Tampa Strength in Knowing its Niche

Tampa Bay Downs opted for stacking $850,000 worth of stakes purses on last Saturday's 36th annual Festival Day, and the track was rewarded with a record all-sources mutuel handle of $12,250,446. Betting business aside, Saturday's racing itself was eye-catching: Destin (Giant's Causeway) stamped himself as a legitimate Triple Crown contender with a sharp score in the $350,000 GII Lambolm South Tampa Bay Derby, while Tepin (Bernstein), the champion turf female of 2015, proved she'll be a tough customer again this year with a smart win in the $200,000 GII Hillsborough S.

In the immediate aftermath of a successful day, track managements are allowed to bask in the afterglow for a little bit. Sometimes the robust crowds and big betting numbers get racetrack executives leaning toward a “more is better” mentality when planning for the future. But Tampa's vice president and general manager, Peter Berube, is more inclined to recognize that his track has carved out a fairly solid seasonal niche. Two showcase “festival” days anchored by five-plus months of competitive daily programs seems to be just the right mix for the Oldsmar oval, and Berube indicated in a Tuesday phone interview that Tampa will continue to hammer away at pretty much that same sweet spot for the foreseeable future.

“This year we went into the season grouping our stakes racing on two big weekends, trying to look for some holes on the [national] schedule, and it worked out very well,” Berube said. “Our Preview Day [Feb. 13] was our highest [handle] Preview Day ever. We did $10.7 million, and of course, this past Saturday's Festival Day was just outstanding. I think it was, by far, the best card we've ever put on, at least in the 22 years I've been here. It all played out perfectly.”

Two other stakes, the $200,000 GIII Florida Oaks and the $100,000 Challenger S., rounded out the 12-race card. Lambholm South was the first-time title sponsor for the Tampa Bay Derby, and a commemorative cooler bag giveaway helped lure a live crowd of 10,206.

“It's all about trying to put the best card forward. It wouldn't be out of the question to add another stakes race on those days [next season],” Berube said. “We're going to take a look at it and see if it fits into the schedule. Certainly, when you put on three graded stakes and another overnight stakes on one card, you're going to get the attention of people.”

Berube said business is up overall this year at Tampa: “Our average daily handle is just under $4.4 million, which is fourth-best in the country. Even with two fewer race days [than last season], we're up about $200,000, or 4.63 percent.”

Florida racing's politically polarizing topic of decoupling–which is essentially a clause to allow some pari-mutuel licensees to drop live racing while still remaining open as casinos–did not pass at the just-concluded legislative session as part of a proposed rewrite of state gaming laws. But Berube said even if decoupling goes get legalized in the near future, it is unlikely to affect Tampa's current scheduling of race dates.

“I don't see that happening. We have a niche that's basically in November through the first week in May,” Berube said. “A lot of our horses come from up north, and they're leaving towards the end of May, so I really don't see our schedule changing appreciably in the near future.”

Berube continued: “It's a complicated subject, especially if the decoupled tracks are in your market area. Moving forward, as that discussion continues, there's got to be something coming back from those that decouple to the ones that don't decouple and continue to race live. And there were some iterations on that concept in the proposed bills this year that just didn't make it out of the [legislature].”

Tampa's contiguous meet runs through May 8, although the schedule contains one quirk–a standalone single-day program on June 30–that is related to a fiscal technicality in the state calendar.

“It's a simulcasting issue,” Berube explained. “It allows us to be classified as a live facility for the entire year, and therefore we're allowed to bring in simulcasts throughout the year and not have to take them through another permit-holder in the state of Florida.”

In addition, Berube said Tampa is unlikely to tinker with the days of the week that it runs live–generally Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturday and Sundays.

Tampa once had quite a profitable run with simulcasting on Tuesdays in the late 1990s and early 2000s. But Berube said national scheduling shifts caused that day of the week to fall out of Tampa's favor, even though it seems as if Tuesdays in the winter would still be ripe for a track with robust field sizes and decent turf racing to step up and fill the current void.

“It was successful. When I first came here, Tuesdays were the best day of the week,” Berube said. “But over time, less and less tracks were running on Tuesdays. Less [signal-importing] facilities were open. You didn't have the California market open. So by the time we made the switch from Tuesdays to Wednesdays [in 2010], Tuesdays were actually the lowest-handle day of the week for us. We saw an opening on Wednesdays, and it's worked out well for us, particularly now that you don't have NYRA running for three months on Wednesdays.”

Berube said track management will plan some structural upgrades to the facility during the offseason, but the exact capital expenditures and projects aren't yet set.

“There's nothing definitive at this point in time. I can tell you we've averaged about a million dollars [in capital improvements] a year, so we'll go through our list and see where it's needed, where we can deploy that capital most efficiently,” Berube said. “There have been a lot of improvements on the backside the past couple of years, and I would anticipate that continuing.” —@thorntontd