ARC Day 3
MEDICATION A MAJOR FOCUS AT ARC
By Michele MacDonald
A day after an international racing leader suggested a single set of rules for elite racing worldwide that could penalize American racing if medication remains legal, The Jockey Club President James Gagliano strongly voiced his organization’s view that drugs be banned in competition.
Speaking to the Asian Racing Conference in Hong Kong on May 7, Gagliano employed clear words following the previous day’s salvo from Brian Kavanagh, Chief Executive of Horse Racing Ireland and Chairman of the European Pattern Committee.
“Medication reform remains our highest priority,” Gagliano said before reaffirming The Jockey Club’s position that “horses should compete only when they are free from the influence of medication.”
Just hours after the ARC began its three-day run of business meetings, Kavanagh called for the establishment of a global set of rules that would bar medication use in competition. Kavanagh made the proposal during discussion about Pattern racing and utilization of the Longines World’s Best Racehorse Rankings to promote the sport and its top runners.
Medication clearly remains a high-level topic among racing leaders. International Federation of Horseracing Authorities Chairman Louis Romanet reported that IFHA executive council members, during a private meeting on May 5, had unanimously endorsed an anti-doping and equine welfare policy that included a provision for a total ban on race-day medication.
“We know it will be difficult to implement in some parts of the world in all races,” Romanet said in an apparent reference to the United States, “but at least it should be done for all group and black-type races that make the breed.”
Other major sports do not allow different rules in various jurisdictions, and neither should racing, asserted Kavanagh, who serves as an IFHA vice chairman along with Gagliano.
“I believe that the IFHA must move to a single worldwide set of rules relating to medication and we simply must find a way of ensuring that these rules can be enforced in all member countries,” said Kavanagh, whose comments came while he was addressing the integrity of the racehorse rankings and the graded/group races that are the backbone of the ranking system.
“I realize this is not straightforward in some countries, but in order to have value and integrity for our global rankings and our black-type system in sales catalogs, it is simply where we must go,” Kavanagh said.
His comments seemed to point directly at the U.S., which conducts more racing than any other nation and runs the most Grade 1 races in the world yet is among the relatively few major jurisdictions allowing medication in competition.
“I do firmly believe, for the integrity of sales catalogs and for the integrity of the rankings, that we have to be talking about a level playing pitch in the sport,” Kavanagh said.
Currently, four of the top 10 highest-ranked racehorses in the world are based in the U.S.: Game On Dude, second by five pounds to Japanese leader Just a Way, who is ranked at 130; Will Take Charge at 123; California Chrome, 122; and Lea, 121.
During the IFHA’s annual meeting in Paris last October, Kavanagh had suggested that races allowing medication perhaps should be denoted with an asterisk or otherwise segmented within the industry due to differing standards.
ARC delegates seemed to share Kavanagh’s sentiments that racing under which medication is allowed should not be viewed as equal to competition that bars drugs. A poll among conference attendees resulted in 82% agreeing that black-type designations should be linked to medication rules.
In other words, a significant majority of ARC delegates believe that races allowing medication should not be recognized by worldwide authorities and sales companies as a validation of quality in racehorses and bloodstock.
When asked about Kavanagh’s proposal, Gagliano replied that it is a “non-starter.”
Carl Hamilton, chairman and chief executive officer of The Jockey Club Information Systems Inc., reacted with stronger words.
“To use black-type or grades of races as a vehicle to put pressure on our medication policies will have the opposite effect to what some want to achieve– harmonization of rules.” Hamilton said. “In fact, the result could be the implosion of a number of international committees. There are times we feel this type of talk is purely commercially motivated by certain countries.”
While he declined to discuss further which entities may be targeting the U.S. commercially by using the medication issue, Hamilton noted that American officials typically don’t get much feedback, constructive or not, from other nations on the medication issue.
“Outside of these conferences, these individuals don’t really approach us about this topic,” he said.
The Jockey Club officials have noted that the IFHA is not a regulatory body with the power to enforce regulations, but rather a member organization that works to harmonize rules and racing structures and policies worldwide.
However, IFHA officials–through their unanimous policy agreement and in individual comments–appear steadfastly committed to ending the use of medication in racing.
