Keep Your Fingers Crossed About Texas Horse Racing

By GREG MELIKOV

I’m worried about Texas horse racing. Not many people outside the industry care what happens to it while the concerned can’t agree on how to solve the problems affecting thoroughbred horse racing in the Lone Star state.

Catch these doomsday comments by various parties in the industry posted on the Texas Thoroughbred Association online forum:

I think it would be better to be in the trailer business than the horse business because there are going to be a lot more Texas horses hitting the road.

If our legislators don’t get off their duff and do something, Texas will go down the tubes quickly now that we are surrounded with tracks that are receiving lottery money.

VLTs (video lottery terminals) would be great, but not having online wagering is just insane. With a state as big as Texas and tracks hundreds of miles away, account wagering would bring instant income into our industry from folks that love horse racing.

VLTs are a definite strategy that needs to be pursued and be the No. 1 initiative for many reasons. The tracks have to be the first destination that gambling is allowed in the state because that will at least ensure that the tracks always remain part of the revenue stream.

Here are the facts of life about Texas tracks:

Business at thoroughbred meetings is off again this year. Lone Star Park reported the on-track pari-mutuel handle for the ’06 spring meeting dropped 2.2 percent compared to last year while simulcasting and total handle figures declined 9.9 percent.

In fact, wagering statistics for all live Texas racing is down even more at the three major tracks from the first of the year through Oct. 22. Read ‘em and weep:

Lone Star: off 7.99 percent.

Sam Houston Race Park: off 5.65 percent.

Retama Park: off 17.38 percent.

Surprisingly, Manor Downs was up 7.86 percent and the Gillespie County Fairgrounds increased 1.74 percent, but their combined days were only 24. Their results have eased the total live average to minus 8.19 percent.

“We will not race thoroughbreds in 2007 . . . to build up sufficient purse money to open in January 2008,” Retama CEO Bryan Brown said. “We all know that if we kept the status quo, all our meets would deteriorate. Our purse levels will go up dramatically by doing this.”

Marketing/Publicity Director Doug Vair added: “Live handle suffers a little bit every year. The quality of horses slips a little bit every year.”

Purse money will go up 30 percent starting the next thoroughbred meeting in January 2008 instead of August 2007, he pointed out.

“The Texas Racing Commission did not approve the 2008 dates as they cannot do so until 2007,” Brown said. “But all parties involved — the Texas Thoroughbred HBPA, the Texas Thoroughbred Association and Retama — have agreed to the 2008 calendar and it is expected that they will be approved in 2007.”
With meeting adjustments agreed to by Sam Houston, Retama will race through March ’08. Retama accepted 12 days in ’07 that will go to Sam Houston next year and will transfer $500,000 from its thoroughbred purse account. Sam Houston will add another $500,000.

Lone Star Park will hold its usual thoroughbred meeting in 2007, followed by Retama’s 21-day quarter-horse meeting from May 5 on the eve of the ’07 Kentucky Derby through June 17. Then there’s a long hit summer until fall meetings.

Frankly, it doesn’t look good for tracks in the Lone Star State unless there’s a change of attitude in the Legislature about video slots. Texans, however, aren’t banking on it. Neither am I.

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Greg Melikov has been handicapping and writing about horses for decades. His articles and columns appear in print and on the Internet around the world. Greg is a retired newspaperman who became a racing fan at 13 when he saw 1948 Triple Crown winner Citation, his favorite horse, whip 20 older horses at old Arlington Park.