HPBA Convention Kicks Off in Florida

Horse racing fans are those who “bring home either a stuffed horse or a Breyer figurine. The horseplayers are helping you make your payroll.”

Steve Byk, host of the weekday radio show “At the Races with Steve Byk” as well as a horse owner and bettor, made that distinction during a forum entitled “Working with, not against, professional gamblers.”

The panel was part of Thursday's opening day of the National Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Associations' winter convention at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort.

Byk implored horse owners and trainers, when being interviewed after winning a race, to make acknowledging the bettors a common practice, as well as the need for horsemen to better explain what they are doing.

“I would urge everybody to make a concerted effort… to identify the players by name: the horseplayers,” Byk said. “'I want to thank the bettors; I want to thank those who got behind and made her the favorite.'

“The horse-playing community has a perception that the industry doesn't care… Since we do have a parimutuel system and because it is feeding the purses, it's important that we all acknowledge and show appreciation that is appropriate… It's a tripod: There's the bettors, the connections and the racetracks. None of it stands if one is missing. But the horseplayers feel they are the forgotten part of the industry equation. They feel put upon.”

Byk said horsemen can do a lot to mitigate some players' cynical view that nefarious forces are working against them.

“If you have the opportunity to explain to a reporter or into a microphone how that horse claimed for $10,000 just won for $25,000, explain it to the public,” Byk advised. “'The horse has a sensitive mouth, and we went to a leather bit.' … Everything that can be made to help people again understand what's going on out there, will go a long way.”

Panelist Christina Bossinakis, services director for the Owners Concierge program of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association, said discussions will often champion the cause of horse owners or horse bettors, but not acknowledge the considerable overlap.

“[Owners] bet a lot of money as well,” she said. “One thing I've found interesting is a correlation between track hospitality in terms of how they take care of their owners, how they feel about their owners and level of service they give their owners, but also how they take care of their bettors… The tracks most involved in taking care of their owners are also the ones who are most involved in taking care of their bettors, especially their high-end bettors. Really, you can't take care of one without taking care of or addressing the other group.”

Dick Powell, a long-time industry consultant whose clients include the rebate shop Racing and Gaming Services, said the industry not only doesn't treat its biggest bettors very well “but they are in many ways demonized.

“They are the subject of intense suspicion about how they are winning,” Powell said. “We just saw the NHC (National Handicapping Championship). Some serious horseplayers dominated that competition… and they do that year in and year out because they are good at what they do. Somehow as an industry we've gotten away from who our customers are and have this mentality against big customers that makes no sense at all. Show me an industry that can reject technology and demonize its biggest [customers] and succeed. There is none. No one can, yet we still do it.”

Also Thursday, Ed Martin, president and chief executive officer of the Association of Racing Commissioners International, said other sports industries have the same problems, but they don't bash themselves publicly in order to effect change.

“When the NFL had their domestic-abuse problem, what did they do? You didn't see the owners talking down the sport,” Martin said. “They talked about what was right with the sport, [and] they dealt with the problem… The most productive thing you could do for this industry right now is not to keep digging down but to be part of a consensus-building process.”

A public relations panel said the industry can counteract distortions and inaccuracies about the sport by getting out its stories through social media.

“You have more power to influence thinking, thoughts, opinions than you've ever had,” said digital strategist Tim Campbell, founder of the Lexington-based Blue Million LLC, which has redesigned the National HBPA's website to be launched in several days.