Alan Balch Column - Principles of Marketing

Article by Alan F. Balch

When I first joined the management of Santa Anita in 1971 (that’s right, over a half-century ago), one of the earliest meetings I had with its leadership made an everlasting impression on me.

Indoctrinating me were Robert Strub, son of the track’s founder Charles H. “Doc” Strub, and General Manager Fred Ryan, who had worked for Eugene Mori (of Hialeah, Garden State Park, and Tanforan fame).  Giants of American racing evolution.  

I had been placed in charge of ‘public relations’, which included advertising, promotion, and publicity.  The term ‘marketing’ had only recently become relevant to most businesses and had not yet been applied to racing management anywhere in the world.  The first thing I had to remember, I was told, was that free admission to boost attendance was never to be suggested.  As Mori had once famously said, “the view alone at Santa Anita is worth the price of admission.”  Ryan added, “we have the tightest gate in racing, and it’s going to stay that way.”  Non-betting sources were 50% of revenue then, remember.  

Then, Strub had his say.  “My father always warned that we can’t let ourselves go the way of buggy whips.  We continually need new, young thinking, and that’s why you’re here.”  I guess I don’t have to add that way back then, there was a thirty-year age gap between mine and the next older department head on the track staff.  My assigned task, my only task, was to drive attendance.  “Don’t worry about anything else,” Strub advised, “you get them here, and the betting will take care of itself.”  True then.  Still true.

Marketing for profit never changes.  What’s old is new.  In these pages two years ago, I extolled the virtues of Royal Ascot.  Especially its continually advancing marketing, under Ascot’s director of racing and public affairs, Nick Smith, who says (and way more important, does) the right things.  

So, too, says (and does) Mark Taylor, of Taylor Made Farms and through Medallion Racing a partner in a Royal Ascot Group 1 winner Porta Fortuna. 

Both of them understand marketing in the old Santa Anita way, now lost from much of American racing, especially in California.  Real marketing is an investment, not principally an expense.  It is also an attitude.  A way of doing business.  The only way ancient businesses (which racing and breeding certainly are) can survive a constantly changing and increasingly competitive world.  Engaging and funding proper marketing, rightly understood, is the necessary if not the sufficient condition for the survival of any business enterprise in the modern world.  And, sad to say, most of what now passes for ‘marketing’ in California racing is anything but.

Here’s Taylor, for whom Royal Ascot was “beyond my wildest expectations.  However they have done it, everybody who works there genuinely takes an interest in the customer experience.  What I really took away from it for our organization is more training and spending more time getting each employee to really put themselves in the customer’s shoes.  And say, ‘how can I make this an incredible experience for them and let the person know I care.’”  

This very quotation could have been lifted right out of Philip Kotler’s foundational textbook, ‘Principles of Marketing’,  which was the inspiration for modern marketing beginning in the late 1960s.  “Marketing is sales from the customer’s point of view.”  Further, Kotler advised that marketing point of view had to be ingrained in all functions of any organization, from operations to finance to production, in order to optimize success.  And that was no easy task, since that marketing point of view . . . as it begins to succeed at all levels and results in growth . . . creates more and more hard work for everyone in every function, as well as a new mindset. 

Emphasizing the critical nature of attendance at the races, not just betting, Ascot’s Smith mirrored those comments:  "Hospitality was at record levels this year, with 13 Michelin stars across the kitchens, but that top-end fine dining option is quite resilient whereas general ticket sales aren't always.  The racing is at the heart of it for a lot of people.  You have a competitive interest betting product as well as racing at the highest level, and all of these things need to come together.  We have huge positives which we need to promote and be proud of.  This is a time to step back and say let's look at what's really good about the sport, promote it, be proud of it and build from it."  Amen, I say.

Where racing is struggling (including California), failures of marketing and management are critical reasons.  Even Del Mar, long the brightest light in the West, has dimmed.  Where boisterous big turnouts of over 40,000 stormed the track in the last decade, the largest attendance last year was barely over 20,000.  For the last three years, just over the 10,000 mark attended its marquee $1-million Pacific Classic, half to a third of what it had drawn historically, supposedly in the name of ‘superior customer experience’ for the relatively few present!  The abysmal attendance at the last Breeders’ Cups at Santa Anita, and on its own prestigious days, were actually fractions of the figures announced. 

Since its origination some 300 years ago, racing as a sport and enterprise has been relentlessly confronted by change and competition.  That it has survived at all is remarkable, I suppose, but also a tribute to its majesty and allure . . . when presented, managed, and marketed properly.  Look not just to Ascot, but also to Belmont at Saratoga, to Keeneland, and to Churchill Downs:  investment, renewal, and sophisticated, integrated marketing, both industrial and consumer, with all its modern tools, are essential to racing’s future.

Many say that the future of racing has little to do with attendance at the track.  If that is so, where will all the breeders, trainers, owners, and bettors come from?

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?!

Alan Balch - Reason and Emotion, Noses Apart!

When Abraham Lincoln was only 28 years old, he delivered his Lyceum Speech, in Springfield, Illinois. When it was published, it was instrumental in establishing the reputation that led to his presidency decades later.  

The remarkable intellect that ultimately saved the United States was already on full display.  He decried “increasing disregard for law,” which he saw pervading the country, and a “growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions” of “savage mobs” for the “sober judgment of Courts.”

What can that possibly have to do with today’s racing?

Just this: In commenting on the November 1864 election, which returned him to office only a few months before his assassination, he famously remarked, “Human-nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak, and as strong; as silly and as wise; as bad and good.”  

In short, since human nature won’t change, that’s why we need laws, and why we need the rule and process of law, and sober judgment of courts, instead of passion and emotion to define our decisions.

