PR for the Ponies

As an avid fan, I refuse to believe horse racing is a dying sport. But it sure needs an Extreme Makeover.

One way to fix the worst-marketed business in America is to model a new beginning after one industry participant who “gets it”.

Del Mar Racetrack in San Diego is horse racing’s shining star because it realizes tracks need to be destinations far more than gambling venues. Del Mar didn’t take the good California weather for granted – instead, it offered meaningful rewards to bring high-income phone bettors into its exclusive turf club. Del Mar then turned its attention to the most important consumer in America - professional women from 25-50 years old. Ten-thousand women in the Clubhouse on a Friday is no accident – it took restaurants and bars with patio seating, cross-promotion with area spa’s, and aggressive sales to company and social groups. Add to the mix a clever branding campaign - “Cool as Ever” - and it’s easy to see why Del Mar succeeds where everyone else fails.

The track identified its “wheelhouse”, targeted numerical goals for its base customers and then went out and got ‘em. Drive around any yuppie neighborhood from the Gaslamp to West Hollywood and you’ll see strategically purchased, tastefully designed billboards featuring the track’s best amenity of all – attractive, well-dressed customers with money to burn. And no other racing venue has mastered the power of the Internet – from social media to trendy websites, Del Mar gets the word out that this is a place where you want “to be seen”.

Racetracks elsewhere need to wake up and emulate Del Mar. Granted, a day at Aqudeuct in New York (which is a dump) is not an easy sell in February, but there is no excuse for a majestic venue such as Belmont – located just 5 miles down the road - to be barely drawing 2,000 fans on a summer Friday.

Last Sunday’s showdown venue in New Jersey – Monmouth Park – has blown it even worse than Belmont. The track’s affluent location, neighboring amenities such as multiple spa’s and restaurants, proximity to the beach resorts, cost-effective summer calendar, and quick accessibility from New York easily rival Del Mar. And every Friday from late May through September, thousands of young, affluent New Yorkers looking for a release pass right by Monmouth (there’s even a train stop at the track) on their way toward summer beach houses. But with poor management, Monmouth has lacked the vision and organization to grab this demographic, let alone bring them back. Instead, the track markets itself ineffectively to the wrong audience, schedules daily racing at inconvenient times, and provides few amenities to attract women.

With a dearth of creative thinking, the debate at many East Coast tracks like Monmouth and Belmont now centers on slot machines. This is, at best, just another option for blowing the family fortune on the penny machines, and just plain old bad news for racing. Adding slots is nothing more than a desperate attempt by politicians to bolster bloated state agencies that could easily be eliminated.

So don’t believe that naysayers - horse racing is not unwatchable and nor is it pre-ordained for extinction. It is, however, a victim of small minds with short-sighted
vision.

The ponies deserve some good PR, so here are four quick ideas to fix horse racing:

4pm summer post-times – Races at noon will keep the broke degenerate with 8 Racing Forms busy, but it is pure insanity to ignore the after-office crowd of thousands who’ll drop $200 a person at the track...right now, they opt for the martini bar down the road.

WiFi in track restaurants – with explosive growth of virtual entrepreneurs, more business than ever is being done in creative venues - cafés, bars, planes, and even the beach. Any reason why someone wouldn’t bet the 3rd race before a conference call with clients?

Stop incessantly promoting trainers – the casual fan doesn’t really understand the role of a trainer, so stop wasting time promoting them. Top owners with big checkbooks already know who the best trainers are – and that’s what matters most to trainers anyway. For the rest of us, we want to know more about the jockeys. Several female jockeys, by the way, are savvy enough to be tweeting regularly.

Don’t make the Triple Crown impossible – Fans love rivalries, so why not make every entry in the Kentucky Derby commit to all three Triple Crown races? To make it even more interesting, the top 14 in Kentucky would go to the Preakness and the Top 10 in the Preakness would go to the Belmont. Kind of like a playoff system with higher purses and every competitor having to race the same schedule. And while the Kentucky Derby should remain at the beginning of May, make the Preakness the weekend after Memorial Day and the Belmont on July 3rd. Then we’d have fresh horses in every race and end the anticlimactic, fan-killing pattern of unknowns taking down a goliath at Belmont.