NEWS
Owners ready to invest $25-million in Thoroughbred Championship Tour
Posted: Tuesday, April 15, 2003
Dissatisfied with racing's recent attempts to expand its fan base, a group of leading owners is poised to invest as much as $25-million in the proposed Thoroughbred Championship Tour series of races that could begin in 2004.Plans for the Tour were endorsed on April 11 by the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association board of trustees after a TOBA committee spent more than one year developing ideas. Representatives of TOBA and the National Thoroughbred Racing Association board of directors were set to discuss the blueprint on Tuesday, and formal discussions with possible participating racetracks were to begin soon afterward.
"The reception we've received so far has been very favorable," said TOBA President Dan Metzger. "If owners are willing to invest $20- to $25-million to make the sport better, it gets people's attention."
Total costs are comparable to what the racing industry invested in the NTRA during its initial year of operation.
The Tour would include major races in six divisions linked to Breeders' Cup championship races and would provide a structure that fans could follow during a season beginning each summer after the conclusion of the Triple Crown races. Horses aged three and up would earn points by placing in the Tour races, and their owners, who would bypass similar non-Tour races, would earn lucrative bonuses when the Tour concludes with the Breeders' Cup World Thoroughbred Championships.
"We have completely missed the boat on how to capitalize on fan appeal," said Robert McNair, owner of Stonerside Stable and the Houston Texans National Football League team who has co-chaired TOBA's Tour committee with John Phillips of Darby Dan Farm near Lexington.
"I think this can have a very significant impact," McNair said. "Hopefully, we can generate additional fan interest in racing. [The Tour] would be like a league with a season. It lets the fans follow the horses through the season."
Owners also plan to emphasize some of their political positions in the venture. Handicap races would not be included in the Tour, which would embrace only weight-for-age events, and stringent medication rules would be enforced, Metzger and McNair said.
They declined to release details about which races would make up the Tour until after discussions with racetracks, although Metzger indicated that specifics could be forthcoming prior to the Kentucky Derby (G1). TOBA leaders have been meeting with owners and breeders privately for months to kindle support for the series, which would revolve around monthly national telecasts.
"We're going to have to underwrite the program," McNair said of anticipated costs, including television. "I think there are enough owners and breeders out there who have interest in this that I think that will be no problem.
"We are moving ahead with all due haste," he added. "I'd love to see it happen by next year."
Lexington advertising executive Kip Cornett has assisted the group with communications services during the private briefings and said he is willing to become more involved.
The meeting with NTRA officials, including Commissioner Tim Smith and Vice Chairman D. G. Van Clief Jr., who also serves as president of Breeders' Cup Ltd., will be crucial, Metzger said. NTRA and Breeders' Cup hold the television rights to many of the proposed Tour races.
"We want them to be strategic partners," Metzger said. "We don't want to reinvent the wheel."
Tom Meeker, president of Churchill Downs Inc., and Jim McAlpine, president of Magna Entertainment Corp., will represent the NTRA board in the discussions, along with John Van de Kamp, Thoroughbred Owners of California president, and G. Watts Humphrey, a TOBA trustee.—Michele MacDonald
