Comments on: He Alone Made it What it is Today

By: Marshall Cassidy

Marshall Cassidy — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 00:25:33 +0000

Yes, Teresa, I agree with you as control and participation have shifted from a privileged few… I agree to the degree that those who have replaced the privileged few are capable of sustaining the sport/business of horse racing.

That organized horse racing developed somewhere, in the Middle East perhaps, through the passions and financing of those who could afford their expensive pastime is not argued. That it spread to the English colonies and elsewhere through moneyed people is also accepted as history, no problem there either. Now that America’s wealthiest support a much smaller fraction of breeding and racing enterprises, such an economic conversion does not necessarily equally imbue any mantel of sustained passion to those who do lead our industry today, as you might also agree.

What might have been considered sport at one Finish Line Clubhouse box seat and business at another up the stretch in the Grandstand a hundred years ago, has mostly reversed polarity and diminished some of the sport’s halo. I’m not convinced today’s openness and democracy translate well enough for healthy growth beyond the latest televised super race, or speedy OBS two furlongs workout. I’m probably wrong, but there seemed to be a reliable foundation then that would keep it all going, from foaling to burial, from barn to barn, from race track to race track, from decade to decade.

Thoroughbred racing for Everyman is a noble goal!

By: Marshall Cassidy

Marshall Cassidy — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:53:18 +0000

Well put, and I agree with you.

By: Teresa

Teresa — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:08:41 +0000

I agree, Marshall. I like to think, or hope, that today’s racing world, different as it is, is also more democratic and more open than the older days…as much as I like to read about them and wish that I’d been around to experience them. The sport has lost a lot, certainly, but perhaps it’s also gained, as control and participation have shifted from a privileged few?

By: Marshall Cassidy

Marshall Cassidy — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 18:36:53 +0000

Matt Winn was certainly the dynamo American Racing could now benefit from philosophically as your writing suggests. But when I think what Churchill Downs has done with their Kentucky Derby over the years to further maximize the race’s popularity, and more importantly their corporation’s market value, I then wonder if the track’s current management might have corrupted Mr. Winn’s simpler vision.

110 years ago race tracks were equally competitive among themselves if not more so, but then their aims might have been more narrowly focused on regional and personal identity Racing issues. Today’s relative conglomerate thinking of major businesses such as Magna Entertainment and its subsidiaries, and Churchill Downs’ several corporations, ultimately serve the profitability interests of their stock holders’ accounts. Such considerations as a track’s bragging rights over who put on the best race, or attracted the best horse seem a lot less important in today’s story of horse racing, Matt Winn’s extraordinary talent notwithstanding.

No judgment intended here, really; just a small recognition that times are very different.