TDN Q&A: Jim Lawson, CEO, Woodbine

Woodbine CEO Jim Lawson | WEG/Michael Burns

The 2017 meet at Woodbine concluded Dec. 10 and the 133-day stand produced a number of interesting stories, including the filly, Holy Helena (Ghostzapper) winning the Queen's Plate. Jockey Eurico Rosa da Silva won his fifth jockey title with 203 wins and came within two victories of tying the meet record of 36. It was also a year in which Woodbine Entertainment created a two-day festival around the Queen's Plate with musical acts.

The TDN talked to Woodbine Chief Executive Officer Jim Lawson about the 2017 season and a look ahead to the 2018 season in which Woodbine will open a week later, expand the Queen's Plate into a three-day event and run the race on Saturday instead of Sunday. Lawson will be entering his fourth year at the helm of Woodbine in 2018.

TDN: Woodbine recently announced it was shifting the Queen's Plate from Sunday to Saturday and expanding the two-day festival to a three-day festival of racing and entertainment. Why did you make the move?

JL: We primarily moved it for business purposes. Wagering has proven to be better on a Saturday. Generally speaking, our crowd and general people's interest in racing is higher on a Saturday for an event. We're going to have a music event again [this time on Friday night with country music star Brad Paisley]. We're experimenting to see what works best. We've turned this as recently as five years ago from exclusively a horse racing event to expanding it into an entertainment event. In fairness to us, we're on a learning curve to see what works best. We're going to try the headliner on a Friday night and hope that is the right formula. We're also looking at the scheduling with the TV networks and possible U.S. exposure. We're dealing with all of those, but we actually feel Saturday might be a better time slot for all those things.

TDN: But isn't Sunday a tradition of sorts for the Queen's Plate?

JL: I used to come to the Queen's Plate when I was 12 or 13 years old, but I couldn't swear to you whether I knew it was on a Saturday or a Sunday. It was run on a Saturday until we moved it [in the early '80s]. We didn't want to break with tradition, but we feel for business purposes, it's better on a Saturday. We wanted to keep it on that July 1 [Canada Day] long weekend. We certainly did well wagering on the long weekend. We felt Saturday would be better, but once you do that, it's kind of awkward because if you've got Saturday for the Queen's Plate, are we just going to abandon racing the next day? We didn't want to abandon Canada Day racing and not make some sort of event for the people. We're going to fashion Sunday more around Canada Day and make it part of the weekend. Not to say that we'd always keep it as a three-day festival.

TDN: The season will also begin a week later than usual next year–why the switch?

JL: Many of our horsemen go to Florida and we've been off to slow starts the last few years [with horse population]. That's certainly one factor in giving the horses an extra week. The weather has been a little bit better in December the last two or three years and we're feeling like we can run a little bit later. We're also trying to move towards extending the Thoroughbred season into December and taking advantage of the holiday season. A lot of the horses just aren't showing up here until April and they are not ready to run until the end of the month.

TDN: Was 2017 a good year for Woodbine Thoroughbred racing?

JL: It was a good year in that we held our own in an environment where we worked very hard with maintaining our field sizes. I've been in this business my whole life but I've never been in the pressure of operating it, and the correlation between field size and wagering is so dramatic. It's incredible. We have worked very hard to maintain the field sizes, and in doing that, we've been able to keep our on-track wagering flat. But we've been able to expand our wagering network into Australia and we've grown some market share in the United States. At the end of the day, the bettor is looking for [large] field sizes and quality racing. I can't suggest you just throw out a whole bunch of horses and people are going to bet on it. If you have decent field size and you're running a good, honest racetrack–one with reputation for integrity that we have with a quality product and some quality trainers and jockeys–you're going to get some [healthy] wagering.

TDN: A few years ago, the Province of Ontario ended the lucrative Slots At Racetrack Program and replaced it with a lesser formula. Many breeders couldn't afford to stay in the game. Is the Thoroughbred business showing signs of recovery?

JL: Our biggest single challenge is horse supply. The numbers of Thoroughbred foals are dramatically down. We are struggling for horses. With the opportunity to put in a second turf course in 2019 [after moving the Woodbine Standardbred operation full-time to Mohawk Racetrack in the spring of 2018], we think it will help to attract horses here. If we are running five or six turf races here a day for eight months, we have a good opportunity with our purse levels to attract horses south of the border and maybe potentially some day from Europe.

TDN: You had a season in which popular jockey Eurico Rosa da Silva had another great year, particularly with his run at tying the record for stakes wins in a meet. It was exciting for fans at the track, but is there a way to translate that to get mainstream sports people interested in racing?

JL: A number of U.S. tracks have done a better job at promoting the stars, helped a little bit by some network coverage. We could do a better job of promoting our stars. The industry–and not just here–has been a little bit complacent. These jockeys are great athletes, but not only that they are good people and they are hard-working people, and I think there is an appeal there that we haven't taken advantage of. Some of the jockeys have done [self-promotion] on their own [with social media], but it's not mainstream. We're in such a competitive environment. We're changing our game here dramatically with entertainment and festivals and looking at things differently. Part and parcel of that thinking is we've got some charismatic jockeys here, some of the top ones in the world–let's get the people interested in them.

 

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