Over the last several years, emotion has threatened to overtake reason in the governance of racing, in several noteworthy incidents. It’s understandable, if not admirable. First, a calamity of national negative attention brought to racing by Santa Anita’s horrid and preventable spike in catastrophic injuries in 2019 brought forth a torrent of emotional reactions. Tempered, just enough, by reason? As did the international pandemic which added enormous economic and behavioral stress to everyone. Then, just as we were beginning to return to a semblance of normalcy, or to hope for it, America’s highest profile professional trainer became—virtually overnight—the supposed symbol of everything cumulatively wrong about the sport.

Wild and furious passions have indeed been unleashed. Again. Will reason prevail?

Many in racing’s leadership, including some among its most elite, seem bent on stoking the fires of what Lincoln called a “mobocratic spirit,” rather than its opposite, “reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason.” Passion, he had declared, is our enemy—the enemy of all free governments.

Rushing to judgment has perennially been among the preeminent weaknesses of human nature, and if Lincoln is to be believed, it will always be so. It’s why we have due process of law in this country, guaranteed (supposedly) as a constitutional right. Most of us are frustrated—always or at least occasionally—by how long it takes to decide the most critical questions, either legislatively or legally.  But “due process” is there to wring as much passion of the moment as possible out of the ultimate decision. And I vividly remember a man decades ago who was finally vindicated in court, after a years-long process, who then said to the media, “Great. Now where do I go to get my reputation back?” So now, in the spirit of unimpassioned reason, let’s reflect on what’s right, valuable and praiseworthy about our last few years.

I remember one of our leaders complaining incessantly for a decade about how long it takes to enact rules in California, owing to the process required by the Administrative Procedure Act. He failed to note that in the benchmark matter of severely curtailing the use of clenbuterol, several years back, a broad coalition of trainers, owners and regulators got that accomplished very quickly—entirely in accordance with the ponderous process required by the Act. And that was even before the more recent crises erupted. 

California has also led the way in establishing many useful and productive reforms that most of us thought weren’t necessary but have proven in practice to be effective and probably long overdue, incenting better horsemanship, a more level playing field and a more pleasing sport for the public.

Was every action taken entirely rational and mandatory? No overreaching? No emotion? Almost certainly not. But, on balance, they have presented a more defensible sport than we had before, without a doubt. More recently, as the State Legislature has seen it politically necessary to “do something,” several matters that are more logically suited for regulators or rules than for law, became statutory.  Emotion nipping reason at the wire in that case?

One thing is certain: Even if we don’t think about it this way, as we should (or haven’t been taught it), our sport has proven again to be interdependent. It’s useless to debate whether that’s a strength or a weakness. It’s a fact. Every entity, every stakeholder group—whether government, breeder, owner, racing association, breed registry, trainer, veterinarian, blacksmith, vendor or participant, bettor or spectator—is dependent on every other one. We’re all necessary conditions for success. Not one is sufficient by itself. And not one is superior to the others. We each have to behave properly, in the best interest of the horse, or we have no sport.

This wisdom applies to each of us. From the lowliest to the highest. It’s human nature. When Lincoln decried mobocracy, he knew that we each share that same nature . . . mobs can rise from the rabble, and all the way to Park Avenue.

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From the ground up - Preakness Stakes winning trainer Michael McCarthy worked his way into the training ranks, forming a solid foundation of success along the way.

By Annie Lambert

Trainer Michael McCarthy felt an immediate connection to the racing industry after attending the races with a few high school buddies. Following graduation, he found his way to the backside, working a variety of jobs while attending college at night. His most prominent employment was spending more than a decade as assistant to Todd Pletcher, a seven-time Eclipse Award winning Trainer of the Year.

McCarthy, now 50, attained his trainer’s license in 2006 and began training his own stable of horses in 2014. Since then, the Southern California-based horseman has saddled 1,063 starters with 174 wins, 138 seconds and 172 thirds, earning $18,083,294—including multiple graded stakes.

Pletcher once called his former protégé “reliable, confident and capable.” McCarthy has also proven himself to be responsible and patient with perseverance.

• Racing intrigue

At the age of six, McCarthy moved to Arcadia, Calif., with his family. The family home was near enough to Santa Anita to hear the races being called. Although McCarthy’s parents were not horse racing enthusiasts, he became smitten by the industry. His father, a high-end office furniture dealer (now semi- retired), was always a big sports fan—“a basketball, football kind of guy,” who was not initially into racing but now closely follows his son’s career. Young McCarthy’s first job at Santa Anita was working for trainer John O’Hara. He was at the track during the day and attending his freshman year at Cal Poly Pomona with night classes in animal husbandry. He also worked for veterinarian Dr. Wade Byrd and got handy with a stopwatch with help from Santa Anita clocker Gary Young.

Michael with Proud Accolade at Hollywood Park, 2004.

In about 1994, McCarthy had the opportunity to spend four months at a training center in Japan as well as several months at The National Stud in England. He worked as an intern in a variety of jobs, including breeding to training aspects of the racing business. While still in college, McCarthy soaked up experience working for trainer Doug Peterson and was an assistant at Santa Anita for Ben Cecil.

• Upward mobility

Working for Cecil was his final job prior to heading east to work for Todd Pletcher. Jockey agent Ron Anderson negotiated a meeting between McCarthy and Pletcher, who was looking for an assistant trainer to replace George Weaver who was leaving to start his own public stable. After some phone calls back and forth, McCarthy headed to Belmont Park in July of 2002 for an introduction of sorts. He began his new job on August 25, 2002—a date he has no trouble recalling.

Michael with Friendly Island after winning the Palos Verdes Handicap at Santa Anita Park, 2007.

