[45 States along with D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands],\u00a0I think we should create a lottery system hosted by harness racing tracks that have 10-horse fields. It would have a similar structure as Mega Millions and Powerball with the winner or winners selecting seven\u00a0winners plus the tri[fecta] \u2014 like the Mega Ball \u2014 in the eighth race finale. I think we could get noticed by new fans all over the country and breathe new life into our sport. Just as baseball, football, basketball, hockey and soccer get major attention, this could draw attention to our sport. There could be a prize schedule for those picking anywhere from three to seven winners with or without the eighth race trifecta \u2014 our version of the Powerball number. It could be seeded with several million dollars. That\u2019s it!\u201d<\/p>\n
We have hinted at this before with the potential of revenue sharing with tracks, as well as helping organizations with aftercare of retired horses and, possibly, some kind of equine social program to insure their care and wellness.<\/p>\n
This will take a monumental effort by influential people in our sport, but well worth it for our future, especially when the value is nationally advertised as it balloons to $500,000,000 or more.<\/p>\n
May The Horse Be With You<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"by John Berry The phrase \u201cmisery loves company\u201d goes back many centuries \u2014 probably before Shakespeare and Dominick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-79409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-racing","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}