Odds On Racing - Harness Racing

Iowa Standardbred Track Under Scruitany

May 18, 2008

Prairie Meadows wants to examine its horse racing program from scratch and is forming a committee to do so. It hopes to set goals within six months.

Whether the talks will strengthen the program for breeders and fans and cut the annual subsidy given to racing - $19 million to $29 million, depending on who you ask - remains to be seen. Since purses are set by law, the basic options are to increase betting revenue or reduce costs by condensing the season.

"I don't believe for a minute that you're going to find huge, significant savings," board member Tom Whitney said. "But if you find $150,000 (in savings), that's $150,000."

The move was welcomed by horse owners.

"I want the track to succeed, and I think it can," said Linda Juckett, a horse breeder from Prairie Valley. "We want a long-term goal, we don't want a short-term fix."

The process could be chaotic. There are three horse breeds to satisfy, and as many ideas as there are horses. Sandra Rasmussen and Maggi Moss, two of Iowa's leading owners, couldn't be farther apart in their vision for Prairie Meadows' racing season.

Moss wants the emphasis to be on quality, even if it means fewer racing days. Rasmussen favors returning to one mixed meet of thoroughbred and quarter horses.

The current format has a 47-day thoroughbred meet, which is usually short on horses, followed by a 43-day mixed meet, during which some thoroughbred trainers have to leave to make room for the quarter horses.

"We need one meet where a trainer can come and stay from the beginning to the end," Rasmussen said.

Moss said she thinks a solution can be found.

"I don't know if we're as far apart as everybody thinks," Moss said.

"The smaller breeders want the second meet, I want quality. We all have to give up something. It's not OK to keep running these long meets and trying to make everybody happy, and to lose that kind of money. We have to do the hard stuff."

If any progress is to be made, these are some of the questions the committee should address: - Is the program's subsidy designed to enhance racing or breeding?

Most people want to say both, but different incentives are needed to recruit horses from elsewhere, versus those that enhance the Iowa breeding program.

- Does Prairie Meadows want quality or quantity? Board members said last week that a common complaint is that Prairie Meadows' fields are too small, which leads to lower odds and less betting.

Should Prairie Meadows' priority be to run races with big fields, no matter how bad the quality, or to have a balance where it tries to have races for its better horses as well? Trainer Dick Clark favors quality.

"They've got it in reverse," Clark said. "They need to have the quality to get people to bet on their races."

- Does Prairie Meadows want a turf course? If so, will horse owners pay a share of the cost? Adding a turf course would be a multimillion-dollar project. Prairie Meadows was set to add one in 1998, then backed away because the bids were higher than expected.

One of the disadvantages Prairie Meadows has in recruiting horses is not having a grass course.

"If they put a turf course in here, they would be turning people away," trainer Kelly Von Hemel said.

Would horse owners contribute a share of their purse money?

"I can't say we would," Von Hemel said, "but it's something we could at least discuss."

- Where does harness racing fit? The standardbreds get $1 million for races on the county fair circuit and $800,000 for an 18-day meet at Prairie Meadows. Harness interests argue that they get just a sliver of the $20 million paid in purses. However, board member Perry Chapin complained that the races at Prairie Meadows don't draw any business.

"Horse racing brings people in, especially the thoroughbreds and quarter horses," Chapin said. "I don't see that with the standardbreds."

- Does Prairie Meadows have a racing product that is marketable? Watching opening night, you wouldn't think so. The first three races were full of promotions and interviews hyping the excitement ... of the Iowa Speedway. While Moss and Rasmussen were given awards for their successes in 2007, there were no interviews or promotions of coming races at Prairie Meadows. If Prairie Meadows can't find anything exciting about its product, why should anyone else?