- The first thoroughbreds raced at Saratoga Springs in 1863.
- NYRA says its tracks stand at the center of a $3 billion industry that supports 19,000 jobs in NY
- Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga would lose nearly 40 percent of purse money if gaming money vanished
A smattering of fans has turned out for a muddy day of racing at Finger Lakes Racetrack on an overcast late-April day in Western New York.
Wayne and Judy Gilbert had been counting the days until they could make the hourlong drive from their home near Syracuse for a day at the track. It’s the horses they come to see.
“They’re beautiful,” says Wayne, a retired church custodian. “God’s creatures.”
They are sitting at a small table along the concourse behind stands that are mostly empty and will remain that way until a recording of a trumpet announces that it's post time and a couple dozen patrons, Racing Forms in hand, venture out from the betting room to catch the next race.
The Gilberts have been busy poring over entries for the third race, employing a process that bears little resemblance to traditional handicapping, the art of predicting which horse will win based on a variety of factors.Judy instead picked a horse in the first race because “uhavetobekittenme” had “kitten” in its name. And they like the long shots. Why waste money on a horse with 2-to-1 odds when all you’re betting is a few dollars?
“We just spend a little bit for the sake of betting while we’re watching them,” Wayne says. “This last race I think we won 50 cents between the two of us.”
Then, as post time arrived, Wayne, his retirement income secure, excused himself to place a bet.
Finger Lakes will not be paying its bills with what the Gilberts drop at the track every few weeks. Or for that matter, from the few dozen fans that have turned out at the track in Farmington on a Tuesday afternoon.
But take the escalator down one flight from the stands and it becomes clear who’s bankrolling this operation.
There, amid a gleaming gaming floor of many colors, more than 1,100 video game machines with spinning wheels and titles like “Blazing 7’s” and “Double Diamond,” beckon a mid-afternoon crowd.
It’s a 60,000-square foot facility that underwent a $12 million remodeling nine years ago, adding a bar and buffet seating for nearly 500.
Since opening in 2004, Finger Lakes has contributed more than $900 million to state education funding and another $25 million to local government. Some 2 million visitors pass through the doors every year.
Gaming facilities like this one are the lifeblood of horse racing in New York. Without them, horse racing at most of New York’s tracks would likely not have survived.
A 2021 study done for the New York State Gaming Commission found that between 78% and 84% of total purses, which are payouts to horse owners, for Finger Lakes races and the state’s seven other standardbred harness racing tracks come from money spent at video lottery terminals.
The big three of thoroughbred tracks – Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga – would lose nearly 40% of purse money if gaming facility money was to go away. The financial hit would lead to a smaller slate of races, which would have breeders heading to other states.
But amid a series of high-profile doping scandals, horse deaths and waning attendance, that lifeline of subsidies is being challenged by animal rights groups. They want New York lawmakers to eliminate the $230 million it estimates horse tracks get from gaming facilities every year.
The challenge comesbefore the Horse Integrity and Safety Authority, an oversight body created by Congress in response to horse-safety concerns, takes effect July 1. The authority's goal will be creating a uniform slate of rules to be followed by tracks across the U.S.
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As the nation’s attention this weekend turns to the Kentucky Derby, a celebration in brightly colored hats of a sport that came out of the nation’s agrarian past, New York finds itself trying to hang on to its own sliver of that history, one that dates back to 1863 when thoroughbreds first raced at Saratoga Springs.
Groups like PETA and NYClass, which tried to end horse-drawn carriage rides in New York City, say the state should spend the subsidies on education and let the horse racing industry fend for itself.
They cite the 2020 arrest of 27 trainers in a wide-ranging scheme to inject horses with performance-enhancing drugs so they could run through pain and the suspension of Bob Baffert, one of horse racing's most recognized trainers, after his Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit failed a post-race drug test.
“If you’re going to run an industry where you can’t manage to pay all your workers for the number of hours that they work, where you can’t keep the horses alive, where nobody questions, beyond a slap on the wrist, a medication overage ... ,” PETA Vice President Kathy Guillermo said. “If you’re going to do all that, do it on your own dime.”
Both sides have dug in for a drawn-out battle, with competing websites that tout their positions. The Campaign to End Horse Racing Subsides' site lists the names of horses who've died at New York tracks in recent years. And it decries the practice of whipping horses during races.
"Horse racing is the only activity in which beating an animal to compel speed is legal," the website notes.
Actress Edie Falco recorded a video urging state lawmakers to eliminate the “corporate welfare” payments that have allowed the horse racing industry to thrive.
“Hundreds of thousands of New York businesses operate successfully, providing jobs, livelihoods to millions of people without handouts from the state,” Falco said. “It is fundamentally unfair that the horse racing industry, a private business, is supported by casino revenue that could be going to programs that are truly in need of our support.”
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Racing an 'economic engine'
To create the mile and a half dirt racing surface at Belmont Park, sand is trucked in from Long Island, silt from upstate New York and clay from New Jersey. It’s all carefully blended, in just the right proportion, with just the right amount of moisture.
And the job of making sure it all comes together falls to Glen Kozak, the son of a veterinarian who grew up around horses in New Jersey.
