Japanese: Potential Force in Racing

Horse of the ‘80s? Spectacular Bid? Personal Ensign? Alysheba? The pollsters have been busy in racing as they have in every area, but the curtain was drawn on a decade of racing in a Kentucky auction ring, not in the reminiscence of equine heroics. With the drawing of that curtain came a glimpse of the ‘90s.

The decade hung by a thread when the men who have dominated American racing in the ‘80s walked into the sales pavilion at Keeneland in Lexington, Ky., two days after the sixth Breeders’ Cup was run at Gulfstream Park in Florida and cashed in their chips. The curtain fell with a thud on a troubled decade of racing.

Eugene Klein was the owner of the ‘80s, whose thick checkbook provided the rocket fuel for Wayne Lukas, the trainer of the ‘80s. Actually, Lukas was the quintessential manager of ‘80s horseflesh, operating under the guise of a trainer, and he dominated the decade statistically as no man has ever dominated thoroughbred racing.

Here are Lukas’ totals for the decade: 11 Eclipse Awards, seven Breeders’ Cup victories, a Kentucky Derby, a Preakness, a filly triple crown, a Horse of the Year title and almost $30 million in purses.

Less than a decade after selling the San Diego Chargers of the National Football League and placing his racing fate into Lukas’ hands, Klein liquidated his considerable equine assets (the auction yielded slightly less than $30 million), leaving him a financial loser.

Once six years of expenses and commissions were factored into an unforgiving equation, Klein’s ledgers bled red; his unbridled accomplishment, a matter of inarguable record, was achieved dearly. For every champion he sold in the long-awaited dispersal came a dozen liabilities. Tough business, this.

The checkbook of the ‘80s, having accomplished what no owner had dared dream in centuries of racing, is gone. As Klein was leaving, Kazou Nakamura of Japan made the final bid on the 3-year-old filly who will make it an even dozen Eclipse Awards for Klein in February, and purchased Open Mind for $4.6 million. The force of the ‘80s steps aside in deference to what is seen as the force of the ‘90s -- the Japanese.

“They’ve bought a ton of stallions, both here and in Europe,” said Dan Farley, Lexington-based American general manager for the International Racing Bureau. “Until recently, they’ve concentrated on European pedigrees with an emphasis on stamina, but they’ve been more active here recently and since they are prohibited from taking horses back to Japan and racing them, it’s likely that they will play a more prominent role in racing here. Open Mind, for instance, will remain in training and continue to race here, probably with a trainer other than Lukas.”

In Lexington, the men whose business is breeding horses see the Japanese as particularly welcome, amply funded additions to the international bloodstock market -- the Arabs of the ‘90s.

But regardless of who the players are or from what nation the money that fuels the breeding industry originates, the domestic issues racing faces entering the new decade are essentially those it faced entering t he ‘80s.

Racing’s most glaring shortcomings, as they were at the threshold of the ‘80s, are its industry-wide fragmentation, abysmally inept leadership in its most important market -- New York -- and the aging of its customer base.

The sport suffers from a lack of direction and singular focus that will be corrected only by the establishment of a national ruling and licensing body headed by a board of stewards, to which individual state commissions would be responsible. It suffers, in an age of equine air travel that enables horses to race in many states during the course of a season, from lack of standard rules and procedures -- particularly medication rules and testing procedures.

Although they face common problems and share common goals, little progress was made during the decade to move racing’s individual interests toward a consolidation of resources and effort. Racing executives, tenaciously protective of their individual turf, have failed to visualize the big picture, and virtually no leadership has come from its largest market. Its national organizations -- The Jockey Club, Thoroughbred Racing Associations, Racing Commissioners International -- are esstentially powerless and have little influence on the industry’s self-interested segments.

This deeply rooted fragmentation holds true at every level, particularly at the top. During the last two decades, beginning with its early ‘70s decision to decline the operation of off-track betting, the New York Racing Association has become an example of, if not the personification of, everything that is wrong with the industry entering the ‘90s. At least one NYRA executive has wondered privately whether the sport in New York will survive the NYRA franchise, which expires at the end of the 20th century.

Such concern is well founded, because it is a widely held belief that the decline of racing in New York can be reversed only after wholesale replacement of the current administration -- President Gerard McKeon and his top aides, senior vice presidents Martin Lieberman, John Keenan and Lenny Hale, after a new chairman is named to replace Thomas Bancroft, who will step down in early 1990, five months before the end of his term.

Under this group, New York racing has become an industry model of oversaturation of the market with year-round racing, declining quality of the product, alienation of the fan base and its own employee force, ineffective governmental relationships and benign neglect of its blithely oblivious board of trustees.

But the ‘80s was not an altogether negative decade for racing, and the positive developments will continue to have impact into the ‘90s.

--It was the decade during which the Breeders’ Cup was established and during which Churchill Downs and Gulfstream Park provided examples of how a racing association can work effectively with the business community as well as local and state governments to stage the event properly.

--It was the decade in which commercial sponsorship, which will dominate racing in the ‘90s, came into its own, a lesson that should have been learned from other sports and European racing years ago.

--It was the decade that saw the resurgence of racing in Maryland and Illinois and provided an example for the ‘90s of what effective, intelligent leadership and beneficial working relationships with state governments can accomplish.

--It was the decade during which racing’s presence on commerical and cable television and the establishment of several new racing periodicals resulted in unprecedented exposure for the sport.

None of this will mean very much unless racing also confronts the graying of its audience and finds more effective means to reach a younger clientele. To this end, it can learn much from the casino industry, which it considers its enemy. The lesson to which it seems deaf, said Tom Merritt, executive director of Thoroughbred Racing Communications, a media-service agency founded two years ago by the Jockey Club that has been highly effective, is the concept of convenience, creature comfort and entertainment as integral parts of the racetrack experience.