Rood & Riddle Press Release via Richard Eng

This is the content of  PR issued by Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital and featuring Dr. Larry Bramlage, one of the most respected equine practitioners in the world.  This was received by Richard Eng, racing columnist for the Las Vegas Review Journal and originally posted via his Facebook page.

It speaks for itself.

Reports on Racehorse Injury Rates, Medications Misleading


July 13, 2012 – Lexington, KY - Earlier this week, the horse racing industry encountered further criticism when an article by the New York Times (found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/sports/ill-have-another-had-history-of-ailments-records-show.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss) alleged that drastic treatments were being given to Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I’ll Have Another leading up to this year’s Belmont Stakes. The colt was withdrawn from the Belmont, ending his bid for the Triple Crown, when trainer Doug O’Neill reported he began experiencing tendonitis, or tendon swelling, in his left front leg.

The Times alleges that “powerful painkillers” were given to the horse, and that x-rays taken of the colt’s joints prior to his withdrawal indicate a much more severe problem. The author also alleges that the practice of running horses with high doses of drugs to overcome painful injuries is common practice in Thoroughbred racing.

As a member of the Jockey Club, and past president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners and the American College of Veterinary Surgeons, renowned Thoroughbred health expert Dr. Larry Bramlage gave an interview to NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams in an attempt to more accurately inform the public about health and safety practices in racing. That video can be found here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/48155033#48155033. As the AAEP’s on-call veterinarian for Triple Crown races and chief orthopedic surgeon at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital, Dr. Bramlage became concerned following the release of that segment that the public did not have all the facts regarding the issues presented by the Times and NBC.

“In my opinion, The New York Times piece published on July 11 titled ‘I’ll Have Another had history of ailments, records show’ was closer to tabloid journalism than in-depth reporting, as was the selective editing demonstrated on the July 11 edition of NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams.

In reality, statistics given by the Times that 24 horses break down each week on American racetracks was calculated based on a number of questionable assumptions including, the inclusion of “eased” designations and equine ambulance pick-ups after a race as indications of injury, a procedure that is often, in fact, precautionary. Our increased awareness of equine injuries has increased the number of times that we help the horse off the track, but those are not necessarily indications that the horse has had a serious problem. In fact, statistics indicate the number of Thoroughbred injuries has trended downward with the increased caution The misinterpretation of the medical terminology ‘osteoarthritis’, and the substitution of ‘major painkillers’ for anti-inflammatory medications is unfair to the uninformed general public. It’s useful only to sell newspapers, not to allow the public to understand what actually happened for the horse. The phenylbutazone given to I’ll Have Another is from the same drug group as aspirin and ibuprofen in humans, can’t be given to a horse within 24 hours of a race, and is tested for with blood and urine samples at all levels of the sport. Dexamethasone is a corticosteroid used as an anti-inflammatory as well.

There have been 11 horses that have won two of the three legs of the Triple Crown in the last 33 years. I would guess that almost all of those horses had x-rays after winning the second leg as a monitoring, precautionary measure. That’s routine veterinary care, and would be akin to the kind of examinations that human Olympic athletes who just qualified in the U.S. championships will undergo prior to competing in the Olympics at the end of July.

While veterinary ethics preclude us from speculating on I’ll Have Another’s case specifically as we were not the attending veterinarian, the records provided to New York State Racing and Wagering Board do not indicate anything inappropriate. No illegal, unprofessional, or medically unwarranted medication was given to this horse. We totally agree with the approach that Dr. Jim Hunt, attending veterinarian, took to get this horse ready for a possible Triple Crown run.”

I Don't Feel Dead

From Paul Moran at ESPN to Richard Eng at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, reaction to Penn National CEO Peter Carlino’s comments about his racing patrons has been thoughtful and pointed - certainly more thoughtful than Carlino’s comments were. In case you haven’t heard in speaking to investors and financial analysts during a conference call Carlino said of his company’s racing patrons, “There aren’t sufficient numbers of racing customers because they have died.”

Moran doesn't begrudge Penn National's success.  He writes,“The Penn National leadership should be congratulated for an aggressive expansion beyond its roots as operator of a backwater racetrack in Pennsylvania to take a place among the nation's leading gaming companies. It generated nearly $2.5 billion in revenue last year. But its corporate view of racing -- minor if adjunct to casino gaming rather than the core product -- has made it impossible to discern the tail from the dog.”

