The Contentious Fight to Save New England Racing

Suffolk Downs | Horsephotos

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With Suffolk Downs and Rockingham leading the way, New England was once home to an important and vibrant racing industry. There were six traditional racetracks plus a half-dozen or so fair tracks in Massachusetts. Cigar, Riva Ridge and Skip Away ran at Suffolk Downs in the Massachusetts Handicap and so did Seabiscuit. Narragansett Park in Rhode Island hosted a match race in 1942 between Triple Crown winner Whirlaway and 1942 Preakness winner Alsab. War Admiral ran at Lincoln Downs, also in Rhode Island, in 1938. Dr. Fager won at Rockingham.

Today, all that's left of New England racing is a six-day meet at Suffolk Downs, which will be open this Saturday and Sunday. There are hopes of a revival, many of which revolve around the concept of making a racetrack a part of a new equestrian center, but what has developed into a bitter rivalry between competing horsemen's groups threatens to stall progress.

By 2003, there wasn't much left to New England racing, as Suffolk Downs was the last track standing and it had been kept alive only by the hope that it would eventually be awarded a casino license. When Suffolk lost out on getting gaming it was announced that racing would cease there at the end of the 2014 meet. With the goal of giving racing a pulse while future plans could be developed and discussed with state politicians, the New England HBPA leased the track in 2015 and held a three-day meet, which has been doubled to six days this year.

“The only purpose of keeping the place open was to keep racing alive while the horsemen explored the concept of an equestrian center,” said Lou Raffetto, the former vice president of racing at Suffolk and now a consultant to the New England HBPA and the manager of the meet when Suffolk races. “We don't believe right now that the right thing to do was to run a full meet. I sat down as a conduit with horsemen and management and advised them that racing had to stay visible and viable to show people that if done properly it can be fun and exciting.”

Raffetto estimates that the attendance at the 2015 mini-meet averaged about 11,000 people per day.

As is the case with so many racing jurisdictions, particularly where there are B and C-level tracks, racing alone was not a viable economic entity in Massachusetts. But the sport's future was given new life when legislation was passed to allow casinos in the state earmarked money for racing, much of it coming from Plainridge Park, a harness track that was granted a slots license. But with none of the money going to the owner of Suffolk Downs, Richard Fields, he has no incentive to open the track's doors.

So, there is money to race, but, by and large, nowhere to race. The Massachusetts Race Horse Development Fund currently consists of about $13 million, which is split between harness and Thoroughbred purses and with the Thoroughbred portion far from emptied with only six days of racing at Suffolk, it will continue to grow.

Raffetto believes that the best way to make a splash and to make people aware that there is still plenty of interest in racing in New England is to run a festival style meet with the usual accouterments that come with them, like food trucks and craft beers. Each day of racing offers roughly $500,000 in purses, pots big enough to attract many prominent horsemen from outside New England. When racing was held at Suffolk over the July 8 and 9 weekend, Christophe Clement and Bill Mott each won two races and several races were won by Monmouth-based trainers.

That money from the Massachusetts Race Horse Development Fund is flowing out of state, is one of the many disputes a splintered horsemen's group, the Massachusetts Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, has with the New England HBPA and Suffolk management.

“The difference between the two organizations is that they've put all the local horsemen out of business and have left them along the side of the road as casualties of what they are doing,” said MTHA President Bill Lagorio. “So if you think three or six days of racing has done any good why don't you look at the numbers we've put out that say 76% of that money has gone to out-of-towners. How can that possibly support an industry here? As far as Christophe Clement coming in and taking the money, what good does that do for Mass racing?”

The MTHA is instead behind a proposed meet at the Brockton Fair, which last raced in 2001. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission is still mulling a proposal to allow Brockton to race 15 days later this year. Lagorio and his group believe that racing at Brockton will do more good for traditional New England horsemen. In an effort not to allow all the purse money to go elsewhere, Suffolk does write races restricted to horses that raced there in 2014 and/or 2015.

“Brockton is a short-term solution, Lagorio said. “It's a way to utilize the Race Horse Development fund for the first time for its intended use, to help the local horsemen.”

Raffetto believes there will be ample opportunities for local horsemen to run if his group and backers can get the equestrian center to become a reality. He sees it existing in the western part of the state and including not just a racetrack, but sections for dressage, hunter jumpers, 4-H clubs and even horse retirement. But it won't be cheap. He says building the racetrack will cost $60 million and the entire facility will cost about $150 million. Raffetto sees the equestrian center track racing about 75 days a year with purses averaging $200,000 a day.”

It will never happen without some sort of help from the state government and he maintains that the rival horsemen's group is making problems for him at the statehouse.

“They cause trouble legislatively, they cause trouble with the commission and the commission doesn't really understand they don't represent true owners and trainers,” Raffetto said.

Raffetto says the MTHA is not a legitimate group.

“They're representing themselves as the true representatives of the majority of the horsemen in New England, which is a total falsehood,” Raffetto said. “Their membership is made up of a handful of trainers that don't even train for a living. They used to come into Suffolk Downs in the summer, train horses for four, five months and the rest of the year they'd collect social security or plow snow. They say they represent 600 owners. It's a joke. The HBPA legitimately does represent 700, 800 horsemen. With them, to be a member you can be a blacksmith, groom, hotwalker. Among the whole group, they don't control 20 horses. But politicians don't want to deal with our in-fighting and all they need is to get one or two on their side and they can cause a lot of trouble.”

Counters Lagorio: “I get 150 phone calls a day from starving horsemen.”

Lagorio believes the answer is to have someone come in and take over Suffolk Downs and he says he has had face-to-face talks with Frank Stronach, who has expressed a willingness to buy or lease the track. He says the main problem that is standing in the way of someone taking over Suffolk racing is that the NEHBPA controls the simulcasting rights in the state and he believes they are only interested in the equestrian center. No one would ever take over Suffolk without the ability to simulcast.

“With someone else controlling the simulcasting nobody is going to come in here and do anything at Suffolk,” he said. “The HBPA has it tied it up and they made a horrible deal.”

Lagorio also contends that the idea of a multi-purpose equestrian center will never become a reality.

“They have no land, they have no money, they've done no feasability studies,” he said. “It's pie in the sky. Nowhere in the country has a horsemen's organization decided to go ahead and build a racetrack. It just doesn't work. We have solutions here. The solution is folks like Stronach who want to come in and operate racing. We have go get beyond the cozy relationship between the HBPA and Suffolk Downs that has tied us down.”

Raffetto says he has already reached an agreement with Fields to run another short meet at Suffolk Downs next year. But it can only be a matter of time before Fields decides to sell the land to a developer. Then what?

For now, there are a lot more questions than answers in New England. Can racing there survive? Can it survive with two disparate horsemen's groups at war with one another? Its anyone's guess.

 

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