January - Harness Tracks of America, Inc.

HARNESS TRACKS OF AMERICA
Executive Newsletter
A daily fax and e-mail report on racing and gaming developments in North America and beyond
Stanley F. Bergstein, Editor
January 7, 2008
SANTA ANITA TO HOLLYWOOD
Torrential, unrelenting rain -- 5 1/2 inches of it
over the weekend -- washed out racing at Santa
Anita Saturday and Sunday, including the
$100,000 Santa Ysabel and the $150,000 San
Pasqual Handicap. The problem, beside the
punishing rain, was the inability of Santa Anita’s
new Cushion Track to absorb water. With
the cancellation, California Horse Racing Board
chairman Richard Shapiro announced a poll of
his members tomorrow on the issue of allowing
Santa Anita to transfer its meeting to Hollywood
Park in Inglewood. That track also has
a Cushion Track, but unlike the one in Arcadia it
was not built to withstand 110-degree heat. That
decision -- called “an after-the-fact mistake” by
Cushion Track Footings technical director Paul
Harper -- led to serious drainage problems from
the start of the meeting, and Harper and his crew,
and Santa Anita track superintendent Richard
Tedesco and his ground corps, have been unable
to solve the problem. The entire surface was removed
and replaced in December, but without
adequate drainage the track is not safe for racing.
Cushion Track says it will replace it, a task
costing $6 million, and Santa Anita already has
spent $11 million on the installation and subsequent
maintenance attempts, according to president
Ron Charles. Charles was summoned to
Florida over the weekend to meet with Santa
Anita’s owner, Frank Stronach, concerning the
problem.
INTERIOR TO MONTICELLO: NO
The United States Secretary of the Interior, Dirk
Kempthorne, has for the moment ended hopes
of a San Regis Mohawk casino at Monticello
Raceway in the New York Catskills, and another
Indian casino planned for Sullivan county.
Kempthorne refused to grant Indian reservation
land in trust. The Mohawks say
they will sue Kempthorne.
SOME INTERESTING FIGURES
Ohio and Oregon have released handle figures
for last year, and they are revealing. In Ohio,
betting at HTA’s Lebanon Raceway, Northfield
Park, and Scioto Downs, and at Raceway
Park, all were down, a total of 14.3%. Scioto
was down 21.25% with two less days of racing
than in 2006; Lebanon was down 15%, with
two more days; Northfield was down 13.6%,
with the same 364 days of racing; and Raceway
was down 6.7%, with 362 days of racing in both
years. All thoroughbred tracks in the state also
were down, ranging from Thistledown’s loss of
14.55 % through Beulah Park’s decline of 9.5%
to River Downs’ 8.2%, with only a day’s difference
in number of racing days. Statewide totals
dropped 12.71%.
Oregon’s racing commission issued handle figures
for the last seven years. Hub betting was
negligible in 2000, but in its first full year, 2001,
Greyhound Channel, doing business then as US
Off-Track, had a high second quarter, handling
$3.168 million. In 2007, now known as Pay Dog,
it handled over $7 million in each of the first three
quarters of the year. TVG went from a high quarter
of $13.8 million in 2001 to $151.4 million in the
third quarter of 2007; AmericaTAB went from
$11.2 in the last quarter of 2001 to $62.3 million
before being acquired by Churchill Downs in the
second quarter of 2007. Youbet, which arrived
in Oregon in 2002, had a high quarter that year
of $42.5 million, and its high quarter in 2007 was
$133.3 million. The Racing Channel, doing business
as Oneclickbetting.com, handled $42.9 million
in its highest quarter in 2002, and only $10
million in its best quarter last year. XpressBet
entered the fray in 2005, with a high quarter of
$26.2 million, and posted $56.1 million in its best
trimester last year. IRG, in the same time frame,
went from $2.1 million to $87.3 million in its best
quarter. Churchill’s Twin Spires hit $39.4
million in its second quarter last year.