Alan Balch - Fiefdoms redux?

I’m reminded of racing’s counterproductive fiefdoms by a 2008 writing in these pages of the late Arnold Kirkpatrick, my much-revered colleague and friend.  Back then, it seemed to him, there were way too many fiefs in the way of industry-wide accomplishments.  

To Arthur Hancock’s suggestion that our problems were caused by a lack of leadership, Arnold was “unalterably convinced that our problem is not a lack of leadership but too much leadership.”  He counted 183 separate organizations in Thoroughbred racing alone, each with their own agendas and jealousies.  “With 183 rudders all pointed in different directions, we have two possible outcomes – at best, we’ll be dead in the water; at worst, we’ll be breaking apart on the rocks.” 

In 2024, can it be said, without irony, that this is the best of times, and the worst of times?

In North America, and California in particular, an historic sport and industry contraction is well underway, by every possible indicator – led by the declining foal crop.  One might think there has been a corresponding contraction in the list of racing’s organizations; somehow, I doubt that’s true.  Nevertheless, in the “Golden State,” once a perennial leader of American racing, we have lost a critical mass of tracks since 2008:  Bay Meadows, Hollywood Park, fair racing at Vallejo, San Mateo, Stockton, and Pomona, and Golden Gate Fields this year. 

Is it simply a coincidence that this all happened while one racing operator – the Stronach Group --  increasingly dominated and controlled the sport in California, as no track owner ever before was permitted to do?

Arnold’s word “fiefdom” . . . comes back to mind, but now from a different perspective.  In European feudal times, as we learned in school, the fief was a landed estate given by a lord to a vassal in return for the vassal's service to the lord.  There are a great many California owners, trainers, breeders, jockeys, vendors, fans, and even regulators, who have been wondering how the vassals ever turned the tables.

In a Los Angeles Times interview published on April 5, Aidan Butler, the chief executive officer of 1/ST Racing and Gaming, the Stronach operator, used the term “imbeciles” to describe those who would question the company’s intentions, and perhaps its motives, in sending what was widely perceived as a blatantly threatening letter to the California Horse Racing Board.  

Instead, he termed the letter “transparent.”  And then stated, “if nothing else, people have been forewarned.”  Seconds before, he had claimed that the amount of money Stronach had invested in Santa Anita proved its good intentions.  This is the same executive who months earlier had suddenly announced, giving stakeholders notice of only hours, that Golden Gate Fields would be closed within weeks, before changing his mind under pressure from the rest of the industry.

Confused?

Stronach’s track management may be described many ways; truthfully “transparent” is certainly not one of them, despite constant assertions to the contrary.  As a private family company, even in a regulated industry, its leaders can claim whatever they want with impunity.  After all, the exceptionally valuable real estate on which most (all?) of their track holdings reside appears to make them immune from audit or inspection:  they rarely, if ever, are reluctant to tell their racing fraternity vassals that it’s their way or no way.  The damage resulting from that attitude is staggering.

Edward J. DeBartolo, Sr., was a predecessor billionaire owner of multiple American tracks.  Perhaps, however, because of his ownership of great and successful team sports franchises, among other interests such as construction, retail, and shopping center development, not to mention education and philanthropy, he knew what he didn’t know.  He realized he always needed teammates.  He delighted in saying to his fellow track owners that managing race tracks was by far the most difficult of all his enterprises, due to the elaborate interdependent structure of racing, and its nearly infinite number of critical component interests, each with different expertise.  More complicated than any of his other pursuits, he said!  To succeed in racing challenged him to learn, and his success resided in hiring, consulting with, and relying on people who knew more than he did.  As it did in all his businesses. 

Even to the most oblivious, it can’t have been hidden to the Stronach leadership that entering the heavily-regulated California racing market in the late 1990s would present serious challenges, at least as enormous as the opportunities.  Acquiring the two glorious racing properties of Santa Anita and Golden Gate (with a relatively short leasehold at a third, Bay Meadows) had to have been exciting.  To someone with the DeBartolo outlook on interdependent management, rather than the inverse, it could have been invigorating and boundlessly successful. 

That the opposite has resulted is an enormous tragedy for the sport worldwide, not just in California.  After all, the State of California’s economy (as measured by its own Gross State Product) is among the top five in the world, outranking even the United Kingdom’s.  How could this happen?

Had Stronach leadership begun, at the outset, consulting and cooperating in good faith with its California partners (including regulators, legislators, and local communities, not to mention fellow racing organizations, the owners, trainers, breeders, and other tracks), learning from them as teammates rather than dictating to them, California racing would look far different now than it does.  Its imperious and constantly changing management leadership compounded perennial problems and threats, not to mention complicating the industry’s politics and standing in California sports.  Obvious failures to understand California markets and invest in sophisticated communications and marketing also have been apparent, despite continual assertions to the contrary.    

Is there still hope for California racing?  Yes . . . but if and only if honest humility suddenly appears from Stronach leaders, and immediate, sincere engagement occurs with all the rest of the interdependent entities upon whose lives and success the racing industry depends. 