“One has to say, long-term, that is something we definitely have to achieve,” said Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges, Hong Kong Jockey Club Chief Executive and IFHA vice chairman, although he conceded that it will take time.
In the interim, racing officials should begin by taking a stand that anabolic steroids “have no place in racing” and horses should not be allowed to compete for at least six months after being given steroids, Engelbrecht-Bresges said. Some jurisdictions already have acted to prohibit the use of steroids in racehorses and in horses sold at public auction.
“This is a platform we can build on,” Engelbrecht- Bresges continued. “I personally feel we have to work together and I am confident we will be able to do it.”
During further discussion in an ARC session titled ‘Fair Competition and Drug Control,’ Gagliano said The Jockey Club would support any measure, including ones proposed by or through U.S. federal intervention, that would create uniform drug rules across all states.
Federal regulation would not be an easy process to establish, he noted, but added that “I see more and more [American racing] stakeholders interested in a federal solution.”
Building Customer Connections…
By Michele MacDonald
Availability of burgeoning consumer data as well as unprecedented avenues to directly connect with customers offer horse racing the inside track to improving business in an increasingly competitive world, delegates to the Asian Racing Conference were told on May 7 in Hong Kong.
The conference’s theme, “Customer. Connect. Compete. Create,” leapt to life during a discussion on how to reach out to new and existing customers and generate business from them.
Richard Cheung, Hong Kong Jockey Club Executive Director of Customer Service and Marketing, revealed how the HKJC turned around declining revenues in a five-year period by first identifying four key customer groups (from newcomers to club members) and then working through four “levers” to attract those groups (racetrack ambiance, digital experience, innovations in data and positioning in popular culture).
Knowledge of customers through gathering and analysis of data about their preferences and habits and then utilization of that information in marketing is the winning formula, Cheung said.
“At the Hong Kong Jockey Club, we rely a lot on data-mining and that is a big advantage to us. We have identified customers’ changing needs and we know what they want,” he explained.
Not only has the HKJC set the pace in the racing world with development of new kinds of data about customers and potential customers and with creation of new types of technology for wagering, it also has led the field in finding digital means to capitalize on that information. The club’s efforts have been focused on drawing in many young fans, which had been a key goal after HKJC officials determined that most of its customers were over 50 when handle plummeted to a low in 2006.
With wagering growth in the past four years concentrated on mobile platforms, the HKJC has concentrated on distribution through mobile channels while also shifting marketing initiatives to social media.
“Moving things from the PC platform to the mobile and tablet platform is a must for us and it constitutes more than 80% of our digital experience work,” Cheung said, adding, “With a social media network, it’s almost free to reach people with the latest updates.”
Since the HKJC has identified that customers want higher pay-outs without having to study detailed racing form or complicated betting instructions, the club has sought to develop new or upgraded bet types, including the Quartet, which now generates about US$1.5 million in handle per race.
Drawing on the expertise of American-based company Longitude, the HKJC relaunched the Quartet bet in January with technology first used in financial markets to provide advanced pari-mutuel calculations at a very high speed with real-time odds display for all possible combinations. Such information is a breakthrough in a market like Hong Kong, which offers great liquidity for bettors.
Additionally, as Cheung described it, Longitude is also involved in a composite win bet innovation that allows splitting a single bet among several horses that is weighted depending on the odds as they constantly change.
“In everything we do, we try to be data-driven,” Cheung said. “This matches customers’ desire to catch odds movements.
Thomas Ascher, Longitude Chief Executive Officer, said his company’s work with technology wouldn’t have been possible a decade ago.
“Longitude first invented [the technology] for financial markets–to deconstruct the pricing into tiny pieces, every possible outcome, and putting them together in the perfect order and coming up with the odds perfectly balanced in the fraction of a second. Ten years ago, that would have taken about a day,” Ascher said.
In today’s world, he suggested to racing leaders that “the only limit to what you can do and what your customers can do is your imagination. You can use processing power and allow people to define their own futures.”
While data is essential to innovation and wagering growth, racetrack ambiance and connection of racing to popular culture also are highly important, Cheung noted. Under its master plan, the HKJC has invested in redesigning parts of its track facilities to provide hip and luxurious accommodations for both younger and wealthy customers.
