Bob Pandolfo as "Czar of Harness Racing"

[melman]

I really like your thinking Bob. I just wish it had a chance. But no the racing industry both horsemen and mangement and the state powers that be will just watch as interest goes even more downhill. When I was a kid the big three were boxing, baseball, and horse racing. I could get live race calls from Roosvelt and Yonkers on WCBS. Live race calls from Brandywine on KYW here in Philly. People really looked forward to the Garden State Park spring and fall meets. Racing has become a VERY small niche market and getting smaller all the time.

http://www.harnesscharts.com/

[lamboguy]

i like his ideas about the parlay, and i like the idea about reduced takeout, maybe its a hair to much reduced, but a good idea. the question is if you lower the takeout by 75% will you double the handle? i think it would be quite possible. the reason why i like the idea of the parlay is because it would add to the w-p-s pools. that would certainly lead to bigger pools because the bigger gamblers want to see bigger pools to bet into. the bigger the pools the more interest in betting on them, its a snowball effect. with all the different exotic wagers available these days the handles have been in a steady decline unlike other parts of the world that don't have all these various pools and their handles are mostly increasing.

a racing czar would be a good idea if you could get widespread participation in the concept.

[wilderness]

A "czar" (commissioner) will never happen.

A few years ago, many people were suggesting John Campbell be appointed the same.
John explained the impossibility of such a position in one of those Little Brown Jug interviews, and when he held a Q&A session. I'm sure the video is still online somewhere.

[pandy]

A commissioner if really just a figure head who speaks for the league, the Board of Directors make the decisions. But it certainly works for the NFL and other leagues.

[wilderness]

Bob,
John Campbell's interview was at the 2007 LBJ.
I was unable to locate online, however I've a saved a copy.

The excerpted portion (the czar/decline answer by JC) is just over half a meg.

The point is that the local jurisdictions would never give up their administrative powers.

[pandy]

Well, let's use the NFL as an example. When they assigned a commissioner and a board of directors, each team essentially gave up their executive power. In fact, many of the decisions that have been made in professional sports, such as profit sharing, would never have been implemented if each team had executive power (and the Yankees would still be winning the world series every year).

When you think about it, if the teams in the NFL and MLB had the power the leagues would probably be on their way out, just as Harness Racing is, because the same big market teams would win every year and it would get boring.

[wilderness]

Well, let's use the NFL as an example.

Bob,
IMO that's a bad parallel.

Let us "suppose" that Texas implemented special jusrisdictional licenses for the for the Cowboys and the Oliers (don't believe they are in Houston any more), and also required visiting teams to hold the same Texas licenses?

NY did the same for the Jets and Giants.

A NY player commits an infraction on the field in Texas and is penalized by the Texas government (ORC), then again penalized by the NY government (ORC). Both TX and NY are using these penalties for compliance and revenue.

Would these local governments (ORC's) give up this authority to an overseer of the entire NFL (separate from the owners (tracks))?

[Oskar]

The longstanding contentious relationship between the USTA and local politicians has always made it near impossible to set up any sort of effective national governing body for the sport. From the point where the first licenses were granted for gambling driven harness meets in New York, which was 1940, the politicians and gangsters have loaded up on stock, in many cases via beards,and most of them made a lot of money in the process. The USTA put the heat on the harness racing commission and the governor to clean up this mess after the Moreland Commission report in the mid-fifties, and from that point forward it became an adversarial battle over who would govern harness racing. Similar scenarios played out elsewhere, but the fire burned brightest in New York.



Healing this rift would be akin to getting the Greeks and Armenians to party together—it probably isn’t going to happen. Things work better in Europe and Canada because you don’t have all these little contiguous fiefdoms, ruled by power and patronage seeking politicians, all chasing the same dollars. People get very frustrated when they ask what the USTA is doing about this that and the other thing and get back answers about how powerless the organization is to act on the matter in question, but that’s the way it is: the politicians hold the power and they’re not about to cede it to USTA officials or a racing czar. I don't see how you can have a racing czar without the cooperation of elected officials



In 1971 whenOTB turned the harness racing world upside down Robert A. Glasser, chairman ofthe NY State Harness Racing Commission, said: “It’s about time we find out who’s running what. It’s time the Legislature took a look at the pari-mutuel law and decided who can tell what to whom.” Unfortunately that situation exists today on a much larger scale, and I can’t see the various factions giving up their control over a slice of the pie to make it better.

[LottaKash]

Sadly, and I mean that sincerely, "sadly", harness racing is near the end of it's heyday...What is left is much like the government that now runs this nation, they are "Looting the Players" for all they've got, til it ends....HR is hanging on by it's toenails now.....The only tracks that offer a nice product are all Racinos now, but soon enough, enough will be enough, and they will kick that aspect out of their business, probably forever....

A Racing Czar now, would be "far too late", imo....

Me, I've been at this great game for 47 or so years, so I will just continue on with it, until "it" or "I", quits first....haha.!!!..

best,

[pandy]

Thank you all for the interesting and thoughtful comments about my year end column. I'll have to do a follow up because I also received quite a few emails about the column.