At The Jockey Club Round Table, the Focus is on What’s Going Right and What’s Going Wrong

[Wandering Eyes]

Everett Dobson has been on the job as the Chair of The Jockey Club for only a matter of days, but there's no doubt that he has his finger on the pulse. Making his first keynote speech at the Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining to Racing on Thursday in Saratoga Springs, Dobson spoke of the many positive trends he sees with the sport, but he wasn't afraid to delve into the negative issues that still plague racing.

“Racing has never been safer for our horses and jockeys,” Dobson said. “The Jockey Club will continue to strongly support HISA, and we need look no further than the news we all read this week from Thistledown, where concerns about safety prompted HISA to decisively step in.”

When The Jockey Club first started keeping track of equine fatalities in 2009 through its Equine Injury Database, the number was 2.0 deaths per 1,000 starters. In 2024, the number was 1.11, a decline of 44.5%.

An owner and breeder, Dobson also spoke of the major capital projects at racetracks such as Belmont Park and Pimlico and the vast increase in the number of hours networks like Fox and NBC now devote to racing.

Griffin Johnson, the social influencer who became a part owner of Sandman (Tapit) through West Point Thoroughbreds, took part in a Q & A session in which he talked about how he was able to reach his more than 14 million followers on social media to tell the story of Sandman and why Johnson became so enamored with the sport. He is planning to do more social media campaigns that go beyond Sandman and take a deeper dive into the sport.

“I want to really educate Gen Z about what else this sport has to offer,” Johnson said. “I'm going to go to the Keeneland sale and show them what goes into it. I'm going to go to the backstretch at another track. I'm going to show them what goes on at Del Mar. You have to keep doing that over and over and over again. It's not a one-year plan, it's not a two-year plan. In my head, this is a 10 to 20-year plan.”

Dobson focused on two troubling trends, the decline in handle in 2023 and 2024, and the declining foal crop.

“It is perhaps the most concerning trend that affects the growth of our sport today,” he said. “If we are serious about growing this sport, reversing the decline in foal crops is essential.”

While the foal crop has declined, so has the number of racetracks, Hollywood Park, Calder, Arlington, Golden Gate Fields, et. al. Gulfstream may soon be added to that list.

“The Jockey Club remains concerned about the future of some of our most important racetracks, particularly in regions of the country that are deemed to be important to the overall health of the sport,” Dobson said.

On the subject of Computer Assisted Wagering (CAW), Dobson said, “I further recognize the deep divide on the matter of computer assisted wagering, or CAW, and plan to use my position to better understand the issue and try to help the industry strike the right balance that ensures growth, but does not disenfranchise the retail bettor. I look forward to my discussions with the interested parties and working towards practical solutions.”

Steve Kornacki, the chief data analyst for NBC News and a huge horse racing fan, told how he got interested in the sport. It was an uncle who took him to the now shuttered Scarborough Downs harness track in Maine.

“When I think about it, there's a lot of overlap between my interests in elections and my interest in horse racing,” Kornacki said. “In each case, there's a tantalizing puzzle. Here's a field of candidates or here's a field of horses. How do they stack up against each other? What are the relevant variables? Who could win? Who should win? Who can't win? Who might have a better chance than anyone seems to realize.”

Shawn Smeallie, a lobbyist and the founder of ACG Advocacy, spoke of the strides the sport has made in Washington and how the sport staved off provisions in the One Big Beautiful Act that would have disallowed offsetting horse racing losses with investment  income. He also asked the sport to come together on HISA.

“With the recent Supreme Court decision to not review HISA anytime soon, my hope is that HISA's opponents will move on to other, more pressing matters,” he said. “Indeed, the continued and relentless litigation only contributes to one of the few legitimate concerns about HISA–its cost.  My understanding that the legal bills are well into the millions. Let HISA be the law of our land, and our industry, and let's work to make it the best it can be.”

Representing their company Fastbreak Pro, John Stewart and Dr. Ryan Kelley explained how they have developed models to keep races from around the country overlapping one another. He said that using the company's model can increase handle by $30 million annually.

The Round Table concluded with Dr. Allen Hershkowitz, Environmental Science Advisor, New York Yankees, and Glen Kozak Executive Vice President, Operations and Capital Projects, New York Racing Association, providing data on how climate change has led to a troubling increase in the number of race days canceled each year. The average number of cancellations rose from 68.5 per year between 2015 and 2018 to 85.5 per year from 2021 to 2024. The highest year on record was 2023, with 103 cancellations.

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