“Moving east was certainly an adjustment period,” McCarthy admitted. “But when you’re young and single, it’s easy to do.” There was a learning curve going to work in an expansive stable like Pletcher’s—a fast-moving organization with many horses and a lot of moving parts. McCarthy quickly caught up to speed, and by November of that year, he found himself traveling to Hong Kong with Texas Glitter.

Texas Glitter was a six-year-old when he headed to Southeast Asia with McCarthy. Their first stop was at California’s Hollywood Park, where the son of Glitterman won the Gr3 Hollywood Turf Express Handicap. Sixteen days later, the multiple graded stakes winner found no luck in the Gp1 Hong Kong Sprint at Sha Tin— the final race of his career. …

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Alan Balch - "Socialist impertinence?"

By Alan F. Balch

“On, no,” you’re saying to yourself, “not more politics!”

But stop and think: American racing is and has been since the 1930s essentially political, since it’s a state-regulated industry. It’s about to add another layer of government regulation, now that in their mutual wisdom The Jockey Club, United States Congress, and former President of the United States have just enacted new legislation to elaborate racing regulation still further. And complicate it?

The last time I wrote about subjects I’m going to raise again here, I was accused by one of our most prominent readers of being a “socialist,” and that sprang to mind when I was assailed the same way very recently by another prominent personage. I know that one of them is a strong supporter of the new “Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act,” or HISA.

My former students at Harvard College would get a serious jolt out of that accusation; they used to call the classes in Government I taught “Firing Line,” after William F. Buckley’s right-wing conservative television program of the day. I once read aloud to them paragraphs from a Lincoln Day speech delivered by a prominent politician, and largely written by one of my academic mentors who had been showered in infamy for his work with Barry Goldwater. I didn’t tell them that, of course. And then I asked them who they believed delivered those ringing sentiments.

“JFK,” came shouted back. “FDR. Justice [Hugo] Black. Justice Douglas.” Liberal lions all. Then I read another famous line from the same speech, about the “nattering nabobs of negativism,” and they all realized the parts of the speech they loved had also been delivered by one Spiro T. Agnew, former Vice President of the United States.

Labels, like stereotypes, are diversions from objective analysis. As we assess what ails our sport, and ideas to improve it, labeling a person or an idea “socialist” (or anything else) is just plain counterproductive. We have to confront objective reality and consider all possible corrective means.

A hundred years ago – when this really was the Sport of Kings -- it relied then as it still does now on all the commoners. Both kings and commoners love to bet, but there are way more of the latter than the former, and now a great many owners are commoners, too. Back then, virtually everyone recognized that a sport so afflicted with temptations to dishonesty and corruption needed serious governmental oversight if it was to survive and prosper. Yet our racing forefathers were hardly “socialists”!

So were born pari-mutuel wagering, the totalizator, and testing for forbidden substances, among countless rules across dozens of American states to build and retain public confidence in the integrity of our sport. Does such government intrusion and oversight smack of “socialism”? To some or many, yes. And they bring with them their own problems of potential misconduct and unfairness in administration. Whether king or commoner, whether citizen or government official, we all share one thing: human nature.

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Alan Balch - “The trainers"

By Alan F. Balch

Over the last 65 years, since I first was a horse-crazy kid, doing anything I could to be with these animals, I’ve spent an inordinate time around horse trainers.

To begin with, it was simple hero worship.  Why, why, why . . . it seemed like every time I opened my mouth, that was the first word out.  Why does a horse do this or that?  Why do you do this or that?  Since most of my time was spent mucking, feeding, watering, cleaning, raking, brushing – and relatively little time doing what I wanted to do much more, riding – I had plenty of time to observe and wonder.

Looking back now on those earliest days of my equine consciousness, I guess it should be said that the best trainers are patient.  With children (and fools) like I was (and am).  And with their horses, which one famous horseman described to me as like “the dumbest child you might ever be around.”  And he meant that in a positive way.  

The first horses I knew were not even what I might have later called park hacks.  But I was in awe of them.  I remember their names, just as you would:  Joe, Maude, Sugar, Ginger, Marine, Banjo, Elvis, Sunburst, and a dozen more, including my favorite, Sox, who was a refugee from some race track, somewhere.  They were rented by the hour, to sailors on the shore in San Diego, for birthday party rides, and matrons who had grown up in high society and their children.  In those days, the 1950s, “horseback riding” was a thing to do, and rent stables abounded . . . to the professional trainers who owned and ran them, they were a gateway to the show ring, to competitive riding, and to clients with money.

By the early 60s, I had also discovered the race track at Del Mar, earlier at the horse show during our county fair, then the races and summer sale, which brought layups and yearlings to be broke to the stable I worked at in La Jolla.  Race horses that were too slow but still sound were the primary source of hunters and jumpers and dressage horses in those days.  Horses from the major California tracks that had ultimately been relegated to Caliente, across the border, or to the many auctions conducted in those days, found their way to the show ring.   Including my first competitive horse, a gray gelding by Mahmoud, bred by Mervyn LeRoy, who had topped the Keeneland sale as a yearling.  As I learned on my first day working at Santa Anita much later – when I discovered chart books and the American Racing Manual -- he also once had held the course record there for about a mile and three-quarters on turf, in 1954. 

Until a little over ten years ago, in racing or otherwise, I was always a suit – I never had worked for a trainers’ organization, although I had been in plenty of intense negotiations with horsemen’s groups from time to time, and had owned any number of horses to ride and compete myself, but not to race.

So, I now know about horse trainers, nationally and internationally, from almost every perspective, through many decades of experiences.  And if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that those individuals in politics, management, or the media, or as regulators, or administrators, who speak of “the trainers,” just don’t know what in hell they’re talking about.

