A Feb. 28 guest essay in the New York Times offers a master class in cherry-picking facts and narratives as it tries to make the case that taxpayers are paying billions of dollars to prop up horse racing.
As this essay fails to tell the full story in its efforts to downplay the racing and breeding industry's economic strengths, I thought it made sense to address them in this column.
The NYT essay begins by pointing to the lack of attendance at some Standardbred tracks as evidence that horse racing, including Thoroughbred racing, is dying. The long essay—it carries an option to listen to it if you have about 26 minutes to spare—devotes only one sentence on the record-breaking success of the Kentucky Derby (G1) and gives no mention of the massive crowds, handle, and ratings for Breeders' Cup and the other two Triple Crown race days. There's no mention of the thousands of fans that pack Del Mar, Keeneland, and Saratoga Race Course every day each spring, summer, and fall.
I routinely attend minor league baseball games where just a few hundred people turn out. If I took the same approach as this essay, I would suggest that that Major League Baseball is dying.
There's also no mention in the essay that a good deal of racing's fan base now interacts with the sport beyond in-person attendance. To continue with the minor league baseball analogy, it's safe to say that there are not people all over the country watching and wagering on that minor league game that draws a few hundred fans. But in the case of horse racing—even at tracks on days when the stands are largely empty—there is interest throughout the country (and beyond).
Just on the Thoroughbred side, more than $11.6 billion was bet on United States races in 2023—and only about 6% of that was wagered on-track. There's a television channel, FanDuel Racing, devoted to horse racing. Thoroughbred racing is featured 3-5 days a week on FOX Sports channels and its biggest events show up on major networks. Throughout the country fans bet and watch the sport on about a dozen different wagering sites available on their phones or computers.
But the essay sticks with the empty seats at Yonkers as evidence that the sport is cooked rather than detailing a model that has helped racing find a way for its fans to engage with the sport in the 21st century. A different writer might have noted that many other sports have followed racing's lead—offering options to enjoy their sports on the fans' own terms through highlights, social media, and wagering—all available in the palms of their hands.
Racing as innovator! But that's not the direction this essay went; even though other major sports have, on some level, experienced problems with empty seats as fans experience their sports in new ways.
After suggesting there's no interest in racing, the essay turns to its main point: Money from added-gaming should not go to the sport. As the article is interested in painting this money as handouts funded by taxpayers, let's spend some time to clear things up.
First of all, that added-gaming money only exists because of racing. For instance, Kentucky's answer to slot machines—historical horse racing—bases payouts on a pari-mutuel formula and determines winning combinations based on previously run races. It only makes sense that pari-mutuel wagering would benefit horse racing, as the sport invented this wagering.
This evolution of pari-mutuel wagering generates money for local, county, state, and federal coffers. These revenues that otherwise wouldn't have existed are benefitting taxpayers.
A 2022 University of Louisville study titled The Economic Impact of Horse Racing Tracks and Historical Horse Racing in Kentucky, found that HHR paid more than $17 million to local and county governments, $33.7 million to the state, and $34.3 million in federal taxes. This is pari-mutuel wagering benefitting people (and those benefits have only gone up since 2022).
Beyond HHR, some states have casino gaming tied to tracks. If you look at the full history on how these casinos received approval, it's fair to say that they only exist because of their ties to racing. First of all, states and local governments typically had to change their laws to allow such gaming. Without racing's political support, these changes likely would not have happened.
The racing industry understood it was opening itself to unprecedented competition, so it gave it's support of added-gaming with the understanding that it would receive some of the benefits. Without racing's support, voters and lawmakers in states such as Arkansas, Kentucky, and Florida would have been highly unlikely to support added gaming.
Like HHR, this "racino" money from added gaming has benefitted local and state coffers while keeping sales taxes and income taxes in check. And, a person who doesn't choose to participate in this highly taxed activity can easily avoid all of these expenses by not going to the HHR facility or casino.
As there's no attacking the numbers documenting the thousands of jobs and economic impact directly and indirectly tied to horse racing and breeding—often in rural areas where it's especially needed—the essay instead turns to tales about pay and fairness issues among backstretch workers. In focusing on some backstretch issues, the story doesn't offer much on the many other jobs tied to racing: jockeys, valets, racing executives and frontside workers, pari-mutuel tellers, veterinarians, farm workers, farmers (horse feed), truck drivers, stewards, chart callers, auctioneers, insurers, bloodstock agents, and media—just to name a few.
The essay even acknowledges that many horsemen treat their workers fairly; but apparently because it has a case to make, it details the exceptions. BloodHorse and the vast majority of the racing industry, of course, agree that racing's backstretch workers need to be treated fairly and in instances where they haven't been, sanctions should be imposed on offenders and, if needed, changes to the law should follow. But the essay seems to say that because of these few problems, an entire industry should be discarded—along with the thousands of jobs tied to it.
And no anti-racing opinion piece is complete without pointing to equine safety. Again, with hard numbers suggesting racing has made tremendous strides in improving equine safety in the past 15 years, the essay takes the same approach it did on jobs by avoiding the numbers and emphasizing negative anecdotes.
In 2024 tracks racing under the oversight of the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority—the vast majority of tracks in the U.S.—saw less than half of the instances of equine racing fatalities as recorded 15 years ago. Has any sport come further in injury reduction in 15 years? Isn't that the story?
For this essay, those numbers are not the story. It turns to describing a catastrophic breakdown in detail. The story gives no credit to the industry for spending millions of dollars and investing untold hours on improving equine safety to ensure that today these incidents do not occur 99.91% of the time a horse starts.
Obviously, BH will continue to cover areas where the sport could improve its safety, some of which are documented in the essay. But it's also important to note that strides in this area have been made, especially under HISA.
The NYT essay and the decoupling bill in Florida are the latest reminders that racing needs to continue to tell its story to ensure the current model is protected. Beyond that, it is important for the racing industry to strengthen its traditional economic engine—pari-mutuel wagering on live racing—while looking for new revenue opportunities, such as fixed-odds wagering.
Looking beyond racing, voters and lawmakers have long understood the need to subsidize agricultural pursuits. Those subsidies arrive with the understanding that there often are more profitable opportunities through land development. This type of support takes the form of subsidies paid for by taxpayers.
Racing and breeding, also an agricultural pursuit, has found a path forward through dollars generated by its own pari-mutuel economic engine, as well as added-gaming revenues that always have been tied to the industry.
Some of those added-gaming revenues are from a new form of pari-mutuel wagering and others only exist because racing supported changes to the law that allowed added-gaming. Voters and lawmakers in those racing states supported this added-gaming, in large or small part, because it is tied to the racing industry.
That support is well placed as racing and breeding carry a massive economic impact, especially for rural areas, while protecting green space. This model has also benefited taxpayers as they've avoided sales or income tax increases while new revenues from added gaming flow to the general fund to support any number of government services.
