One of the biggest mistakes that people make when evaluating racehorses is to place too much emphasis on time. A 1:51 mile on a summer night at Mohawk, when never leaving the rail in a race that has fast fractions, doesn’t necessarily mean that much if the horse wasn’t asked to leave hard, park out at some point, or do any real work. Quite often, when down a class the following week and asked to actually race a little, you’ll see the same horse get beat at low odds in 1:53 or slower.
In racing, it’s all about who you can beat and who you can’t.
When does time matter?
More and more it seems to me that time matters, and will continue to matter even more so, when it comes to how long most of our tracks take to run off a full card of racing.
I know that it’s an old argument, and that some people believe if we run the races off too quickly it will hamper things like handle and overall racetrack revenues, but recently I’ve experienced a number of things that tell me now, more than ever, we need to change things up a little in this regard.
Baseball: Detractors of pro baseball, for many years, had been vocal that games took too long and were therefore unwatchable in many ways. Many felt that there was too much dead time between innings and even between pitches, and that games too often took 4+ hours to play. The thought of making changes to ‘The Great American Pastime’ enraged so-called purists, but the game began with changes to the rules for extra-innings, and continued this year with many others including a pitch-clock. The early returns are in by the thousands, and including yours truly, a longtime fan of baseball just the way it used to be, people seem to be thrilled with the quicker games that have resulted.
Family: My own family recently spent a night at Mohawk Park. It was a night that took lots of planning and was eagerly anticipated. The group of between 15-20 people included at least six between the ages of 26 and 32-years-old. The racing on the Saturday night card was great, the food and service were excellent, and a fun time was being had by all. But even with all of that being true, by the 9th race the aforementioned ‘twenty-somethings’ had had enough. I was asked by my niece (her words, not mine) ‘Why do they drag the night out so long?’ There were 13 races on that card but we lost our younger generation after the 9th because they headed out to a bar.
Participant input: Most people in our industry are well aware of the help-shortage that our trainers have been dealing with for a number of years. It’s real, and it’s a serious issue. One angle that some people don’t see in that regard, is the connection between long, late-night cards and wanting to be a caretaker for a living. A prominent trainer texted me quite late the other night however, and said ‘It’s easy to see why nobody wants to be a groom when race cards don’t end until close to midnight and you have to be up at 6am the next day’. It’s a very relevant point that no longer can be ignored.
We’re living in a world of instant gratification - we all know that. Forget the name of a song or an old movie character 30 years ago and you might have spent weeks trying to remember it. Now, Google gives you the answer five seconds later.
When top professional sports make significant changes to their rules to speed up games, it’s not done on a whim. They look at analytics and focus groups to see what changes might peak both interest and revenue.
NASCAR has recently debuted rain tires on oval tracks because too many weather delays were causing their races to go long.
The NHL has put time restrictions on centermen lining up and getting their sticks down for face-offs because things were often being dragged out.
Do we think that we’re so different? Do we really think that we will attract a new, younger fanbase, or retain our current one with five hour race cards?
On big nights, with long lines and large crowds, there’s no doubt that the way we do it now is the way to go. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would suggest that running off an entire Hambletonian or North America Cup card in three hours would be a good idea. But like it or not - especially with legal sports wagering in effect - we are in competition with all sports for the wagering dollar. If someone bets the Blue Jays to score the first run of a game and they lose the bet, they can make a plethora of other bets instantly, in an attempt to recoup their losses. Why then, are we making them wait up to 25 minutes to do so in our sport?
If you’re going to argue that the wagering handle might shrink, and that track revenues in areas like food and beverage might drop, because people won’t be on-site as long, look at the big picture. MLB owners had to think that if game times dropped from a 4-hour average, to one that’s closer to 2 ½, they’d sell less beer and hot dogs - in the short term maybe they will. But if the rule changes make their game more appealing to the masses, as they seem to be doing, then they’ll sell more beer and hot dogs to 40,000 people in 2 ½ hours, than they will to 20,000 people in 4 hours. Both them and their sport will benefit.
What do we really have to lose? People - both customers and participants - are speaking, and we need to listen. If it doesn’t work we can always go back. But not until we give it a legitimate chance.
Personally, the Blue Jays game that I went to this year went extra innings, but the crowd was electric and we were still back home in the suburbs well before midnight on a work night. Will I go back again more times than I would have in the past? That’s definitely the plan!
Dan Fisher [email protected]