Stereotypes of any category of people (or horses) may be entertaining or malicious, but are likely dubious in the most important respects.  That word comes from the Greek – and literally means a “solid impression.”  Those who traffic in stereotypes often use and enhance them viciously, as we have come to learn.  Sadly.  Repeating such stereotypes endlessly only makes their “impression” more solid.  Just ask a lawyer.  Preferably one with a sense of humor.

“Get a group of ten horse trainers to discuss any subject and you’ll get at least a hundred opinions.”  There’s more than a germ of truth in that, and I console myself with it when I hear management or regulators or journalists pontificate about what “the trainers” will do or say or believe in any instance.

Early in my days representing California trainers, I remember vividly the reaction I got when I spoke of the “intellectual capital” the professional horsemen might bring to a problem we were facing.  An outburst of laughter and head-shaking greeted that!  One prominent owner we were meeting was even more shocked at my reaction.  I told him it might not be the same kind of firepower he was used to dealing with in his boardroom of fellow millionaires, but it was just as valuable and even more so when applied to horse racing.  After all, I lectured, didn’t he spend a literal fortune on horses?  Didn’t he then place them under the care, custody, and control, of a “mere” horse trainer?

To those of us who know and really like horses, trainers deserve and receive our undying respect and appreciation.  And I’m not mainly talking about the exceptionally rare individuals who have achieved fame and riches . . . because, just as with horses, Mother Nature only makes a relative few with that kind of talent (whether in horsemanship or otherwise).  Fortunately, She makes relatively few scoundrels, too, whether equine or human.

No, it’s the overwhelmingly large number of trainers you’ve never heard of that I’m talking about.  The people that commit themselves and their help to their horses 52 weeks a year, at all hours day and night, every day.  They run small, unique, difficult businesses that never close.  They deal with all the human problems the rest of us do, and an unfathomably large number of equine risks, issues, and behavior – and that of their owners -- mostly without complaint.  

Why do they make this commitment?  Why is this the life they’ve chosen?  

The next time you hear someone bash “the trainers,” please tell them the answer.

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Alan Balch - Trainers’ rights?

By Alan F. Balch

Justice—and injustice—are as old as humanity. Our contemporary ideas and standards of fairness trace all the way back to the very beginnings of recorded history, whether in Egypt, Greece or Rome.

“Lady Justice” appears at courthouses and law schools almost everywhere, although few of us take the time to see what she symbolizes. The scales of justice connote impartiality, the weighing and balancing of the sides to any issue. The sword, usually unsheathed, commands respect, and means there’s no justice without enforcement of a decision. A double-edged blade protects the innocent as well. The blindfold—a relatively contemporary addition—stands for objectivity and is a barrier to connections, politics, fame or wealth influencing an outcome.

The evolution and role of justice in racing are more ambiguous. Even though King Henry VIII (or possibly Lord George Bentinck) famously declared that “all men are equal on the turf, and under it,” such an opinion has rarely if ever applied to the discipline or behavior within our sport’s community. It’s probable, in fact, that the description of the lowly being “called on the carpet” originated in racing:  when the grand poohbahs or stewards of the Jockey Club in England confronted an offender to the regular order of behavior who deserved a scolding. Or worse.    

In my own time, dating back only 50 years, I’m ashamed to say we in track management used to laugh that the Constitution of the United States applied everywhere except within a race track enclosure. For better or worse (and in the earliest years of modern racing during the Great Depression, it may well have been for the better), to speak of “rights” for anyone other than the track ownership and stewards was anathema. But in those early days, as the only organized sport or activity with state-sanctioned and legal betting on the outcomes, amidst a sea of economic deprivation, hardship and blossoming organized crime, preserving racing’s integrity seemed to demand draconian rule.   

In California, one steward was appointed by management—one by the State of California—and those two selected a third. Needless to say, the track had the upper hand in all decisions and discipline. It was the mid-1970s before things started to change, gradually at first. Still, when the major tracks had multiple applications from horsemen for every available stall, and many major owners still had private trainers, we weren’t living in a “civil rights” paradise for anyone—whether customers, horsemen, or backstretch denizens.

By its nature, with enormous sums of money involved, in betting, purses, real property and bloodstock values—not to mention public economic impacts and multipliers far beyond any individual track or farm—racing required (and still requires) meticulous statutory and regulatory oversight. The law is there, and the rules are there to protect and enhance the public interest, including the economy. In California, that means the Horse Racing Board (CHRB) is empowered to supervise all of it. Politics may enter, of course, because the governor appoints its commissioners. But until the 1970s, CHRB had only three members . . . increasing politicization came during years of expansion and labor strife as it grew from the original three to five to the current seven appointees.

Nowadays, trainers everywhere, not just in California, are justifiably concerned with methods of rule enforcement and their legal protections (or lack thereof) as they prepare and race horses under greater public scrutiny than ever before. Are they entitled to meaningful fair procedures when their conduct is questioned or criticized, not just in the rule enforcement process, but generally? Can they be protected from scapegoating in a sport that is fundamentally reliant on risk, and inherently hazardous, involving precious animals?

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Leonard Powell - the French trainer in California

By Ed Golden

“When I learn that a nation can live without bread, then I will believe that the French people can live without glory.”—Charles de Gaulle

Leonard Powell can live without neither, although with a workload that consumes the majority of his very existence, he still finds time for required sustenance and moments of exultation when they present themselves.

The 42-year-old Frenchman is a world-class horseman, weaned on Thoroughbreds from early youth, starting on his family’s 200-acre stud farm in Normandy followed by stops around the globe in Australia, England, Singapore and the United States, and calling California home since 2004.

When attempting to buttonhole him in person, however, an APB might come in handy. At Santa Anita, his base of operations, a sighting at the track’s popular early morning watering hole, Clockers’ Corner, is rarer than a Triple Crown sweep.

