Highs and Lows of 2011 at Parx Racing

As we reflect back upon the past 12 months at Parx Racing, there were many memorable moments, both good and bad. Here are a few of our favorites:

High – The Cotillion Stakes for 3-year-old fillies was bestowed Grade 1 status by the American Graded Stakes Committee. From DRF: http://www.drf.com/news/two-bc-races-cotillion-among-four-new-grade-1-stakes-2012

Low – The track publicized that this is the “first” Grade 1 race in Pennsylvania, but in reality it is not.  The Cotillion enjoyed Grade 1 status in 1973, when Lilac Hill won, and was downgraded thereafter. Here's one of the articles with the wrong information: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/07/2535632/purse-upgrade-for-cotillion-stakes.html

Here’s the video of this year’s Cotillion, won by Pennsylvania-bred Plum Pretty:

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High – Juan Carlos Guerrero dominated racing for the 2^nd year in a row, maintaining a 40 percent win clip and completing 2011 nearly 40 winners ahead of runnerup Ramon Preciado.

Low – Guerrero gets booted off track for 10 years the week of December 19^th after being charged with sexual assault.  Read more here: http://www.drf.com/news/parx-racing-bans-leading-trainer-guerrero-10-years

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High – Apprentices Rosario Montanez and Kyle Frey end 2011 as the top 2 bug-boys in the country while based at Parx.

Low – Veteran Eriluis Vaz, the infamous participant in the jockey fight versus Ademar Santos during a race at Parx in 2010, gets the hook by track security after a mysterious shower incident in the women jockey’s room the week of December 5. It’s rumored he’s been barred for seven years.
You can see Vaz’s saddle slugfest here:

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High – Parx Casino launches a multi-million dollar expansion of the main building in order to create more elbow room for table games customers.  Read more: http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/10/24/parx-casino-is-expanding-again/

Low – Attendance and handle at the racetrack shrink, while the new casino expansion encroaches upon the lone parking lot for racetrack patrons.

According to the most recent approved minutes of the Pennsylvania State Racing Commission: “Joe Wilson, Chief Executive Officer, reported the Pari-mutuel handle from all sources for the month of October, 2011 was $34.9M.  Year to date handle was $390.5M compared to $454.6M from 2010; reflecting a decrease of 14.1%.  Purses paid an average of $317K per day compared to $367K per day in 2010.  Mr. Wilson explained the underpayment was $1.8M.  The underpayment continues to be monitored with the PTHA. Total attendance on track for October, 2011 was 18,926 compared to 21,109 in October, 2010.”

Perhaps the most disturbing fact contained in that Commission report was this: “The Thoroughbred handle at the Pennsylvania locations are down nearly $42M.”

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High – Aggressive ad campaign for Parx Casino blankets tri-state area with TV, print and Internet ads. Check this one out:

Low – Parx Racing gets little, if any, marketing support from Greenwood Gaming & Entertainment.

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High – Parx Racing creates a “Hall of  Fame,” whose purpose should have been to honor important people and horses of its past. Scroll down in this link to see the pics: http://www.patha.org/pdfs/Press%20release%20H%20of%20F.pdf

Low – The track’s longtime first announcer, Jack Lamar, is snubbed by the “nominating committee,” while a member of that nominating committee is voted into the Hall of Fame, bringing into question its legitimacy.

You can read all about Lamar’s legacy in the Bensalem announcer’s booth here: http://www.pathoroughbred.blogspot.com/2011/09/giving-jack-his-due.html

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All in all, another year of very interesting news emanating from the “Big Box on Street Road,” the former Philadelphia Park.  Happy New Year from Pennsylvania Thoroughbred!

Before we sign off, here's a chuckle courtesy of the suits at Parx Casino:

Our Christmas Wish List

On this Christmas Eve, we’ve created a list for Santa that we’re going to leave under the tree tonight, hoping he can grant these wishes for the wonderful sport of thoroughbred racing, which we have loved since the days when we were just a foal:

* For Monmouth Park to find a new owner that cares about carrying on its proud tradition, mindful of its historic past while promising to keep her sparkling as the true “Jewel of the Jersey Shore.”

* For Atlantic City Racecourse to get cleaned up, fixed up, and run more than just a handful of days not only in 2012, but in the future.  It’s obvious that fans in South Jersey want it to happen, judging from the outstanding attendance figures the last few years.

* For Parx Racing to make a concerted effort to market and promote horse racing and not just the casino.

* For there to be less reliance on slot revenues to sustain thoroughbred racing, and more revenue from pari-mutuel wagering. We realize we’re asking a lot here, Santa, but see what you can do.

* For there to be sunny skies and warm breezes every day of the 2012 Saratoga season.

* For the sport to continue the trend of making available to the public not only statistics and data about horses and races, but rulings and disciplinary actions taken against owners, trainers and jockeys. Transparency is vital in attracting new fans and keeping the old ones.

* For the sport to develop a foolproof way to detect and punish those horsemen who rely on blood-doping agents (such as Micera®) to win races. Not only are they ruining the health of their horses, but their blatant cheating is destroying whatever confidence the public may have had in the honest outcome of races.

* And as part and parcel to the above, let’s phase out the use of Lasix, as it is used to hide and mask a multitude of illegal substances and treatments.

* Finally, let’s hope that there are far fewer unwanted, abandoned and forgotten thoroughbreds in 2012, as their numbers have swelled disturbingly high as owners and breeders leave the game due to disinterest or financial distress.  May Santa reward all those who have worked tirelessly and unselfishly throughout the past year to help them.

Happy holidays from Pennsylvania Thoroughbred!

