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For the past few years, I've been lucky enough to work as part of the EQB buying team at the Keeneland September yearling sale. EQB, run by my friends Jeff Seder and Patti Miller, has one of the best records in the business for picking out a high percentage of stakes-quality horses at reasonable (whatever that means in the horse market) prices. Everyone can find the million-dollar horse at a sale. But finding the $150,000 horse that's just as good requires a bit more skill. EQB certainly has the credentials. Among its recent purchases, are Ahmed Zayat's Eskendereya, Zensational, Mushka and J Be K; George Strawbridge's Eclipse Award winners Forever Together and Informed Decision; Ken Ramsey's General Quarters; Bruce Lunsford's Madcap Escapade; and Bill Heiligbrodt's Lady Tak. This year, EQB is not buying for Zayat, but has a new client, someone who's been in racing for years but is now looking for his Kentucky Derby horse. He's given us a pretty big ...

First NYRA, now the Jockey Club. I'm beginning to wonder what's getting intop these pillars of the establishment when they start doing things right. In NYRA's case, it was the comments by Chairman Steve Duncker and CEO Charlie Hayward on the need to reduce takeout. Now, as announced at the Jockey Club Round table two weeks ago, the Jockey Club has released statistical fact books on each of the major racing jurisdictions. Breaking down the data state-by-state makes it a lot easier to zero in on trends in the business and to make some predictions about where we're going. Take New York, for instance. The New York Fact Book for 2010 -- data through the end of 2009 -- shows in stark detail how the industry has shrunk, back to a level of perhaps two decades ago. Take as a starting point the number of New York mares bred each year. From a high of 2,749 in 2003, that number dropped to 1,599 in 2009, the lowest in at least 20 years, and, based on anecdotal evidence, I'm s...

Spent the morning at the annual Jockey Club Round Table on Matters Pertaining to Racing, the annual get-together of the rich and famous organized by Dinny Phipps and Co. at the famed Gideon Putnam Hotel in Saratoga. Was definitely underdressed for the occasion -- Steve Crist and I seemed to be the only males not wearing ties -- but nonetheless picked up all sorts of interesting info, which will be grist for a series of upcoming blog posts. But first, congratulations to New York Racing Association chairman Steve Duncker, who managed to include three really good points in his brief presentation. First, Duncker ended his Power Point slide show with a sincere, and very prominent, "Thank You" to the owners and trainers who, by sending their best horses to race in New York, help maintain the state's position as the country's pre-eminent racing venue. (As an example, 36% of all the Grade 1 stakes races in the US are run at NYRA tracks.) Even for those who ofrten disagree wit...

It has not been a good month for newspaper unions at bankrupt newspaper companies or the government corporation that insures pension funds. As part of their reorganizations, a number of bankrupt newspaper firms are not paying money owed union pensions or are quietly letting the guaranty pick up the tab for retiree costs. Unions of Philadelphia Newspapers LLC (The Inquirer and The Philadelphia Daily News) were forced to accept 12 cents on the dollar for the $12 million the bankrupt company owned to employee pension plans as part the reorganization plan. The Chicago Sun-Times off-loaded $49.1 million of its underfunded pension obligations for 2300 retirees and employees to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. The paper and it suburban subsidiaries were purchased out of bankruptcy without the new owners assuming the pension obligations. The Dayton News Journal dumped $15.4 million in underfunded pensions payments on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. , which will ensure 1,100 current and fo...

Well, Monmouth had Rachel Alexandra, and Saratoga had so much rain that it flooded out Danny Meyer's hot new Shake Shack restaurant. But, no surprise, guess which track had the better performance on July 23-25, Saratoga's opening weekend? For the three days, Saratoga had paid attendance of 62,243, versus Monmouth's 28,365. Even on Saturday, with Rachel Alexandra at the shore, Monmouth drew only 12,859. The same day, with the highlight at saratoga the Coaching Club American Oaks, won by Devil May Care, Saratoga drew 20,352. On-track handle for the three days at Monmouth was $1,975,627. At Saratoga, where there were 6 fewer races, on-track handle was more than four times as much, at $8,638,566. Similarly, all-sources handle for the weekend at Monmouth was $24,130,504, while at Saratoga it was $43,431,852. Monmouth did much better, comparatively, on its simulcast, OTB and ADW betting, but even with Rachel Alexandra running Saturday, it didn't equal Saratoga's handle on...

Much has been made of this year's big increases in attendance, handle, field size and purses registered by Monmouth Park in its innovative three-day-a-week race meet. Halfway through the summer meet, attendance is up 13% over last year, at 10,500 a day; all-sources handle has more than doubled, from $3.5 million a day last year to $7.7 million; and on-track handle is up 43%, much more than the corresponding increase in on-track attendance. So, it seems, Monmouth's ballyhooed "million dollars a day" in purses for a shorter meet appears to be the wave of the future. Meanwhile, the New York Racing Association's Belmont spring-summer meet seems to have been lost in the financial mess that is New York racing, with the performance of the horses and the track buried by news of the state government's continuing ineptitude over putting slot machines at Aqueduct, a mere nine years after they were authorized, and of the continuing failure of New York City Off-Track Bett...

Earlier this year, displaying the political sense that has so often eluded it, the New York Racing Association (NYRA) agreed to turn over its financial records to State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli so the latter could conduct an audit of NYRA's shaky finances. NYRA had previously unleashed its stable of pit-bull lawyers in an effort to block the Comptroller's request, a position that drew widespread criticism , and the turnaround in February seemed a smart move. Perhaps it even helped NYRA convince the otherwise clueless politicians in Albany that they had to make good on their contractual promises to advance NYRA the money it was losing as a result of the state's endless dithering on awarding a contract for slot machines at Aqueduct. But yesterday, the other shoe dropped. Comptroller DiNapoli released his audit of NYRA , complete with a scare-laden press release. DiNapoli concluded that NYRA should somehow scale back the level of its operations to what would be sustainable...