Leonard Powell is either sedulously conducting business at his barn, or high upon horseback supervising jogs, gallops and breezes on the track.

A former amateur jockey in France, where he rode in steeplechase races as well as on the flat, landing in the winner’s circle on occasion, his work schedule is Trumpian sans the tweets.

“I wake up at 3:45 and leave the house just after four,” Powell said explaining a typical day—his accent as thick as one of France’s nearly 300 varieties of cheese. “I get to the barn just after 4:30, check the horses and provide any medications as needed.

“The first set of horses goes out at 5 o’clock, so from 5 o’clock until 10 o’clock I’m on horseback, either on a Thoroughbred or a pony. At 10 we school horses if necessary, review their condition with a veterinarian or myself, check on the horses that worked the day before or that morning.

“That takes us to 11:30 or 12. Usually from 12 to about two I go over paperwork that needs to be done in the office. In the afternoon, we go to the races when we have horses running, or back to the barn feeding, walking or grazing them until 4:30.”

Powell’s day begins well before he arrives at the barn. He commutes from his West Hollywood home to the Arcadia track, a stretch of 25 miles.

“I was living in West Hollywood when I was stabled at Hollywood Park (which closed in December of 2013),” Powell said. “I have three daughters (Louise, 14, Blanche, 13 and Jeanne, 9) and they were going to a bilingual school that taught French and English.

“When I moved my barn to Santa Anita, the kids were doing very well, so I decided to make the commute instead of them. I didn’t want them to change schools.

“Actually, my commute in the morning is easy, because at 4 o’clock, there’s not much traffic. I can make it in 25 minutes going with the traffic. In the evenings, when I’m against the traffic, it can take 45 minutes.”

Married to Mathilde—his sweetheart from their days at Caen University—all their children enjoy racing, particularly Jeanne who rides and spends time with her father at the track on weekends.

Of the 25 head Powell has in training, by far the most celebrated is an 11-year-old gelding named Soi Phet. The tassel-haired trainer was not suffering from insipience when he made the claim for $16,000 at Hollywood Park on May 23, 2013.

Since then, the California-bred son of Tizbud has achieved success of mythic proportions, and after a recent freshening, is expected to resume his racing career.

“I’m going to take my time with him,” Powell said, “but I would expect him to return to the races at some point.”

When Soi Phet posted a 47-1 upset winning Santa Anita’s $100,000 Crystal Water Stakes by a head at age 10 in 2018, he was believed to be the oldest horse ever to win an added money event at the storied track, which opened on Christmas Day, 1934.

The Crystal Water was his 58th career start.

“At the time I claimed him, he had all his conditions,” Powell explained. “He had only won a maiden 20, he was a non-winner of two (races), he was a Cal-bred; it was the spring of 2013, and the Del Mar meet was coming up with very generous purses.

“When I took him, it was because he had conditions left, and I felt I could move him up.”

Wow and double wow! Eight stakes wins and a million dollars in earnings later, Powell now looks like the Nostradamus of trainers.

When he has occasion to give a leg up and pre-race instructions to jockeys Brice Blanc, Julien Couton, Florent Geroux, Julien Leparoux and Flavien Prat, fellow Frenchmen all, the bilingual Powell does what comes naturally.

“If the owner of the horse is there,” Powell said, “I speak English so that he can understand. But if it’s only me and the rider, we speak French.”

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Alan Balch - Horsemanship 1a

Horsemanship 1a – by Alan F. Balch

Anyone who has witnessed the saga of racing at Santa Anita this winter needs no repeated recitation of the facts . . . to say that the sport as we have known it is jeopardized in California, and perhaps North America, is a gross understatement. It’s worth remembering that the very word—jeopardy—is derived from gaming; when a position in chess and other games is equally divided between winning and losing, there’s danger.

Just how endangered we are, only time will tell.

So, of course, The Jockey Club released “a major white paper.” But like all the other stakeholders, they couldn’t resist pointing at everyone else except themselves. Again we heard their self-serving, political, and self-destructive refrain that “race day” and other therapeutic medications are culprits for what ails us. They threw in unspecified “cheaters and abusers” for good measure, as though that’s the public face of racing we embrace! All this, despite the simple fact that in the same state, during the same months, with the same medication rules as at Santa Anita, with the same or worse weather, another track—under the same ownership—maintained its position as one of the safest courses in America. Doubtless it escaped The Jockey Club that the all-weather synthetic surface at Golden Gate Fields was a principal factor in differentiating the two tracks!

But it hadn’t escaped anyone knowledgeable in California that main track and turf maintenance at Santa Anita beginning in January, as well as management of the racing program itself, may have been seriously flawed. And that the inherent issues are far greater than any isolated, dramatic spike in serious injuries at one place.

Therefore, it’s now essential, especially for the sport’s leadership, to go back to the objective, unemotional truths of basic horsemanship—not self-defeating posturing—to try to see where we stand throughout the world.

From the beginning of horses in sport, which is to say at the beginning of recorded history, the objective was to breed and train a swifter, stronger, better horse. For all this innocent animal’s many gifts to humankind, whether in work, commerce, war, exploration, sport, art, pleasure, or otherwise, horsemanship must begin with breeding. Responsible, logical breeding.  

Racing simply demonstrated who could breed a better horse. Glory followed. And later, riches. Racing stock is the proof of breeding stock.

The Jockey Club’s principal purposes are to improve the Thoroughbred breed and protect its integrity. It’s the breed registry. It sets the standard for breeding. At least it should. But that’s where our problems really begin, because the Thoroughbred breed is based on genotype, not phenotype. The genotype is the set of genes a horse carries, and our breed registry protects “integrity” by taking elaborate steps to be sure that there are no stray non-Thoroughbred genes in our horses. The way things are going, we might well need some!