Kozak oversees operations at Belmont as senior vice president of operations. He makes sure the three track surfaces are in shape for the day’s races, replacing divots from the two turf tracks and making sure the dirt track is consistent from one race to the next.
Kozak oversees the backend of an operation that includes nearly 2,500 horse stalls on 400 acres, a church, medical offices and dorms for more than 1,000 workers – grooms, hot walkers, exercise riders and the like. It’s a small city within a city that kept operating through the pandemic, while workers tended to horses.
“It was a monumental task to keep this place operating,” Kozak said during a tour last week.
The day begins around 4:30 a.m., long before the start of the first race after 1 p.m.
“It’s hard work,” said Rob Atras, a trainer, who started out as a groom in his native Canada. “And it’s a lot of dedication. These people, their hearts are in it and they care for the animals.”
Atras struck out on his own about a year and a half ago and now has 45 horses that he trains.
He relies on his workers to let him know if the horses have finished their feed, if their temperature is OK.
“When you have this many horses, I can’t be everywhere at once,” Atras said. “So I rely on these people to tell me everything about the horse and whether they’re just looking at the horse, grooming it, feeding it, or a rider out there riding it, I rely on him to tell me how’s the horse doing ...If there’s an issue they tell me, you know, something’s not right there.”
Belmont holds 44 days of racing in the spring, highlighted by the Belmont Stakes on June 11.
It’s one of three tracks – in addition to Aqueduct and Saratoga –run by the New York Racing Association.
Last year’s handle for the three tracks, the total from bets placed on and off track,was $2.37 billion, the highest since the $2.48 billion tallied in 2008. Last year’s handle – the total spent by bettors – at Saratoga's summer meet surpassed $800 million for the first time.
Attendance is not what it was before off-track and digital betting, but it surpassed 1.2 million at the three NYRA tracks last year racing on 201 days. In 2008, track attendance was 1.7 million over 249 days of racing.
In its battle with animal rights groups, NYRA has made the point to lawmakers that its tracks stand at the center of a $3 billion industry that supports 19,000 jobs in New York.
And horse racing buttresses other business, acting as “an economic engine” for New York, coming and going. Truckloads of straw are brought in from all over the country to feed Belmont’s horses. It goes out – in the form of manure – to mushroom farms in Pennsylvania.
Sod for the two turf surfaces comes from Long Island. And the stone dust used across the property comes from upstate suppliers.
Since 2013, Belmont has invested $40 million in housing for the backstretch workers and in the coming years is hoping to build a new grandstand and clubhouse and overhaul its three racing surfaces. This week lawmakers introduced bills that, if passed, would give NYRA the ability to access state-backed bonds to secure $450 million in funding for the renovations.
NYRA declared bankruptcy in 2006 and sold its three tracks to the state of New York. Two years later, the state agreed to a deal that would guarantee NYRA money from video lottery terminals through 2033.
NYRA’s Patrick McKenna said the legislation being pushed by Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal and animal rights groups would undermine that deal.
“Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, NYClass and PETA have partnered in an attempt to destroy horse racing in New York State,” McKenna said. “Their legislation is a disingenuous and irresponsible attack on a sport that drives a broad industry responsible for thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in economic impact."
Animal rights groups on the offensive
PETA’s Guillermo began to focus on horse racing in New York after a campaign to highlight horse deaths at Santa Anita Racetrack in 2019. Thirty-seven horses died at the California track that year, prompting a temporary shutdown.
“When we were looking at the huge number of deaths that they have in New York, we began to wonder why,” Guillermo said.
A 2019 investigation by The USA Today Network revealed more than 500 thoroughbred deaths at Finger Lakes, Belmont, Saratoga and Aqueduct over the previous decade.
Last year, Aqueduct tallied 10 deaths during races, down from a high of 24 in 2012, according to The Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database. In addition:
- Belmont had nine, down from a high of 14 in 2009;
- Saratoga had three, from a high of six in both2014 and 2017
- and Finger Lakes had four, down from a high of 31 in 2010.
The numbers measure deaths during races and does not include those that occur during training or elsewhere.
Measured by the rate of deaths per 1,000 starts, Aqueduct led with 1.82, followed by Belmont 1.52; Saratoga .93 and Finger Lakes .8.
Deaths at New Jersey’s Monmouth Park rose last year. Six died at Monmouth, an average of 1.46 per 1,000 starts in 2021.
That was above the national average of 1.39, and higher than Monmouth Park’s 1.36 average in 2020. But it was better than the track’s average of 2.37 in 2019, when 11 horses died during races. That was the highest number of fatalities in races at Monmouth Park since 13 died in 2014.
In all, some 17 horses died at Monmouth Park last year, including as a result of injuries sustained in training, up from 13 in 2020. In 2019, 17 horses died at Monmouth Park.
NYRA says the death ratehas steadily improved and noted that the rate of fatal injury last year was the lowest it’s been since the Jockey Club began collecting data in 2009.
But that’s little consolation to PETA, who view a single death as one too many.
Guillermo says PETA intends to keep the pressure on lawmakers this year with commercials highlighting horse deaths, statements of support from celebrities and challenging the subsidies in Albany.
