Horse Racing Needs More Than Slots
Thursday, March 4, 2004
8:15 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.

Mr. Bob Huff:  You know, a short while ago somebody asked me, “Why are you at your age so interested in improving horse racing?” They said, “You are eighty-four years old. Horse racing, just as it is, will certainly last as long as needed.” I gave that some thought. 

I was nine years old when they started into the greatest depression in the recorded history of the world. In 1932, we ate bread and milk for breakfast, milk and bread for dinner, and both of them for supper. My Dad had absolutely no use, and paid no attention whatsoever to game laws. He did have a very solid rule. You never killed anything to eat that might have young that would not be able to survive without her.  

I had an old Montgomery Ward rifle. In the fall of 32’ he gave me a box of bullets. He said for every two bullets that are missing there better be an animal. Things picked up at our table from then on. 

My wife and I like to fish. We had a little trouble getting fish for a number of years, while we were raising kids. We had six of them in ten years and then we found out what was causing it. Then after they were old enough, we started to fish.  Now on our living room wall, I have an Artic Greyling, four ounces under the world record, and I have a small exotically colored salmon. I caught both of them inside the Arctic Circle. In between them is the National Season’s Champion Yellow Fin Tuna I caught in the Bay of the North Island of New Zealand. 

My wife and I have been in all fifty states. We have been in every province in Canada. We have been through most of Mexico and both islands of New Zealand. We have been about any place we wanted to go. I would like the horse business to continue to give people the opportunity to earn the kind of life she and I have had. 

How did we get it in our declining position?  Some time in the late thirties or early forties, someone came up with the idea that pari-mutuel wagering was not gambling. Seventeen states and provinces bought it at that time and a number came in later. I suppose I should say, “Whoopee!”  From the end of World War II until well into the seventies, we told ourselves we were the fastest growing sport in America. That’s a bunch of poppycock. What we were was the only game in town. You could bet on horseracing when you couldn’t have legal church bingo. In the seventies we got legal bingo, we got state lotteries, we got casinos, and what did we do about it? We stuck our head under our wings and did nothing about it until well into the nineties. What do we do now?  

Yes, we need slots. Some of us have them and some of us are trying to get them.  If you have slots, or if you get them, and twenty years later you still need them, the slots will stay and the horses will go. We must recognize change. Change will take place. If we fail to recognize or try to prevent change, what we lose will be our ability to influence it. So now we have slots, or do we?  

There are two things we must do if we are going to grow, whether we have slots or not. In every state or province, and most states are provinces that race both breeds of horses, we have four organizations, one each for racing, one each for breeding. They are, of necessity, relatively small political organizations and are used by lobbyists and other gambling interests against each other, and sometimes, to my disgust, we even help them get even with those people that own that other inferior breed. If those four organizations joined, we would have a very powerful political organization. With the thousands of people we would employ and the thousands of acres of land we would utilize, we could count on the sport of our farm bureaus any time we wanted to listen to the sun and the moon and the stars.  

What do you do without racing places? Every good size, every large metropolitan system should have a racing system that can race both breeds of horses—a system that can race six races an hour, eight minutes between races, alternately three of each breed. Now I am going to say this next thing twice. No one today, excuse, very few today and nobody tomorrow is going to sit one hour for six minutes entertainment. Nobody wants to sit one hour for six minutes entertainment. If we race six races an hour, two races, two breeds, neither breed can race six races an hour. How is there an advantage to the racetracks in doing this? Yes, they would have to build two tracks, but they would only have to build one clubhouse and one grandstand and their handle would be much larger than if they had two separate facilities racing slightly over three races an hour.  

What dedicated husband is going to leave the woman he loves to stay home with the kids while he goes to horse races? And if he does, we have one customer, haven’t we? We should make it easy for both to attend. We should baby-sit for them, just as the casinos do. As is pointed out by our brilliant young writer, Eric Cherry, every racing facility should have a big room, well supplied with bonded babysitters, good food, and entertainment. They should be able to handle children well under kindergarten through age nine. At age ten, the kid should be sitting with their parents who watch the races. Now look, instead of one we have three. Can you think of a better way to get people for customers in the future? 

Now, if we get those things, we need to be moving. We need to do it now.  It would have an advantage in that it would get the racetracks, the harness horsemen, and the Thoroughbred horsemen combined and working together. Who knows, we might even get to like each other. We might learn we were all human beings, good and bad, working in the same direction for the same thing, and we need to do it now. We will learn that together we make horseracing better than it has ever been before. Thank you for your time and patience. 

Mr. Bergstein:  Thank you Bob. Bob has been the second longest serving director of the USTA and has imparted his wisdom over those long years, over forty.  

I’d like to ask Ned Bonnie, George Maylin, and Scot Waterman to come up to the podium, please. We will turn our attention next to the vexing question of illegal medication. It has been debated, discussed, and difficult, and the three men we are about to hear from know as much about the subject as anyone in racing.  I’m happy to welcome three good friends and three authorities.