The Week In Review: 20 Is The New 30

[Wandering Eyes]

The topic of the diminishing North American Thoroughbred foal crop (estimated 17,000 for 2026) came up several times during last week's Global Symposium on Racing hosted by the University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program in Tucson.

This is often referred to as our industry's “horse shortage” problem. I try to avoid that term in my reporting unless I am directly quoting someone who says it.

Instead, the sport has long been dealing with an “owner shortage.” Breeders stand ready and willing to start producing more racehorses if only more buyers would step up to purchase and campaign them.

Another metric that doesn't get as much attention–the number of Thoroughbreds who make at least one start in a calendar year–can also be useful to watch.

Through this past Saturday's racing, that number stood at 42,198 with 2 1/2 weeks to go in 2025.

That figure, courtesy of the publicly available “by racing year' tabulations on Equibase, can be drilled down even further to see how many starts each of those horses have made.

I've always had both respect and a soft spot for the grizzled “war horse” veterans of the Thoroughbred world, probably because growing up on the now-defunct New England circuit, it was common see past performances of claimers whose ages were in double digits with lifetime starts in triple digits.

You generally don't see those types of horses these days for a variety of reasons–training methodologies have shifted toward a “less is more” approach; greater regulatory and veterinary scrutiny discourages running horses back too often, and there are far fewer racing stables competing at far fewer tracks–just to name a few.

The other day I was sorting the stat columns on Equibase to rank the horses this year by how many starts they have made.

Before I say what stood out, take a moment to quiz yourself: How many Thoroughbreds in 2025 do you think have started at least 20 times?

For extra credit, try to guess what that statistic was 25 years ago.

The answer, so far in 2025, is 24 horses with 20 or more starts.

A start | Sarah Andrew

I would have bet the “over” on that one, figuring it was higher. That equates to .05% (one-twentieth of one percent) of the entire group of 42,198 starters.

Three are tied with 23 to top the list. The rest fall between 20 and 22 starts.

(Side note: Those 24 horses at the 20-plus-start level were sired by 23 different stallions, with only Collected represented by two offspring.)

Turning the clock back to 2020 yielded a skewed set of numbers, because the COVID-19 shutdowns resulted in a massive loss of training and racing dates for the final 10 months of that year.

But still, as a benchmark, there were more starters in the pandemic year than there will be this year: 2020 featured 46,683 starters, with 19 hitting the 20-start mark despite the truncated season (.04% of all starters). Two tied at 24 races to top the year.

Ten years ago, in 2015, a total of 54,496 Thoroughbreds made at least one start, and 209 of them ran at least 20 times (.38%). Two tied atop the leaderboard with 28 starts.

In 2010, the pool of all starters was 69,689, with 348 horses racing 20 or more times (.49%). Two tied for most starts with 30.

In 2005 there were 74,282 starters, of which 440 started 20-plus times (.59%), with two topping the leaderboard at 31 starts each.

The year 2000 is the farthest-back the Equibase online database goes for these types of rankings, and it yields the most mind-boggling numerical nugget: Although there were fewer starters (71,156) in 2000 than there would be in 2005, an astounding 1,101 horses 25 years ago (1.5%) made at least 20 starts.

And that group of 1,101 in the 2000 season included a subset of 23 who raced at least 30 times (the high-start mark was 36).

Put another way, the same number of horses who started 30-plus times a quarter-century ago is nearly equal to the number of 20-start horses this year.

 

Ain't building 'em like before…

The above exercise isn't meant to say that Thoroughbreds aren't as capable of starting as often as their contemporaries from earlier in the 21st Century. While that statement certainly could be true, there aren't as many racing outfits or opportunities to prove it either way.

Todd Gralla on the new Belmont Park | courtesy of The Jockey Club

But they definitely aren't building racetracks like they used to, and the reasons why were articulated in an intriguing talk at the U of A Symposium by Todd Gralla, the director of Equestrian Services for Populous, a global architecture firm specializing in sports and entertainment facilities like Camden Yards, the Sphere in Las Vegas, and the currently under-construction New Highmark Stadium, the soon-to-be home of the NFL's Buffalo Bills.

Over the past four decades, Gralla has played roles in the development of more than 400 racing and equestrian venues worldwide, including the Olympics, the current rebuilds of Belmont Park and Pimlico Race Course, plus renovation projects at Churchill Downs.

In a panel called “Building the Future of Racing: Major Construction Projects Transforming America's Tracks,” Gralla gave perspectives on what shaped the designs at the three Triple Crown tracks.