She questions why NYRA needs to build a new clubhouse at Belmont when crowds are not at levels theyonce were.
“If hardly anybody is going to the track except for one big weekend at Belmont a year, what is the need for this fancy clubhouse?” Guillermo said. “If they haven’t been able to build racing back in all this time that they’ve been receiving subsidies, why do they think this is going to make a difference now?”
The prospects for Rosenthal’s bill and companion legislation in the state senate are unclear.
State Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr., the chairman of the Racing, Gaming and Wagering committee, question whether it’s the best approach to addressing issues facing the horse racing industry. Addabbo's Queens district includes Aqueduct in South Ozone Park.
“New York does have very strict laws in terms of doping and drugging and obviously we always look at that,” Addabbo said. “But to take $250 million out of a $3 billion industry does not make mathematical sense or common sense ... Instead of doing this we could look to help the horse and the horse’s well-being as well as jobs associated with the horse racing industry.”
How New Jersey subsidizes racing
New Jersey has taken a different approach to subsidies.
Between 2004 and 2010, New Jersey horse racing received subsidies totaling $178 million, split between thoroughbred and standardbred horsem*n, from the state’s casinos.
But in 2011, then Gov. Chris Christie ended the subsidies and sought to either privatize the two tracks the state owns – Monmouth Park and the Meadowlands – or close them.
All the while, Monmouth Park’s handle was on the decline. The track had a gross handle of $251.8 million in 2015, according to the New Jersey Racing Commission’s annual report. But by 2019, the track’s last full season after the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the last two, was down to $195.7 million, a 22.2% decrease.
The political winds shifted under Gov. Phil Murphy, and in 2019 the state approved a five-year purse subsidy package worth $100 million, to be split between the two breeds.
“Gov. Phil Murphy, and the senate and assembly, have been strongly supportive of racing and preserving our industry,” said Dennis Drazin, the chairman and CEO of Darby Development LLC., which operates Monmouth Park.
“They recognize all the additional benefits that racing has for New Jersey. It’s more than just wagering on horses. It helps preserve a whole agriculture economy in the state. I think that the legislature recognizes that it helps keep open space, and they are trying to preserve an industry that is important to New Jersey.”
The subsidy came a year after sports betting was legalized at racetracks and casinos in the state, providing Monmouth Park another infusion of cash, which last year added around $10 million to the track’s coffers.
“It makes the difference here at Monmouth Park,” Drazin said. “Without sports betting we were losing a lot of money. Now, not only are we breaking even, now we’re making a few bucks. I don’t think the racing world here at Monmouth Park has to worry about survival. Now we have to seize upon new opportunities to grow.
“Someday, if and when all these subsidies are over, you have to rely on your own business. You have to rely upon being able to generate enough revenue to run your place. So we have focused on trying to grow revenues and not rely on just handouts for the state. And frankly, while I’m happy them giving us $10 million, New York gets $250 million, Pennsylvania gets $250 million. If they give us $250 million watch what we’re able to do.”
A lifetime with horses
As the horses come down the stretch, a lone voice –easily identified over the sparse crowd —cheers on a 3-year-old filly.
The voice belongs to Wayne Sparling, a trainer and owner.
The object of his excitement is a horse named “wowspelledbackward” who just finished third in the third race with the help of jockey Johnny Berrios.
“This was a problem horse,” Sparling said, steps away from the winner’s circle. “I couldn’t get a rider to get on her. And Johnny said, ‘Wayne, I trust you. Is she going to be alright out there?' ”
Sparling has been around horses for most of his 75 years. He was coming out to Finger Lakes when he was just a boy, to ride horses for his father Arthur and anyone else who would let him on one of their horses.
Today, he owns 14 horses at a farm in Walton near Binghamton.
Sparling has heard the criticism from animal rights groups. And he certainly knows the dangers for all. He’s broken ribs and ruptured his spleen.
But he says while the criticism is deserved for those who skirt the rules by drugging horses or failing to care for their welfare, the sport doesn’t deserve to be tarnished.
“Very few trainers back there or any other racetrack do a bad job of taking care of their horses,” Sparling said. “It’s their livelihood. And if you don’t like it, you’re not going to be in it. This is a lot of hours and a lot of work.”
A few steps away, his brother Richard, who’s been coming out to Finger Lakes as long ashis brother Wayneis recalling healthier days when he would breeze horses as a young rider.
“I miss it,” Richard said. “I come watch them in the morning. I remember being out there. Boy, what a rush that is.”
His father was the one who taught him how to treat horses, how to coexist.
“They’re like a lot of people,” he said. “They don’t like you hollering at them. They don’t want to be swatted. And it’s like my Dad always said ‘that’s what those pointy things on top of their head was for so they could hear you. So talk to ‘em.’”
Stephen Edelson is a USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey sports columnist who has been covering athletics in the state and at the Jersey Shore for nearly 35 years. Contact him at: @SteveEdelsonAPP; sedelson@gannettnj.com.
Thomas C. Zambito covers energy, economic growth and transportation for The USA Today's Network's New York State team. He can be reached at Tzambito@Lohud.com or on Twitter at @TomZambito.
