Contraction is a funny word. That is unless you're about to give birth and holding onto your belly for dear life. Contraction can also mean apostrophes and shortened words, as well as a business reducing its activity -- the opposite of expansion.
In November of 2008, I wrote a piece for this site about the racing industry's need for contraction. The premise remains: Too much racing at too many places with too few fans to support it on a 50,000-races-per-year basis. Now, perhaps even more grossly in numbers, we have too few horses entering races to support the schedule as well.
Whether it wishes to or not, the thoroughbred racing game continues to undergo massive contraction. Going back only to 1989, more than 74,000 races were run in America, according to Equibase and the Jockey Club Fact Book. Last year, that number slipped to 49,000. That's roughly a one-third drop in the number of races in 20 years.
Of that one-third drop, only a rare few decisions come to mind that pro-actively attempted to contract. Most noteworthy of those, of course, is the current racing menu at Monmouth Park, which was contracted to 50 days this year in three- and two-day weekly intervals throughout the stand. The state of New Jersey dropped the Meadowlands meeting for thoroughbreds altogether, and roughly halved its allotment of racing days for a year overall. The theory surmises that lowering the overhead costs of running a quantity-driven racing meeting actually helps the bottom line and provides customers and horsemen much more quality per race.
Now comes word this week that Retama Park near San Antonio will contract its upcoming summer/fall meeting from 30 racing dates to just 16. There have been rumblings throughout Texas that all the state's thoroughbred dates could be contracted to one meeting at Lone Star Park near Dallas, combining the usual three meetings at Lone Star, Retama and Sam Houston Race Park. Recently, Blue Ribbon Downs boarded up its operations, leaving Remington Park and Will Rogers Downs as Oklahoma's remaining racetrack players in that state.
Turfway Park in greater Cincinnati, Ky., announced this week that the face of its racing calendar, the annual Kentucky Cup Day of Champions, will be cancelled due to a purse shortfall. As someone who was on hand in 1994 to help the track's staff launch the inaugural Kentucky Cup, it saddens me that an event that has had so much superstar participation has been relegated to the scrap heap. Turfway also dropped its four Wednesday cards of the fall meeting, contracting the number of racing dates from 20 to 16 for its premier stand. A four-day racing week will be its norm during the extended winter-spring meeting as well.
Hollywood Park reduced itself to a four-day racing week in 2010, and has had so much trouble filling races it still had to cancel several of its Thursday programs, including this week, leading up to its premier Gold Cup weekend. Arlington Park struggled this week to fill fields after adding a fifth day to its racing week last week for the Independence Day holiday.
Too much racing is not a periodic problem for the racing industry that will work itself out as trends change and the economy improves, it's a choke hold.
Don't get me wrong: There are thousands of quality racehorses, horsemen and racing fans still out there competing weekly. The show is not dead by any means, from the horses to the horsemen to the horseplayers.
Packaged properly, you can still find rousing examples of just how good this game/industry can be. Look at the Monmouth example, or the quality of a boutique meeting at Saratoga and Keeneland. Take the big event, it's stronger than ever. Account wagering improves its product on a nearly monthly basis, as one company or another continues to offer technological improvements, fan education materials and wagering incentives. Tracks finally are coming around to fractional pricing of wagers, which allow fans to play for less.
All of these things are good, and decisions that will help the game be even better once its schedule settles into a sustainable level. I firmly believe that thoroughbred racing will be an awesome game once it contracts to fit its demand. I'm not a doomsayer whatsoever; in fact, I'm an optimist by nature. Give me the best racing you can, and I'm willing to wait a day or two each week to play it.
When times are good, it's hard to get anyone to agree on sound reasoning for contraction or discounted pricing and the like. But the free market is giving the horse racing industry a good working-over right now, and that's forcing a lot of companies to make serious changes that probably should have been considered many years ago.
No matter which definition first comes to mind for you when you hear the word "contraction," chances are there will be some pain involved. But when the pain subsides, you've given birth to something that you can embrace for years to come.
Originally Posted on ESPN