The Week in Review: Minding the (Morning) Gap

[Wandering Eyes]

On Saturday morning, while preparing to write this column (admittedly, “procrastinating” might be the more accurate descriptor), I fired up my online wagering account and took a glance at the schedule of tracks slated to race that day.

Even though this past weekend represented a lull in terms of A-level competition while the nation awaits premier-meet Opening Days at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club (Wednesday) and Saratoga Race Course (Friday), the menu of offerings was still quite robust. No fewer than 39 Thoroughbred tracks were on the July 14 docket, starting with Gulfstream Park at 12:45 p.m. and extending all the way through to the under-the-lights finale at Crooked River Roundup in Oregon, which in my Eastern time zone wrapped up just after 3:00 a.m.

That’s a solid 14-hour block of betting product. But the part of the North American simulcast schedule that really jumped out at me was the section of the time grid that was blank: The morning hours–plus an additional three-quarters of an hour after noon.

Let’s be realistic. It’s 2018. The competition for wagering dollars in the United States is at an unprecedented level of intensity. The tidal wave of legalized sports betting is just beginning to form, and no one knows if Thoroughbred wagering will get swept away or be buoyed by its wake. Even within our industry, the battle for betting bucks is hardly optimized: The Jockey Club commissioned a study last year that estimated the sport loses $400 million annually because of conflicting and overlapping post times.

It’s been decades since the bulk of horse-race betting was driven by on-track attendees, and some tracks already schedule live racing in non-traditional late afternoon and early evening time slots to maximize simulcast exposure. Is the racing industry so beholden to “the way things have always been done” that not a single iconoclast track wants to carve out an only-game-in-town niche by filling that mid/late-morning gap where zero U.S. Thoroughbred betting product currently exists?

The time slot is there for the taking. In real estate, the money-making mantra is “location, location, location.” The equivalent in simulcasting–if you’re not a top track on the totem pole–is “timing, timing, timing.”

To be clear, I’m not talking about committing to morning racing every single day, nor am I advocating ridiculously early first posts. But what about an experiment that involves a concentrated, three-hour, simulcast-centric card starting at 10:00 a.m. leading into Saratoga when the nation’s showcase meet is in session?

With the exception of the three Triple Crown race dates and the Breeders’ Cup, those seven Saratoga Saturdays in late July through early September represent the most lucrative mornings of the year when customers are likely to be dialed in for a day of simulcast betting, presumably with newly topped-off, start-of-the-day bankrolls. Surely, more than a few of them would appreciate the opportunity for some pre-Spa action–think of it as offering a betting appetizer to an audience that extends across the continent.

Although recent history is dotted with occasional morning racing programs on holidays or for special events, no track has made a serious, concentrated effort to claim the mid/late-morning time slot and brand itself as a player-centric track.

The most illustrative example I can come up with dates to Suffolk Downs in 1996 (I was a member of the track’s publicity staff at the time). On a Wednesday in March when no other U.S. racetrack was running, Suffolk beamed out a morning program that dovetailed with the running of the inaugural G1 Dubai World Cup. The result was a $2.35 million handle, then a track record.

You can retrofit that strategy to reflect the looming legality of sports wagering. In eight weeks football season will be in full swing. As more and more brick-and-mortar sports books come online at existing racetracks, there will be a crush of customers showing up on Saturdays and Sundays to wager on games that start as early as noon Eastern. Under the existing national simulcast schedule, no track will be offering a Thoroughbred product until those games are well into their second quarters–another missed opportunity to offer a complementary option that could stand out simply because of its timing.

What does some ambitious, out-of-the-box track management have to lose by trying a mid/late-morning first post on a “loaded” summer Saturday? Nothing more than the not-so-appealing distinction of being one of those 30-something tracks that comprise an indistinct, background betting blur when Saratoga and Del Mar are in session.

Sophs Showcased

A pair of derbies at Los Alamitos Race Course and Indiana Grand showcased 3-year-olds over the weekend, with each race won in come-from-behind fashion by a margin of a head.

The GIII Los Alamitos Derby, won by ‘TDN Rising Star’ Once On Whiskey (Bodemeister), featured the shorter field (five horses). But it rated as a slightly more difficult spot on paper than the GIII Indiana Derby (nine entrants), which was captured by Axelrod (Warrior’s Reward).

A common key race (the June 10 GIII Affirmed S. at Santa Anita Park) factored in both close finishes, underscoring that the quartet of one-two horses from both races might not be too far apart, talent-wise. Axelrod rebounded with a win at Indiana Grand after being the runner-up in the Affirmed, while Draft Pick (Candy Ride {Arg}), the Affirmed winner, was second at Los Alamitos.

Once On Whiskey appeared disengaged from the action while four wide and last behind a moderate tempo in the early going of the Los Al Derby. Draft Pick, meanwhile, did the dirty work, pressuring odds-on pacemaker Ax Man (Misremembered) into submission before swatting away a long-shot challenge from King Cause (Creative Cause).

“Whiskey” still looked like he wouldn’t be able to reel in Draft Pick until well into the final sixteenth though, but this is where the long Los Al stretch played to his advantage over nine furlongs, as a head-bobbing finish triggered a close photo for the victory.

At Indiana Grand, Axelrod executed his winning rally by essentially making two moves. He settled willingly and dropped over the rail as entering the clubhouse bend of the 1 1/16 miles race, then contentedly tracked the action while next to last down the backstretch run (but only about seven lengths off the lead). He was cued to quicken three-eighths out, picked up decent momentum fanning four wide into the stretch, then seemed to settle into a one-paced bid behind the admirably overachieving frontrunner Trigger Warning (Candy Ride {Arg}). But when Florent Geroux again roused Axelrod for run just outside the furlong pole, the colt noticeably re-rallied and clicked into another gear, motoring home on the outside to gun down Trigger Warning.

Third-place finisher Title Ready (More Than Ready), who forced the issue five wide on both turns yet was beaten by under two lengths, could be the horse to watch from the Indiana Derby.

 

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