The HKJC also tries to harness celebrity star power to promote racing and works to connect racing with popular culture, such as enlisting well-known Chinese artist Xu Beihong to paint horses for a video promotion of racing in the current Chinese Year of the Horse.
Innovations in Racing TV Coverage…
By Michele MacDonald
When Felix Baumgartner jumped from the edge of space and plummeted about 24 miles before softly parachuting to the red earth of New Mexico in 2012, the pioneering technology that recorded and broadcast his history-making leap live powerfully suggested that new developments in television can be applied to sports.
Horse racing could be one of the beneficiaries of this emerging technology, delegates to the 35th Asian Racing Conference were told yesterday.
Joerg Heise, Managing Director of Riedel Communications, the company that played an integral role in Baumgartner’s Red Bull Stratos Mission, said during a panel discussion of cutting-edge technology in television that such new capabilities can put viewers virtually on the backs of racehorses.
These applications undoubtedly will increase fascination with sports and stir emotions, which will be instrumental in getting people to spend money, Heise said.
Already, Riedel is working with the Hong Kong Jockey Club in testing cameras the size of dimes mounted on jockey helmets.
While some of this advanced new technology can be expensive, it also has the potential to multiply returns. The Baumgartner jump cost about $50 million in total, Heise said, but with more than eight million live streaming transmissions, the coverage value would have been about $500 million.
“I’m not suggesting that you need that kind of investment to achieve compelling results, but what is compelling is the ratio of the investment with the return,” Heise said. “You can scale it down to your requirements.”
During the same discussion, Oonagh Chan, head of broadcasting services with the Hong Kong Jockey Club, reported that the HKJC is pushing ahead to make television more of an interactive medium with fans rather than a passive one. With people in Hong Kong owning at least two mobile devices on average, “live horse racing in Hong Kong has to change,” she said in order to reach fans in this increasingly mobile world.
The HKJC has developed a special platform where fans can log in to an application from their tablets during racing programs and obtain access to video shots and information, including statistics, not available on television or elsewhere. The app also allows fans to see entire 360 degree views of the paddock, for example, by simply turning to look in each direction. Thus, they can find and watch specific horses or take a look at who might be in the parade ring prior to a race.
Customers can also use the app to chat with each other and send messages. Their handicapping selections are reviewed and sometimes posted by HKJC moderators who feel they have particular merit, and thus a fan community is stimulated, Chan said.
Research has shown that social engagement with sports through television is growing by 50% a year, Chan noted, adding that these social communities “incubate your fans, especially your younger customers.” With sports events dominating twitter conversation about TV in 2013, “we can’t be sitting there and waiting for other sports to absorb our customers–we have to be moving ahead,” she said.
Looking to the future, the HKJC is testing video stitching technology with high definition cameras that would provide a 180-degree view of racing that viewers could interact with by zooming in to see specific horses during the running of a race, for example. Employment of that kind of technology might be only about two years away, Chan said.
Emergence of a Racing Superpower…
By Michele MacDonald
Many racing leaders might claim that their racing operation is the best in the world, but few could back up that kind of claim with a range of profound statistics in the manner employed by William Nader, Hong Kong Jockey Club Chief Executive of Racing, during an Asian Racing Conference session May 7.
“We have the best racing model in the world,” said Nader before quoting famed American boxer Muhammed Ali to underline his point: “It ain’t bragging if it is true.”
With only seven million inhabitants and two racetracks, Hong Kong racing surpassed American racing in total wagering several years ago, with 2014 forecasts indicating US$13.2 billion will be bet on the Hong Kong sport with $10.7 billion on American racing, Nader said.
Showing just how dramatically the global landscape has changed, America dwarfed Hong Kong in betting just eight years ago, with a total of US$14.8 billion in wagering compared to US$7.7 billion. Nader observed that Hong Kong wagering continues to rise and could eclipse Australia’s total this year for the first time.
Remarkably, an average total of over US$17 million is bet on every race in Hong Kong, and the Hong Kong Jockey Club is just beginning its initiatives with commingled pools around the world. After setting up commingling with the United States, the HKJC now is aiming to open up commingled wagering next year with Europe, Singapore, Macau, Australian, New Zealand and South Africa.
