Horse Racing Tracks Have Need for Workout Data

Is the “Maryland miracle” running out of steam? Ever since the late Frank De Francis and his partners bought Laurel in 1984, the business of the state’s thoroughbred industry has gone up, up, up. Betting at Laurel’s fall meeting, which was less than $1 million a day when the new ownership took over, skyrocketed to $1.67 million a day last fall. The renaissance of Maryland racing has been the object of nationwide attention and envy.

But the steady pattern of growth suddenly has come to a halt. Attendance and betting at Laurel’s fall meeting were down about 7 percent.

Joe De Francis, who took over the track’s presidency after his father’s death this past summer, says he isn’t alarmed by the figures. He points out that Laurel’s business was hurt in December by weather cold enough to deter even the most determined horseplayers.

The figures suffered, too, because of the brief cessation of intertrack betting at Pimlico as Laurel girded for a possible strike by employees. Moreover, De Francis said, “We’re down as compared to a meeting last year when we had that huge Double Triple carryover.”

These are legitimate explanations. But this downturn has occurred during the first race meeting since Laurel lost the leadership of the most innovative race track executive in America--and it showed.

Laurel’s efforts to attract more fans have depended overwhelmingly on giveaways and raffles. In the space of a month or so, customers have had the chance to receive or win fur coats, watches, portable radios, sport shirts, T-shirts and Thanksgiving pies. Under the direction of Vice President Lynda O’Dea, Laurel has one of the most aggressive, creative marketing programs in the sport.

Yet some experts question the usefulness of such an approach. Eugene Christiansen, a New York-based consultant who is one of the country’s top authorities on the gambling business, deplores giveaways, saying, “They promote the promotion rather than the product.” He says that a reliance on these promotions is “an abdication of a management’s responsibilities.”

Frank De Francis believed in combining these promotions with significant improvements in his product--the construction of the Sports Palaces at Laurel and Pimlico, the introduction of video-replay centers, the creation of the International Turf Festival and the Pimlico Special.

But there have been no dramatic improvements at Laurel lately. The only recent innovation, the introduction of Arabian racing, was a disastrous one that produced antagonism from horsemen, apathy from fans and a spate of negative publicity.

It is time for Joe De Francis and his partners to look for new ways to improve the sport in Maryland. Some of the items on their agenda should be obvious: Getting off-track betting legalized in the state and improving the treatment of intertrack betting customers and the flow of information to them.

But I would like to suggest one bold new idea for the track’s management to consider. Actually, it is an old idea, but one whose time has come: The creation of a system to insure accurate reporting for workouts in the state.

Nothing infuriates and alienates racing fans more than erroneous or nonexistent workout information. When a first-time starter appears in the Daily Racing Form with no published workouts, but nevertheless receives strong betting action and wins, horseplayers feel like suckers--as if the game is being played for the benefit of insiders and not for the public.

California has proved that it is possible to create a system that guarantees accurate workout information, and fans there love it. Yet no other state has emulated the California system. Track managements leave the responsibility and expense of gathering workout information in the hands of the Daily Racing Form, yet the Form has no power to insure proper identification of horses and no real sense of responsibility to the betting public.

The track and the state should take charge. They should hire clockers and pay them a decent wage. They should require that every horse be properly identified before he can come on to the track for a workout; an employee would be stationed at each entrance to the racing strip, and he would call the horse’s name to the clockers by walkie-talkie.

With horses in Maryland training at three different tracks, the system would not be cheap to implement. But the Sports Palace and the International Turf Festival and the other great innovations in the state weren’t cheap, either. Like them, a workout system would be a good investment.

It would be a dramatic and visible sign of Laurel’s concern and respect for the bettors who are its prime customers and whose wagering success depends on the quality of the information they receive.

And as the first track in the east to take responsibility for giving its customers accurate workout information, Laurel would once again assume a conspicuous position of leadership in the thoroughbred industry.