Alan Balch - What, me worry?

Article by Alan F. Balch

If you’re of a certain age, you can’t help but remember Alfred E. Neuman, the perennial cover creature of MAD magazine.  I sure do, and not mainly because of the magazine’s content . . . I was a dead ringer for him.  Skinny, gap-toothed, freckle-faced, red-haired, with crazy big ears.  So my laughing “friends” said, anyway.

Kids can be so mean to each other.

Obviously, the teasing stuck with me.  For a lifetime.  But back then, I shared another trait with him:  nothing worried me.  Everything seemed like a joke.  Like everyone else, I just yearned to grow up so I could be free.  Free of school, free to live all day, every day, with horses in a stable, if I wanted.  Which I did.

By college, though, I was an inveterate worrier, and still am.  My best friend once said, “Alan, if you didn’t have anything to worry about, you’d be worried about that!”  

We in racing, and in California particularly, have an overabundance of worries these days.  How the hell did it all happen?  From leading the world in attendance and handle a few short decades back, not to mention great weather, we have (not suddenly) come to . . . this.

In an interdependent sport, business, industry, such as ours, everything one part does affects all the others.  No part can succeed without the others; if one fails, all fail.  Unfortunately, there have been many failures to observe amongst all of us.

Ironically – but not entirely unexpectedly – I believe California racing’s historical prowess started to unravel in the best of times:  the early 1980s.  Our California Horse Racing Board regulators no doubt believed the industry was so strong that it could easily withstand disobeying a statutory command, which “disobedience” some of us believed could lead to disaster. 

 Hollywood Park sought to purchase and operate Los Alamitos, despite a clear prohibition in the law forbidding one such entity to own another in the state, “unless the Board finds the purpose of [the law] will be better served thereby.”  Santa Anita’s management at the time objected strenuously, including in unsuccessful litigation, providing a “list of horrors” that might ensue if the delicate balance among track ownerships in the state were disturbed.  

Among those horrors was the prediction that a precedent was being set for the future, where one enterprise might not only become significantly more influential than others, it could even become more authoritative and powerful than the regulator itself.

We at Santa Anita, whose management I was in at the time, were deeply concerned about our own influence and competitive position . . . and our reservations and predictions were largely ignored, undoubtedly for that very reason.  At everyone else’s peril, as it has ultimately turned out.

That Hollywood Park acquisition move turned out to be ruinous.  For Hollywood Park!  And the cascade of repercussions that followed, including changes of control at that track, led to another fateful regulatory change in the early 1990s:  the splitting of the backstretch community’s representation into separate and sometimes rival organizations of owners and trainers, which in every other state in the Union are joined as one.  Before his death, the author of that idea (Hollywood’s R.D. Hubbard) said, “That was the worst mistake I ever made.”

Consider that in the first half-century of California racing, interests of the various track owners, as well as owners and trainers in one organization, were carefully balanced.  No one track interest ruled, because the numbers of racing weeks were carefully allotted in the law by region.  

Unilateral demands of horsemen went nowhere.  Practically speaking, the Racing Law couldn’t be changed in any important way without all the track ownerships agreeing, with the (single) horsemen’s organization.  In turn, that meant there were regular meetings of all the tracks together, often with the horsemen, or at their request, to address the multitude of compelling issues that constantly arose.  

But when that balance was disrupted, even destroyed, is it any surprise that for the last three decades the full industry-wide discussions that were commonplace through the 1980s are now so rare that track operators can’t remember when the last meaningful one even took place?  

Thoroughbred owners have meetings of their Board not even open to their own members, and never with the trainers’ organization.  The Federation of California Racing Associations (the tracks) apparently still exists, but hasn’t even met since 2015.  The Racing Board meets publicly, airing our laundry worldwide on the Internet, showcasing our common dysfunction and lack of internal coherence to anyone who might be tempted to race on the West Coast.  

Not to mention those extremists who cry out constantly to “Kill Racing.”  And one private company, which also owns the totalizator and has vast ADW and other gaming holdings, not to mention all the racing in Maryland and much of it in Florida, answerable to nobody, controls most of the Thoroughbred racing weeks in both northern and southern California.

Our current regulators didn’t make the long-ago decisions that set all this in motion, and may not even be aware of them.  In addition, the original, elaborate regulatory and legal framework that was intended in 1932 to provide fairness and balance in a growing industry is unlikely to be effective in the opposite environment.  And the State Legislature?  All the stakeholders originally and for decades after believed nothing was more important than keeping the government persuasively informed, in detail, of the economic and agricultural importance of racing to the State.  Tragically, that hasn’t been a priority for anyone in recent history.

Just to top it off:  as an old marketer of racing and tracks myself, I believe in strong, expensive advertising and promotion as vital investments.  For the present and future.  I once proved they succeed when properly funded and managed; but I’m a voice in the wilderness now, to be certain, when betting on the races doesn’t even seem to be on the public’s menu.