But betting was just one part of the Hong Kong racing picture shared by Nader during a session in which racing executives profiled their nation’s industries. Under the Hong Kong model, the largest measure of racing revenues are dedicated to government and charity, and the Hong Kong Jockey Club will funnel about US$1.5 billion to the government this year to support public projects.
The HKJC has built up the sport to be among the most prestigious activities in the region and maintains four clubhouses for 23,000 members, including a facility in Beijing. Demand for horse ownership is exceedingly strong, but supply is extremely limited, with only 330 permits given out by ballot a year, and individual owners are barred from owning more than four horses.
Most of the horses competing in Hong Kong are imported from Australia (about 40%), New Zealand (30%) and Europe, Nader said. Only 24 trainers are licensed and up to 25 jockeys, all of whom undergo extensive background checks as part of the HKJC’s attempts to maintain the utmost integrity in Hong Kong racing and wagering.
“Only people of the highest reputation and standards are invited to participate in our racing,” Nader said.
To run this huge sporting machine, the HKJC employs 5,700 full-time staff and another 18,000 part-time workers. As part of its vertically integrated structure, the HKJC employs all the clinical and regulatory veterinarians on its staff, and those professionals conduct pre-race inspections of all horses the day before they compete as well as oversee all medications and supplements, which must be provided by the official club pharmacy.
The HKJC testing laboratory is renowned worldwide and has never returned a false positive test in 44 years. Last year 22,000 samples were analyzed, and random testing is done even with feed and bedding.
The quality of racing in Hong Kong has consistently risen along with wagering, and currently there are
21 Hong Kong-based runners included in the World’s Best Racehorse Rankings. Five of Hong Kong’s international Group 1 races are considered among the world’s top 50 races by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities, Nader said.
For the future, the HKJC is building a training center in Conghua on mainland China, which is clearly a target for wagering development as authorities there ponder whether to allow racing with betting. The training center should be open by 2018, Nader said.
Connecting Racing with Popular Culture…
By Liesl King
Best-selling Australian author Don Watson opened Wednesday’s Plenary Session titled ‘Connecting racing with popular culture’ with the intriguing question: “Why does one want to own a racehorse?”
Watson went on to point out that the average racehorse causes more heart ache than it causes joy. “Horses are fragile things, they drop dead, they break down, need long spells and the majority of them are just too slow,” said Watson. “So why do we persist?” Yet there has to be a reason why so many people own racehorses and keep on acquiring them.
According to Watson, the answer lies in the horse and in the age-old relationship that has existed between man and horse. “We are wired to the beasts,” he explained. They have exercised and inspired our imagination for centuries. An animal that just happens to have a gap between its molars where a bit would fit and with a finely tuned flight instinct honed in age when they were easy prey for sabre-toothed tigers. “Of course,” Watson added with a twinkle in his eye, “that’s probably why we have to put blinkers on them, as there is bound to be a sabre-toothed tiger lurking in that car park adjacent to the home straight.”
Jokes aside, Watson has probably owned thirty odd horses during his lifetime and he has certainly heard every excuse in the book as to why a particular horse could not win a particular race. “Besides the physical limitations of the horse, you have the added influences of the state of the track, the vigor of the jockey or lack thereof and the trainer, farrier or vet’s ability to keep it fit, sound and healthy,” Watson said. “Then there is a gene that kicks in to remind the horse that it is a leader and should fight to the end or that it belongs back in the herd.”
Yet people still want to own horses. Watson points out that much of his childhood was spent dreaming of an ordinary horse belonging to his father’s friend, before he switched the focus of his attention to a magnificent chestnut sprinter called Vain. Vain was a champion, but as Watson pointed out, you need to own ordinary horses to understand how freakish the champions are. So are we any closer to figuring out why people would even want to own a horse or follow horse racing?
According to Watson, the one thing that connects racing to the popular culture is a charismatic horse, a champion that is the face of racing. The ones that write themselves into the history books and fire the imagination of ordinary people.
Yet racing does very little with is champions, treating them almost as an accessory, he argues, and therein lies the cause of some of the disconnect between racing and popular culture.