The phenotype, on the other hand, is all of a horse’s observable characteristics—its conformation, quality, substance, and soundness. Who is guarding or enhancing the conformation, quality, substance, and soundness of our Thoroughbreds? Apparently not the breed registry! The next “white paper” we need to see from The Jockey Club about “reform” needs to take a deep, honest look at best practices for breeding, foaling, nursery, and every medication or veterinary practice that gets a Thoroughbred sold, whether or not in the auction ring and beyond. Any breed registry that permits, tolerates or encourages the breeding of unsoundness to unsoundness is not breeding a better horse, that’s certain. Nor should the registry turn a blind eye to any cosmetic or medicinal practice that could possibly compromise substance or soundness.

If the registry will concentrate on the true integrity of the breed—its soundness—it won’t need to waste nearly so much breath on the conduct of others.

Those of us who grew up in non-racing horse sport all remember The Sportsman’s Charter. It proclaims that sport ceases when it becomes a business only, something done for what there is in it. “The exploitation of sport for profit alone kills the spirit and retains only the husk and semblance of the thing.”  I believe this is exactly what’s been overtaking racing (killing it) for decades now.

There’s a reason that Keeneland and Saratoga and Del Mar succeed and inspire: their profits are turned back into the sport. They race limited seasons of the highest quality. They don’t exist for return on investment, except for the sport itself. But The Jockey Club boasts of its “group of commercial, for-profit subsidiaries and commercial partnerships.” Presumably those profits should benefit the sport. Do they, if protection of live cover, stud fees, auction prices, unsound pedigrees, and bloodstock profiting are weakening the breed? Do they, if their own professional journalists are muzzled? Do they, if their contributions to the U.S. Congress are wasted on the fool’s errand of banishing Lasix?

The for-profit racing associations and affiliated entities, whether public companies or private, exert the most pressure to exploit our once-great sport financially, all in the name of return-on-investment.  Consider this: At around 20,000 Thoroughbred foals a year these days, the foal crop is about where it was in 1966. In that year, Santa Anita raced 11 weeks. California racing had no overlaps between northern and southern dates (except during the summer fair season). The majestic colossus that is Santa Anita was dark from April until Christmas.  

Now, with the same number of foals as 1966, California has year-around racing throughout the state— north and south simultaneously. Santa Anita by itself races about 32 weeks. Can that much racing possibly be in the best interests of horses and the sport?

The collision between those interests and unrestrained financial gain is palpable. All those of us who have turned a silent or blind eye to this, including me, cannot avoid our own blame for what has happened. We have not put the interest of the horse or the breed first, as basic horsemanship would teach us to do.

Speaking of which, there’s another trumpeting elephant in our midst: the whip.

All those of us who can still remember our first serious riding lessons know we were taught not to get on without a stick. Then came the hard part: how and when to use it. Over the thousands of years of horses serving humans, understandings and opinions about this have evolved, to be sure. The humane, sensible use of the stick is probably more debated than ever before.

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Alan Balch - Compete!

Not too long after this esteemed magazine published my last essay, one of my "admirers" contacted me with her own opinions.

“You’re so smug and condescending,” she said.  And went on to berate me for “never” doing anything except calling attention to problems, “never” offering solutions, “never” recognizing that it’s a far, far different world now than in my relative youth.  And I’m “always snarky” besides.

I now rise to the challenge of trying to put some (more) solutions out there, in a little better detail than I’ve been able to do before, so fixated have I been on the problems we’re facing and their contexts.

A leading executive of The Stronach Group, one of the three principal behemoths controlling American racing these days (the other two being New York Racing Association and Churchill Downs), was quoted as saying that “there is about $11 to $12 billion bet annually,” and that the national total has not been growing, even though Gulfstream’s handle has.  “It’s our job to get that money and lift the handle at Stronach tracks.”

There, succinctly, is the problematic perspective of our leaders.  They are concentrating on what’s called racing’s market share – one small segment of a total market – and their own respective shares of that segment, instead of on growing the racing market’s total overall.  The broader American gaming market is far, far bigger than just racing’s share. According to Casino City Press, annual U.S. gaming revenue (not handle, mind you) is around $106.4 billion. Across the U.S. and Canada, race and sports wagering revenue (again, not handle) is only 2.25% of the total, and declined by 4.5% in the last year.  All other sectors rose . . . they are casino and card room gaming, lotteries, and tribal gaming, along with on-line and charitable gaming.

What I have previously referred to as “positive competition” among racing’s ownership oligarchs is essential for our future, and essential for true growth.  That word – oligarch – has really negative connotations these days, owing to our toxic politics. But I’m using it in its literal, non-pejorative sense – government by the few.  Racing worldwide has always been an oligopoly (yes, always). It’s just that now there even fewer oligarchs than ever before.

Consider that in California over the last half-century, our previous oligopoly has contracted drastically. All Harness racing is now controlled by one association, and a separate one controls Quarter Horses.  One additional entity controls two-thirds of Southern California Thoroughbred racing as well as eighty percent of it in Northern California. That doesn’t leave much for the couple of other oligarchs here!

This transition in contemporary American racing to an ever narrower oligopoly has taken place throughout the continent, owing to economic circumstances including vast and ever-increasing competition for the gaming dollar as well as skyrocketing real estate values in urban markets.  No secret there. And no judgment, either . . . business decisions must be made on the basis of facts and return on investment, not emotion. Like “love of sport.”

So here’s what must be done to have a prosperous future:  our remaining racing oligarchs must invest heavily in marketing for future growth, and not just scrap over their relative shares of a contracting market segment.  They can do both, simultaneously. They must do so now, while they can still afford it. Strategically. Their forebears should have been doing this for at least the last 25 years; if they had, we would have more of them left today.