The many faces of Philadelphia Park

As quickly as a slot machine picks your pocket, management of Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment Inc. have thrown up an addition to the stand-alone casino that lies adjacent to the Parx Racing grandstand on the Street Road property.

An additional 195,000 square feet of space for table games has been tacked onto the existing building, which totals about 165,000 square feet, and a four-story parking garage with 2,000 spaces is on the drawing board. Here's what the scene looked like last weekend:

And here's another view ... this addition is now encroaching on the small parking area for racetrack fans:

The same schizophrenic color scheme used for this casino has now been applied to the track grandstand. Here's how the building looked in early 2010, when it housed all the slot machines, and before the new construction began in the front parking lot:

And here's how it looked earlier this year, when the patchwork quilt began to be applied:

A view of the newly-painted grandstand from the backstretch:

All photos in this blogpost were taken by me.

The Bensalem Blues

What if you threw a party and nobody came?

That was almost the feeling I had this weekend at Parx Racing when I ventured over to watch some live racing. 

On Saturday, attendance was decent, with a few thousand people milling around on the track apron, standing near the paddock, congregating inside watching the simulcast screens, and sitting up in the horsemen's boxes. The size of the crowd was most likely boosted by the card, which was spiced by the $75,000 Pennsylvania Nursery Stakes for 2-year-olds. Attendance has to be estimated because they are no longer released by the track, but they are still reported to the Pennsylvania Racing Commission.

But today, there were few people watching and wagering on the horses, with the largest group gathered at the sports bar watching the Eagles play the Miami Dolphins. An eight-race card was presented, with the highlight being two starter allowances with purses in excess of $32,000 each.

Unfortunately, the program was marred by a breakdown, several loose horses due to incidents at the break and during the running of races, and a few injured jockeys. Kristina McManigell was transported to local Aria Health hospital in northeast Philadelphia after her mount, Eleanor's Fuse, fell right after the wire in the 4th race, in which she finished third. After lying on the track for a few minutes, the 5-year-old mare got up and was led onto the horse ambulance, with the extent of her injuries unknown. The finale saw jockeys Tara Hemmings and Francisco Maysonett hit the ground when their mounts stumbled and swerved.

The day's on-track handle was anemic, as expected. Only $49,410 was bet on-track, an average of $6,176 per race. That hardly compared with last Wednesday, however, when on-track handle was $21,335 for the nine-race program, only $2,370 per race.

Would better marketing and advertising of horse racing by Parx result in higher attendance and healthier handle? Yes, but it's not likely to happen anytime soon, if at all, although advertising for the casino seems to be rampant in the Philadelphia region. Would running fewer days create more interesting cards with more horses per race? Yes, but such a move would be met with resistance by horsemen and jockeys, both of whom rely on a year-round racing schedule for their livelihoods.

Parx isn't alone, of course, and that's what should be of concern to anyone who loves this sport. All in all, it was a very depressing weekend of racing at the Bensalem oval.

No Shore Thing?

Will there be a Monmouth Park meet in 2012? Apparently the folks at the Jersey Shore racetrack think there will be, for today there appeared in my email in-box the announcement that the 2012 Monmouth Park season pass is now available for just $85.00, which gives the lucky recipient free grandstand or clubhouse admission as well as preferred parking. With all the turmoil in the last week concerning the transfer of the track from the State of New Jersey to Morris Bailey, kudos to the Monmouth publicity department for the optimism.

We covered Monmouth and New Jersey racing for more than a decade for a Trenton newspaper and, if history is any indication, we’ll make an educated guess that an “11^th-hour deal” will likely be brokered, just in time for the opening of the stable area this spring. Until then, get ready for more posturing from all four camps – the thoroughbred and standardbred factions, the Christie administration, and Morris Bailey’s attorney. Coming into play in this whole charade are the off-track wagering licenses and revenue, which are quite lucrative.

The Monmouth situation had us doing a little digging into the archives to refresh our memory as to when off-track wagering was legalized in New Jersey. The answer was August of 2001, more than 10 years ago. Since then, only three OTW sites have been built: in Vineland, Woodbridge and Toms River. Greenwood/Pennwood (or whatever it calls itself) has the rights to build one on the old Garden State Park property in Cherry Hill, but has made no attempt (for whatever reason) to do so, although Greenwood certainly erected its Turf Clubs in suburban Philadelphia and environs in record time. Another N. J. site is earmarked for Bayonne (my hometown) and recent eyewitness reports have stated that preliminary foundation work is going on, with workers there every day for the last 2 weeks or more. This OTW, in our opinion, would be a goldmine, as there are plenty of horseplayers in Hudson County (my grandfather and I used to have to cross the Bayonne Bridge into Staten Island to get some action at a New York City OTB). Here’s what the site looked like in March:

Speaking of the New Jersey racing crisis, what will become of the $1 million Haskell Invitational if the Monmouth meet gets deep-sixed? Would it be transferred to another racetrack? Or would it most likely be discontinued?  Across the river at Parx Racing there will be a Grade 1 event for 3-year-old fillies in 2012, the Cotillion Stakes, which was the beneficiary of the goodwill of the Graded Stakes Committee, who upgraded the 1-1/16 mile race from Grade 2 status, snubbing the prestigious Delaware Handicap once again for that lofty status.  

Speaking of Parx, some misinformation was recently disseminated concerning the Cotillion, which is going to get a purse boost to $1 million in 2012.  KYW-1060 AM in Philadelphia had an on-air item that heralded the Cotillion as the “first Grade 1 race in Pennsylvania” upon the news of its upgrading. The KYW story stated that “…this may be the shot in the arm that horse racing needs in Pennsylvania.” But a quick check of the history books tells us the Cotillion was a Grade 1 race once before, in 1973. Oops!