The issue boils down to public corporation ownership of racinos. There is one thing that shareholders demand: growth. If you’re not growing, you’re dying. I'm not saying that running a racino with a commitment to racing as a publicly traded company is impossible, just difficult.  Racing simply cannot provide the kind of explosive growth that slots can. Once that money starts rolling in the call from shareholders is more, more, more.  That pressure is hard to combat, though one way would be to declare a dividend and position yourself as a mature, income producing investment rather than a growth instrument.  Most companies won't look at it that way and are subjected to the pressures of growth from the marketplace (Penn National, Churchill Downs, Boyd Gaming to name a few), though I do hope and think that should my home track, Canterbury Park, becomes a racino they will be able to navigate this minefield better than most.

Slot machines require little labor. They can go 24/7 with a minimum of effort. You can rake in $200 in profit per machine per day and keep your expenses as low relatively low. No matter how you slice it, racing is a labor intensive industry. Horses need care every day of the year. They don’t groom themselves and they can’t go over to the track and make sure they go five furlongs in a minute and change. They can’t load themselves into the gate and they can’t give themselves examinations. A backstretch consumes tons of feed which needs to be grown, processed and delivered. The waste product needs to be collected and disposed. The statistics used in handicapping is gathered by humans working at hundreds of racetracks and training centers around the country. There is no way to trim this down and I'm leaving out plenty of people.

Carlino may think that all horseplayers are all dying but, as Moran points out as well, your typical slot player demographic isn’t much younger. The challenge facing casinos is similar to the challenge facing racetracks: make the product appealing to younger players. The average slot player is still a woman in her 60s.
What’s the solution? If it were possible to raise the money, I would buy a racetrack and run it as a non-profit. Hear me out. That does NOT mean we wouldn’t want to make money, just that we would run as a non-profit.  Purses would be excellent and we would make sure that the money went back into the facilty and operation. Here is how I see it working:

Horsemen own the racino. Of course the state would take their cut, as states involved with gaming do, but the cut would be reasonable. Not the joke that passes for a gaming tax in Nevada (while teachers get laid off and public services suffer) or the punitive tax proposed by Kansas which birthed a stillborn racino industry. Somewhere along the lines of 30% seems fair and reasonable to me. Let’s say we have a 2,000 slot racino earning $200 per machine per day – not an unreasonable assumption outside of Nevada and, in fact, very conservative. That would generate nearly $44 million a year for the state and just over $100,000,000 for the track. Combine that with handle on live racing and simulcasting and you have a successful 100 day meet. 

We'd race four days a week from April through September making sure that we run in the evenings on weekdays. Hell, while I’m living in fantasyland, having a racetrack in the north and the south would create a circuit with race dates in the south from October through March. There would still be competition from casinos and other entertainment options and therefore a need for quality food and beverage, outstanding customer service and clean comfortable facilities. The quarter to quarter pressures of a public company would be gone, however, replaced instead with a commitment to horsemen, horses, agriculture and community service. Far-fetched as this may sound, it does exist, sort of, in Iowa at Prairie Meadows. The difference there is that the non-profit is not racing but community based so the pressure there is to close down racing so there can be more money for the county, the purpose of opening the racino in the first place to promote the horse industry and agriculture forgotten amid the swirl of slot money.

The point isn’t so much the way the numbers above calculate but that the pressures the operation would be under would be entirely different than they are today under a Penn National or Churchill Downs. There are no shareholders clamoring for constant growth. No hue and cry to get rid of that high expense racing product to add more slot machines. There would be money for the state, money for the horsemen and money for the bettors (takeout should be able to be held to more reasonable levels than it is now).  There could even be money for horse rescue, injured jockey funds, backstretch workers and other racing and even community based charities.  I know I’m taking more Utopia than reality since these pressures would be sure to be replaced by others, human nature being what it is, but it is going to be very difficult for any public company, no matter their commitment to racing, to resist the call of shareholders for greater growth once they get a taste. After all, I remember when Penn National was just a crappy racecourse in Grantville, PA.

According to the Thoroughbred Times, national handle in 2010, while down, was still over $11.4 BILLION. Those of us among the living are betting that money, Mr. Carlino, and if you don’t want a piece of it, I’d be glad to run a racino that would take it off your hands.