Churchill Downs wasn't being built from scratch and already had an iconic design feature in its twin spires, so that distinction didn't need tweaking, Gralla said.

“Belmont, as we kind of looked at the historic structure that was there, the new arena that we built next to it, [the question became] 'What's the next step for architecture over there?' And the leadership wanted something a little bit more contemporary. So our inspiration was the ribbon, which symbolizes victory. And that's kind of the way that the design came together.”

Populous describes the new Belmont as “draw[ing] inspiration from the flowing, mutable shape of a ribbon–the traditional symbol of victory–and mark[ing] an intentional departure from the current Belmont style.”

Pimlico's cupola and weather vane | Horsephotos

The new design is supposed to “introduce greater transparency” and “reduce the scale of the building to be properly sized” for changing needs and trends, the company's website stated.

“Now at Pimlico, what's interesting is there wasn't a lot there that was great to work from,” Gralla continued.

“The existing buildings that we just tore down in the last couple months were not architecturally significant at all,” Gralla said. “What was architecturally significant [was] the original clubhouse that burned down in 1962, which has the weathervane and the replica of the cupola that was the winner's circle. So we're using that for inspiration at Pimlico, and trying to do something that's real Baltimore, that kind of goes back to the original history of 'Old Hilltop.'”

Gralla said the barns that will house GI Preakness Stakes horses and entrants in other big stakes will be brought close to the frontside paddock.

“Part of the reason we pulled those up front is we're trying to give visitors a horse experience,” Gralla said. “We want them to be able to see the trainers, horses, jockeys in their daily routine.

“And then we're using a lot of the stretch apron area to build a pavilion to support a lot of picnicking, tailgating out there, as well as [temporary structure] overlay during the Preakness Stakes,” Gralla said.

 

Butt-in-seat? No way!

So what's driving the main changes in sports architecture right now?

“One is revenue,” Gralla said. “Our clients in the professional sports business are making tons of in-venue revenue. And it's not gaming, and it's not wagering on sports. In fact, at the New Highmark, the clients don't want sports wagering facilities in the physical facility because it's not worth the square footage.

“That's really interesting, when a client tells you, 'Giving up square footage for wagering on sports is not worth putting in my sports stadium,'” Gralla said. “That's the complete opposite of kind of where we are in racing right now.

“We are also making venues smaller,” Gralla said. “And in those venues, we've designed over the past 20 or 30 years? We're going back into those major-league sports venues and we're removing capacity. We're changing seats into clubs and into social areas. Because that's what the younger generation wants. They don't want 'butt-in-seat' for two or three or four hours.

“We're also really looking for unique experiences in those stadiums [based] around that game day. And racing is really full of those,” Gralla said.

“When we look at a typical game day for a fan at an NFL stadium, we kind of try to assess what their pre-game looks like, what time they arrive, what their in-game [behavior] looks like, and what does it look like outside [after] the game day. Because where we're getting money and revenue is pre- and post-game right now, assuming that everyone is already in there for the game.

Churchill's Homestretch Club | courtesy of CDI

“For horse racing, we don't have just one game, right? We have 10 or 12, so you break [the card] down into even more tiny little segments,” Gralla said.

“When we started working with NYRA, one of the first things that was done was to look at entry scans for the Belmont Stakes, for example. And what we learned is that most people going to the Belmont Stakes–and any kind of stakes or big race day, really across the board at any track–people aren't even there for the first half of the card. How do we get them there for the first half of the card to spend more, wager more?

“And then also they're leaving very quickly after that [feature] race, even though we may have one or three races after that. How do we keep them [and] keep them engaged?” Gralla asked.

Gralla answered his own question, from an architectural standpoint.

“We're looking at unique experiences, we're looking at more social spaces versus seats, and even trying the eke more out of every square foot of that building as possible.

“We know that moving low seats from up high in a stadium down to field-side makes them worth more. We've done similar things at Churchill, when you look at the Homestretch Club, where we've got all the loge or banquettes down at trackside–very popular, worth a lot of money, and worth coming for the entire card.”

A key, Gralla said is freedom to move around.

Better food and beverage offerings are great, Gralla said. Spreading them out around the property is even better.

“So we're not keeping people just in one area of the building,” Gralla said. “In a lot of our current tracks–like all of the facilities at Pimlico we just tore down–you weren't free to move around. You had a certain space, and you were kept there.”

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