To conclude, Watson ends with another question, one he came across in a questionnaire once: “What would make owning a racehorse more attractive to you?” The simple answer, according to Watson: Owning a better horse, of course!
Bill Barich, lead writer for the TV series “Luck” agreed, pointing out that when he spent 10 weeks on the backstretch of a racetrack, the stories people told him always involved a horse. Racing may be a confined universe, where peoples’ lives are completely enmeshed, but it is a great leveler, a great democracy and at its center is the horse. The horse provides that spark of life, the excitement and the noise as it thunders down the home straight. For Barich, who seldom speaks in public, the answer is simple: Make racing more about the horse and you will reconnect with the popular culture.
In closing, Chris Luoni and Gerald Fell explained why they set up a New Zealand Racing Hall Of Fame. For Luoni it was very straightforward. “I loved the stories,” he said. “We had the opportunity to use the digital media to tell the stories of the heroes and their histories to the young people. Phar Lap’s skeleton is on display, but it is a bare sterile bunch of bones. So we put his story on film and it was an instant success .”
These DVD’s have certainly gone some way towards making the horse the center of the story of racing again as Gerald explains: “We have gone back and made DVD’s of our great horses such as Carbine, Phar Lap and Sunline, and these are regularly used as fillers by our local racing channel.”
Enabling people to reconnect with the stars of the past will hopefully fire their imagination to follow the stars of the future.
Industry Vocational Training…
By Liesl King
Denzil Pillay, Chief Executive of the National Horseracing Authority of South Africa, chaired the last plenary session on Wednesday afternoon at the Asian Racing Conference under the banner of ‘Industry Vocational Training.’
Racing is a labor-intensive industry and its workforce needs to be highly skilled and specialized. Amy Chan, Manager of HKJC’s Racing Development Board (RDB) and Headmistress of the Apprentice Jockeys’ School delivered the main presentation. Chan told delegates that the RDB’s aim is to “establish a best practice training system that meets the diverse needs of the HKJC, and which delivers training programs to our staff that enable them to operate at a standard that exceeds accepted industry requirements.”
Chan explained the Elite Sports Training formula that is the foundation of the Apprentice Jockeys’ School’s training program. It is a simple equation of talent plus attitude plus discipline equals success. Especially in the high risk, high reward world of the extreme athlete that is the professional jockey, talent is a necessary requirement. The search for this ‘talent’ starts right at the beginning of the selection process, when all the applicants are required to perform balancing exercises on horseback, despite most of them never having seen a horse before.
From the initial 1000 applicants, roughly 25 are selected for the first stage of the training course, which takes place at the Guang Ming Riders’ Club in Shenzen, mainland China. Here the trainees complete a nine- month course under the guidance of experienced riding masters, both racing and equestrian. The trainees learn basic riding skills, stable management and undergo physical training. Chan went on to explain that a wellness program is also included as most of these young trainees find living in dormitory conditions away from home very stressful.
The intermediate phase of the training occurs at Sha Tin Racecourse at the Apprentice Jockeys’ School. Here trainees experience the Equisizer for the first time. Being at the track enables them to get familiar with morning track work, gives them exposure to top jockeys and enables them to receive training in veterinary care, nutrition and physiology. With a day that starts at 3 a.m. and ends at 9 p.m., there are often a number of dropouts at this stage, but the ones who make it through can look forward to a spell at an overseas training facility.
Currently there are Hong Kong apprentices completing their overseas training in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Upon their return, the apprentices are indentured to a master trainer in order to begin their racing careers. This unique vocational training system of apprentice jockeys by the Hong Kong Jockey Club has delivered a series of world-class jockeys, such as international Group 1-winning rider Tony Cruz and, more recently, the very talented Mathew Chadwick. In August 2012, Chadwick won the prize for the leading jockey at Ascot’s Shergar Cup, followed by a sensational victory in the G1 Longines Hong Kong Cup.
With unemployment in Hong Kong at only 3.3 %, it is not easy to attract new trainees, yet Chan and her dedicated staff seem to have developed a solid training program that consistently produces top local jockeys that can hold their own anywhere in the world.