Field Size or Takeout?
A lot has been made lately of what is more important, field size or takeout? The Horseplayers Association of North America (HANA ) has surveys of their membership that clearly show that “Takeout” is number one and" Field Size" is number two with the players.
The Thoroughbred Owners of California (TOC) believe field size is the number one issue, and have been prime movers in the passage of SB1072, increasing the takeout by 2-3 points on certain exotics with all new handle going for purses… which they have promised would grow field size and attract more fans.
That promise has not come true after 7 months of racing. There have been no benefits to anyone but horse owners,Purses Up, Handle Down. There has been a disaster with handle and field size has not increased.
The TOC has recently announced that the program will take 3-5 years. Hmmm...Where will we be in 3-5 years?
We believe there may be other ways to increase field size, such as lower the costs to maintain a racehorse in California. Veterinary costs are out of control
There is no question from the econometric studies that field size matters on a race by race and wager by wager basis.However at the aggregate ((national) level, it appears the simple correlation is negative. While field size is important to the data below, you can not deny there were more important factors involved causeing handle to go up and down. Who will deny that?
The attempt to "fix" one issue at the expense of the other seems to be spinning your wheels, in view of current facts and historical data .
The premise of building field size by increasing purses and takeout can not be proven effective or negative, in view of many efforts in the past to do so without the promised results. The most previous noteworthy effort was SB27 ($40 million) some years ago . There were several smaller efforts in between the current effort of SB1072 ($70 million). If any previousattempts were effective, we would not be doing this again.
Funding purses with higher takeout rates aggravates customers and makes the financial business model lopsided at the customers expense.
Thanks to the Jockey Club Fact Book data, here is the simple, unconditional correlation of average field size and handle in the aggregate for the U.S. and Canada since 1990 per the Jockey Club, Data
Year Avg Field Handle
1990 8.91 10208
1991 8.75 10197
1992 8.62 10409
1993 8.56 10331
1994 8.31 10578
1995 8.2 11224
1996 8.31 12269
1997 8.2 13069
1998 8.17 13613
1999 8.21 14163
2000 8.11 14796
2001 8.18 15139
2002 8.27 15629
2003 8.3 15716
2004 8.28 15600
2005 8.17 15129
2006 8.14 15313
2007 8.17 15232
2008 8.17 14151
2009 8.24 12805
2010 8.19 11913
Simple/unconditional correlation of handle and average field size (you can copy into an excel file and compute for yourselves)
-0.697768944
Same story for CA since available stats, 2002?, negative correlation.
We believe field size matters in a positive and conditional manner for handle on a per race basis.
Careful review will indicate that other factors for handle in the data must be more important than the average field size that drives these statistics in the aggregate.
If the TOC has data to support their long held conviction that raising the takeout will automatically lead to larger fields and more customers, I think they should share it with all of us. It would allow us some comfort every time we swallow the bad pill.
Thanks,
Roger
roger@hanaweb.org
http://www.horseplayersassociation.org/