There’s one and only one way to grow: compete.  Compete in the open marketplace for more of the total gaming market.  Since we have the best game of all, this seems elementary to me – but we also have the highest fixed costs of any sector of the gaming market.  So we have to do much better, smarter, more efficient marketing than our competitors.

Yes, we have to manage our properties properly, including catering.  But success at marketing racing is not dependent on that! Or on “special events.”  In fact, the total market for restaurants and entertainment is even more enormous than the gaming market, so the thought that accentuating anything other than the gaming aspect of the racing experience is likely to succeed is . . . uh . . . foolish.

Our superior gaming product is now constantly available in essentially all households, via telephone and television.  That’s a relatively recent development. But I would venture to say that not even 5% of total households are even aware that they could bet the races that way if they wanted to, let alone know how to do it.

There’s only one way to change that: hard-nosed, hard-sell, aggressive marketing . . . especially intensive (and expensive) mass-media advertising.  The days are long gone when the on-track experience had to somehow be “protected” from cannibalization. Even though we need more than $2 bet away from the track to make up for $1 lost at the track, advertising must be developed and pursued that reaches the masses with a message stimulating interest in our sport, and the betting that fuels it, both at the track and away from it, simultaneously.  Growing our share of the total gaming market.

Wave after wave of new gaming competition has washed over racing in the last 30 years, as we have stood relatively still; the sports betting and cloud-based gaming breakers are rushing toward us.  Our remaining racing leviathans now must each open their wallets wide and invest whatever it takes to advertise our game intensively and ingeniously, mainly through television, throughout America.

Competing that way among themselves – both to our existing and vast potential new markets – is the only productive way forward.

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Andrew Lerner - a young trainer on the up

By Ed Golden

Andrew Lerner looks like he just stepped off the pages of GQ.

At 29, six feet tall, 180 pounds and hazel eyes, he oozes subtle masculinity and innate innocence, bearing the attributes of an NFL tight end.

Picture Superman and Clark Kent or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

But beneath that demure demeanor lies his true countenance, horse trainer, body and soul.

It was not a matter of if, but when it would happen.

“I created a couple of businesses that fortunately did well, and that put me in a position to buy some horses,” Lerner said. “I sent them to trainer Mike Pender with the caveat that I wanted to learn to train.

“I started a company with a friend of mine in 2012 and we did well; I sold half of it, not for a fortune, but for enough where I was able to buy a horse named Be a Lady and give it to Pender.

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“That’s how it all began. She’s still racing.

“I told Mike I wanted to learn how to train, came out every morning at 4:30, shadowed his grooms and hot walkers for about a year and a half, then decided I wanted to learn how to ride, not at the track but somewhere else, just to get an idea of what the jocks and exercise riders were talking about when they got off a horse and told us how it went.

“I wanted to understand first-hand what they were explaining, more than just hearing their words. After that, it took me about six months to get my trainer’s license in March of last year.

“It was a small stable initially, just me, a groom and two horses. Now we’re up to about 22 head.”

Lerner came to Pender’s barn every morning, not with a chip on his shoulder but a thirst for knowledge.

Thus, Pender readily recognized that Lerner would triumph against the odds. His acuity was ever present.

“He won a race with the first horse we claimed together, and we were off and running,” said Pender, 52, a Los Angeles native whose major stakes winners in a career approaching 15 years include Jeranimo and Ultimate Eagle.

“When he told me he wanted to train, I asked why he would do such a crazy thing, and he was emphatic. He said he wanted to, and I knew how he felt because I had been in his shoes at one time.

“I told him he was going to fail more than he’d succeed and tried to talk him out of it, but he stood his ground. Even after I told him the only way to succeed was through hard work and spending a lot of money—some of it coming out of his own pocket when owners don’t pay and walk away leaving you high and dry with a $10,000 feed bill—he remained firm.

“He gave the right answers to all my questions, but most importantly, he showed up every morning. I’ve had a lot of guys walk through my doors saying they want to become trainers, and I feel a responsibility for them to achieve that goal, because it’s trainers who bring in new owners.

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Javier Jose Sierra - Invisible no more

By Ed Golden

Javier Jose Sierra has survived if not prospered for 45 years in a game he loves. Yet, he does not warrant a bio in any media guide.

He is racing’s Invisible Man.

The 66-year-old trainer has been sedulously plying his trade despite lack of recognition, ego be damned.

A native of El Paso, Sierra stands on a foundation adorned with pillars of self-confidence, gained in no small part from a proper upbringing in a family of 12 children, and tours early on with legendary trainers D. Wayne Lukas and J.J. Pletcher, father of Todd Pletcher.

Sierra grew up in Juarez where he played soccer as a kid. At 14 he aspired to be a jockey at Sunland Park in New Mexico, but his father, Cirilo, a native of Mexico, made education a priority. Javier aborted racing, went to school at the University of Texas El Paso (UTEP) and graduated with a degree in electrical engineering. Eventually, he earned an MBA while still working full time.

“I was doing well as an engineer,” Sierra said. “I worked my way up to vice president at an aerospace company.”

The appeal of the turf, however, proved an alluring temptress. Duly smitten, Sierra ultimately came to California in 1976.

“As soon as I graduated from college, I loved racing so much, I bought a couple horses,” he said. “I was doing both jobs at the same time, training horses and working in the aerospace industry.”

Most of Javier’s family were involved in racing. “All my brothers worked in racing in different positions, grooms, hot walkers, exercise riders, thanks to my father, who was a trainer.

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“While in college, I worked three summers for Lukas when he trained quarter horses in New Mexico, and with J.J. Pletcher one year at Sunland Park. I remember Todd being there. He was probably five years old.

