The Casino Company that Loves Horse Racing

The company's name is Centaur Gaming and it's that second word in the title that usually spells trouble for horse racing. The marriage between racing and gaming may have produced record-level purses at some tracks, but has done little else for the sport. And it's no secret that some gaming companies are not only disinterested in racing, they wish they could do away with.

But that's not at all the case in Indiana, where Centaur Gaming operates the harness track Hoosier Park and the Thoroughbred track Indiana Grand.

“First and foremost, our two most high-ranking executives [Jim Brown and Rod Ratcliff] are both fans of racing and they love the sport,” said Indiana Grand VP and General Manager of Racing Jonathan Schuster. “That's a good platform to start from. Our philosophy is that when you come to our property, we want you to have the best experience that you can have. God bless them, they tend to embrace racing beyond what anybody could believe. I've got to be the luckiest guy on the planet to work here.”

Centaur was founded in 1993 and is Indiana owned and managed. It was created largely to take advantage of the legislation of racinos in Indiana and was the major investor in Hoosier Park, which then conducted both harness and Thoroughbred racing. Originally, Churchill Downs managed Hoosier. Churchill and Centaur parted ways and Centaur also purchased what was then called Indiana Downs in 2013. With one company running both tracks, Hoosier became a harness-only track and Indiana Grand a Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse facility.

“Buying Indiana Grand was a business decision based on gaming, racing and business opportunities.” said Brown, Centaur's president and COO. “Indiana Grand, overall, is a beautiful facility. We also saw the opportunities it would present with moving up Indiana racing on a national scale. We had been racing Thoroughbreds, Standardbreds and Quarter Horses at Hoosier Park, and, really, it's a harness track. It's seven-eighths of a mile and has no turf course. Indiana Grand, we felt, had the potential to be a spectacular Thoroughbred track.”

Yes, the casino is what makes the money, but Brown explains that Centaur's theory is that it is going to do its very best in any aspect of its business.

“Really, we're an integrated company that strives to do our best at all aspects of the businesses we operate,” Brown said. “I think it's an eye-of-the-beholder-type thing. We see a bigger picture and that's the overall experience that we provide our customers with all the different dimensions of entertainment that we can provide. If you go back originally, we were given our casino license through horse racing. One of our responsibilities was that we were asked to work to improve horse racing in the state of Indiana and we take that seriously. There's a passion for horse racing here and also a vision and view point that all aspects of what we do are as important as the other ones. I'll use an analogy: Our house keeping department…we don't make money with our house keeping department, but we're never going to allow our facility to get dirty.”

Both tracks feature numerous promotions that include gaming and racing and Centaur is not afraid to spend money to market racing. The racing fan is treated just as well as the casino player as anyone who gambles at Hoosier can become part of its players club and the horseplayers get the exact same perks and benefits that the casino players do. Both Hoosier and Indiana Grand have purchased Trakus, a horse-player friendly innovation that you usually find only the top-tier tracks.

Brown admits that Indiana Grand does not turn a profit on its racing operation, but he insists that's a short-sighted way of looking at things. Overall, Indiana Grand and Hoosier do quite well and he believes that wouldn't be the case if the company didn't aspire to excellence in all aspects of its business. And they've managed to dramatically improve handle at Indiana Grand since taking over. According to Brown, handle was up 22% in 2015 versus 2014 numbers and is up 15% this year.

“We are being noticed,” he said.

One of the primary factors behind the handle improvement is that Centaur figured out a racing schedule where it doesn't always get lost in the simulcasting world versus the behemoths like NYRA, Santa Anita, Del Mar, Gulfstream. They're currently racing Tuesdays through Saturdays and Saturday is the only day of the week during which they run at night, with a 6:05 p.m. first post.

“We've really looked at that over the several years,” Brown said of the racing schedule. “If you go back to the acquisition of Indiana Grand, it was a night track. We looked at where our opportunities were, particularly with our export signal, and we saw that during the week we could stand out for a large portion of the year racing in the daytime. First, we moved to day racing except for Fridays and Saturdays. Then we found our customer base was confused. Are they a night track? Are they a day track? So, now we run nights on Saturdays only and try to make that experience more like a party. We actually put our better racing cards on during the week because that helps us beat the simulcasting competition.”

The racing seems to get better every year at Indiana Grand and their purses are high enough that they get a plethora of shippers from Kentucky. At this year's GII Indiana Derby, records were set in virtually every category as fans turned out to see the Bob Baffert-trained Cupid (Tapit) win the $500,000 race. Baffert has won the race four times.

“I think they are trying to improve the relationships with horsemen and the racing here all the time,” local trainer Mike Lauer said. “They are trying to improve the whole program, the Indiana-bred program, the entire racing product from beginning to end and they are succeeding. They end up getting better horses here every year.”

As long as Brown and Chairman and CEO Ratcliff are in charge at Centaur, don't expect their racing-friendly attitude to change.

“Rod has been a horse racing fan his entire life,” Brown noted. “He has owned horses and is extremely passionate about horse racing. From my standpoint, I grew up in Middletown, New Jersey and I had an uncle who drove a truck for the Newark Star-Ledger who loved the races and he would visit us in Middletown on Wednesdays. My uncle, dad and I would go to Freehold or Monmouth. I was mowing my parents lawn twice a week to have money to be able to go to Freehold and Monmouth. And that's a big reason we treat racing the way we do here. Rod and I love racing and we want to do everything we can to see that it thrives in Indiana.”