What?  Me worry?!

Graded Stakes Winning Owners - Closing Remarks - John Harris (Harris Farms)

Article by Bill Heller

The breadth of California Racing Hall of Famer John C. Harris’ accomplishments is so vast, it’s difficult to know where to begin. “He’s probably one of the most influential horsemen in California racing as an owner and breeder, and respected by both sectors,” Bill Nader, the CEO of the Thoroughbred Owners of California, said. “He’s just an amazing man. What an impact he has had.”

His impact was celebrated last August when he was honored at the Edwin J. Gregson Charity/fundraising dinner at the Inn at Rancho Santa Fe, just a few miles east of Del Mar. He has served five terms as the President of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association and is a member of the Jockey Club, the California Horse Racing Board and the Breeders’ Cup Board of Directors.

His list of racing stars includes his home-bred Soviet Problem, the 1994 California-bred Horse of the Year who won 15 of her 20 career starts with three seconds, one of them by a head to Cherokee Run in the 1994 Breeders’ Cup Sprint at Churchill Downs. Harris was co-breeder and co-owner of the incredible filly with Don Valpredo, the co-founder of Country Sweet Produce in Bakersfield. Harris called Soviet Problem “the best one I’ve ever had.”

Harris’ stallions at Harris Farms have included Cee’s Tizzy, sire of two-time Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Tiznow. Harris Farms was also part of the success story of 2014 and 2016 Horse of the Year California Chrome. Both those superstars grew up on Harris Farm and began training there.

The Harris Farm story traces back to Harris’ father, Jack, and his decision to move his farm from Texas to California in 1916. Twenty-seven years later, they established Harris Farm in California’s Central Valley, near Coalinga, a diversified company.

Thoroughbreds are just part of Harris’ story. His Harris Ranch Beef Company produces nearly 200 million pounds of beef and is California’s largest fed cattle processor. Harris Ranch Beef has been in California’s supermarkets for decades.

The Harris Ranch Restaurant alongside Interstate 5 has been a popular rest-stop for families traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco or the other direction It is one of three dine-in restaurants on the vast property of more than several thousand acres. Harris Ranch Restaurant serves as many as half a million customers each year and has won several culinary awards. 

Harris Farm produces onions, garlic, almonds, pistachios, olives, citrus fruit and asparagus and includes vineyards for producing wine.

But horses hold a sacred place in Harris’ soul, and he has bred and raced champions for several decades.

The Harris Farm Horse Division is split into two distinct ranches, 450 acres in Coalinga, from the main ranch and the remaining 140 acres located in Sanger specializing in the development of young horses and long-term lay-ups.

How has he been able to succeed in so many endeavors simultaneously?

“I try to keep all the balls in the air and not screw up things in the process,” Harris said.

Those close to him know how remarkably well he’s accomplished that.

 “We’re all amazed, too,” said Tom Wyrick, the Assistant Manager of the Harris Farm Horse Division. “He’s a very caring guy. He’s good to people.”

Harris went the extra mile naming his horses for his employees. The first was Big Jess, Harris’ first home-bred stakes winner. He won 14 of 69 career starts with 12 seconds, seven thirds and earnings of $152,312. One of Big Jess’ sons, Juan Barrera, was also named for an employee. In 45 lifetime starts, he posted 10 victories, six seconds and seven thirds, making $245,705.

Harris cares deeply about racing in California, all racing in the state. 

On the California Horse Racing Board, Harris tried to ensure the future of California’s fair racing, trying to preserve historic venues such as Ferndale. 

Harris received a Bachelor of Science Degree in animal science and agricultural business management from the University of California at Davis.

In 2008, he was inducted into the California Racing Hall of Fame.

Harris said he was in favor of a recent proposed rule to limit the number of mares a stallion serves to 140: “I think it’s a good idea, but it’s kind of academic in California. We rarely have stallions in California who breed over 140 mares. Some are over 100, but none over 140. One-hundred-forty is quite a few. We breed horses here to race. The declining mares, that’s the tip of the iceberg. The problem in California is a lot of people aren’t making a lot of money racing here, and their interest starts to wane.”

  His interest never has. 

And he’s not slowing down. In 2023, Harris Farm horses won 27 of 194 starts and earned $1,628,186, its highest total of the 2000’s.

At the Edwin J. Gregson Foundation Dinner last August, Foundation President Jenine Sahadi said, “We’re delighted to honor John, not only for the accomplishments of his Harris Farm Horse Division, one of the country’s leading racing stables and utmost influential owner/breeder operations, for which he has been inducted to the California Racing Hall of Fame. We also acknowledge his many years of distinguished service to the industry as a California Horse Racing Board Commissioner, board member of the Breeders’ Cup, Jockey Club and the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association.”

Bill Nader, who was at that dinner, said, “It was a great night.”

And it couldn’t have meant more to Harris: “Eddie was a really good friend.”