NEWS
Indiana impact: Opportunities for Midwest-based horsemen
Posted: Friday, February 17, 2012 8:55 PM
by Frank Angst
Kentucky’s Keeneland Race Course and Churchill Downs still offer the top purses and highest-class racing in the Midwest, but the region’s biggest mover in terms of improved purses in recent years has been Indiana.
Hoosier Park and Indiana Downs offer purses that are supplemented by revenues from slot machines at the two tracks and they boast geographic locations that allow them to attract horses.
Indiana’s location also supplies the Hoosier State with a competitive advantage. Two of the largest racing states that do not feature racinos—and the purse supplements that come with them—border Indiana: Illinois and Kentucky. In fact, none of the racing states that surround Indiana—Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, and Michigan—currently allow slot machine gambling at their tracks (Kentucky has Instant Racing at Kentucky Downs).
The added money for Indiana purses has proved effective in attracting horsemen to the state or attracting shippers from throughout the region.
In what may be a surprising statistic to some, the meets at Indiana Downs and Hoosier Park rank behind only the four stalwart Kentucky meets: Keeneland spring and fall, and Churchill spring and fall. Hoosier Park’s average purse of $26,858 and Indiana Downs’ average purse of $26,571 rank ahead of Kentucky’s smaller tracks, Ellis Park and Turfway Park; and Illinois’ largest tracks, Arlington Park and Hawthorne Race Course.
Things could change as Illinois, Kentucky, and Ohio are each considering the addition of slot machines at tracks. But as those states debate the issue, Indiana racing continues to prosper. In 2011, Indiana Downs offered 528 races, featuring an average field size of 8.7 horses. A look at its races shows that 44.9% of the Shelbyville track’s races were non-claiming events—stakes, allowance races, and maiden special weight races. Hoosier Park averaged 8.2 starters in its 537 races. It relied slightly more on claiming races, which accounted for 59.2% of its races.
In an effort to ensure slot machine revenue translates into a higher-quality racing product, the Indiana Horse Racing Commission sets targets to guide the open racing program into the future. A 2010 study determined the state’s racing industry contributed $319.1-¬¬million to the state’s gross domestic product and that the two tracks benefitted from purse supplements from added gaming. The report helped the industry fend off deep cuts proposed by some lawmakers.
“When viewed from a nation-wide perspective, a racetrack is either expanding or declining, but not standing still,” the report concluded. “When a racetrack is successful, it can afford to offer larger purses and attract better horses and athletes, drawing in larger incomes from pari-mutuel and off-track wagering, which then affords an opportunity to offer even more attractive purses. When a racetrack is less successful, purses decline and the cycle reverses.”
Kentucky blues
Indiana—a state with subsidies from added gambling surrounded by states that offer no such incentives—is in some ways the complete opposite of Kentucky. The Bluegrass State does not allow slot machine or casino gaming at its tracks, receives no purse subsidies, and is struggling to compete with nearby states like Indiana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia that do offer these forms of gambling and purse subsidies.
Kentucky’s smaller tracks, Ellis and Turfway, have been hit especially hard. In 2011, eventual champions Animal Kingdom and Hansen won races at Turfway before their defining victories of the year. Animal Kingdom won the Vinery Racing Spiral Stakes (G3) before taking the Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1), while Hansen won a pair of races at Turfway, including the Bluegrass Cat Kentucky Cup Juvenile Stakes, before posting a front-¬running win in the Grey Goose Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1).
While Turfway’s stakes races continue to bring top horses to the track, its daily purse opportunities have fallen in recent years although daily purses did improve in 2011 compared with 2010. In 2011, the average purse in the fall meet was $13,772; the winter-spring meet, $11,788; and the holiday meet, $12,175.
Turfway is trying to continue its top races while awaiting legislative help that would allow added gaming. In 2010, it discontinued the Kentucky Cup but in 2011, with sponsorship help from Kenny Troutt’s WinStar Farm, it returned the popular racing day with five stakes races, which included Hansen’s victory. In making a commitment to Kentucky Cup and Spiral Stakes days, Turfway features a program that commits about 25% of its purse money to stakes races.
While committing 25% of purse money to stakes races lags the percentages committed to stakes at Churchill and Keeneland, it is well ahead of other tracks that offer average purses similar to Turfway. Hawthorne Race Course in Illinois commits just over 13% of its purse money to stakes, Canterbury Park in Minnesota commits 21.9%, and Mt. Pleasant Meadows in Michigan commits less than 1%.
While Hoosier Park and Indiana Downs have surged well past Turfway in average purses, they continue to commit relatively small amounts of those purses to stakes races. Hoosier commits just 15% to stakes races and Indiana Downs just 9.8%.
Turfway President Bob Elliston said returning the Kentucky Cup day required cooperation with horsemen.
“We likewise appreciate the horsemen’s willingness to work with us to return this day to our calendar in the face of continuing economic challenges that are unique in this region to Kentucky racing,” Elliston said when the event was returned to the calendar.
Despite lacking the benefits of added gaming revenues, Churchill and Keeneland have built on tradition to continue the popularity of their racing products. Kentucky Derby day 2011 saw total wagering reach $165.23-million, which was the most since 2007. And the addition of night racing cards has helped bring new fans to Churchill. Keeneland has added innovations like a state-of-the-art tote board and Trakus to continue to attract fans to the Lexington track.
Still, Kentucky’s tracks believe added gaming would help them attract more bettors, who are lured to nearby Indiana riverboats; and larger fields, as more horses stay in Kentucky or ship in rather than race for the added-gaming enhanced purses in neighboring states.
While Kentucky’s larger tracks hope lawmakers will allow voters in November to approve additional gaming at their tracks, if that fails, more may consider the addition of Instant Racing games. Kentucky Downs added the games, which have the look of slot machines but use pari-mutuel wagering to pay off, in 2011 and Ellis Park plans to add them this quarter.
For a breakdown of Midwest purses, click here.
Frank Angst is senior writer of THOROUGHBRED TIMES.
READER COMMENTS
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Posted by: Diana, Seaman, OH on February 23, 2012 at 08:40 AM
Indiana has made major steps to improve the horse racing industry and that is why I breed Indiana. They have a great stallion line to select from and most of the farms I have visited are top notch. Go Indiana!
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