“I learned a lot from both men, especially Pletcher. I was impressed with the quality of horses he brought in from back east. One was a son of Bold Ruler named First Edition. J.J.’s training regimen was amazing, completely unlike everyone else there at the time.

“Gerald Bloss was another big trainer from New York who was in New Mexico in the ‘60s. He was like Baffert is now. He had big owners, like DuPont, and used different techniques from those of the cowboys. We learned a lot from those guys.”

Bloss trained the great Gallant Man in the first part of his two-year-old season before he was transferred to New York with John Nerud.

Gallant Man, along with Bold Ruler and Round Table, in 1957 comprised arguably the greatest crop of three-year-olds ever. Gallant Man finished second by a nose to Iron Liege and Bill Hartack in that year’s Run for the Roses when Bill Shoemaker, aboard Gallant Man, misjudged the finish line and stood up in the stirrups in the shadow of the wire.

Gallant Man went on to win the Belmont Stakes and at age 34, became the longest living horse to win a Triple Crown race. He died on Sept. 7, 1988. Count Fleet was the previous record holder, having died on Nov. 30, 1987 at the age of 33 years, eight months.

“My older brother, Cirilo Jr., was an assistant trainer for Jake Casio who conditioned quarter horses in New Mexico for many years,” Sierra continued, “but when Jake died, I asked my brother to help me train at Santa Anita. Ten years ago, he retired and I took over training full time, giving up my job in aerospace.”

All these years later, he is a mainstay in the Golden State, making Santa Anita his headquarters save for tours at Del Mar when the seaside track is open. He lives 17 miles from Santa Anita in La Crescenta, with his wife, Dulce. He has never raced on the East Coast.

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Val Brinkerhoff - the former jockey turned trainer

By Ed Golden

The Santa Anita stable notes for April 14th (as written by Ed Golden) succinctly summarize that Val Brinkerhoff is one of the faceless trainers who drives the game.

He might be light years from being in a league with the Bafferts, Browns, and Pletchers but pound for pound, the 62-year-old Brinkerhoff has one of the most industrious operations in the land, flying beneath the radar while gaining respect from peers and bettors alike.

He’s an angular version of John Wayne, cowboy hat and all, but without the girth and swagger, Brinkerhoff is a hands-on horseman from dawn till dusk.

He is a former jockey who gallops his own horses, be they at Santa Anita, Del Mar, Turf Paradise in Arizona, or his training center in St. George, Utah, where he breaks babies and legs up older horses that have been turned out.

In short, Val Brinkerhoff is a man’s man, pilgrim.

It all began when he was 14 in a dot on the map called Fillmore, Utah, current population circa 2,500.

Named for the 13th President of the United States, Millard Fillmore, it was the capital of Utah from 1851 to 1856. The original Utah Territorial Statehouse building still stands in the central part of the state, 148 miles south of Salt Lake City and 162 miles north of St. George.

But enough of history.

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“My dad trained about 30 horses when we lived in Fillmore,” said Brinkerhoff, a third-generation horseman. “I would ride a pony up and down a dirt road outside our house every day, and that’s how I learned to gallop horses.

“There was no veterinarian in Fillmore, so you had to learn how to be a vet on your own, on top of everything else, because it was 300 miles round trip to a vet. So, if something was wrong, you had to figure it out for yourself without having to run to Salt Lake and back every five minutes.

“I was 5’ 10’’ and weighed 118 pounds and rode at the smaller venues, mainly in Utah but also Montana, where I was leading rider, and Wyoming and California (Fairplex Park in Pomona). I’ll never forget the day my dad took me to Pomona. I walked in the jocks’ room and immediately became aware of how tall I was.

“While in California, Bill Shoemaker gave me one of his whips, which I cherished. I rode many winners with it. Towards the end of my father’s life, my son, Ryan, asked him if he had any regrets. He said he had one.”

His father said, “I should have taken Val to the big tracks in California and given him the chance to make it there. He had the desire and the talent.”

Brinkerhoff also rode in Utah at outposts with names that sound contrived, like Beaver, Richfield, Marysvale, Kanab, Parowan, Ferron, Payson, and Panguitch.

“But ultimately,” he said, “I couldn’t make the weight. I was already skinny and at 5-10 and 118 pounds, didn’t have an ounce to lose.

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Mike Machowsky: in profile

By Mary Dixon Reynolds

In Southern California, the San Gabriel Mountains serve as the backdrop to Santa Anita Park, the home of many top trainers, including Michael Machowsky Stables. Machowsky has been based on this circuit for 34 years, from the time he worked as assistant trainer and stable foreman for Richard Mandella for almost six years before he went out on his own.

Recently, Hall of Famer Mandella recalled Machowsky’s early days: “Mike was a young man when he worked for me. I was a younger man, too! He was a very devoted, hard-working young person who had nothing on his mind but racing horses. I have watched him grow through the years, he’s still that way and always puts his horses first. I’m in the Hall of Fame because of people like Mike
Machowsky and so many others. They have propelled me to where I am now,” Mandella said.

“Machowsky has a very good feel for horses, which is innate. He proves it year after year. It’s not something you can acquire. You have it or you don’t, and Machowsky has it!”

Although Mandella was speaking in serious tones, a sense of pride was evident in his words. Machowsky credits his mentor with teaching him patience, and Mandella deflected the compliment from himself by saying, “We all learn patience from the horses.”

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Patience is not all that Machowsky took away from his time with Mandella. “I learned everything from him,” he said. “Detail, leaving no stone unturned on the horses -- those traits stayed with me. Mandella taught me it’s the little things that matter.”
The Sunday after Breeders’ Cup at Del Mar, Machowsky trainee Make It a Triple won a claiming race. Machowsky’s smile was as wide as any of the people representing owner Richard Barton in the winner’s circle. Afterwards, Machowsky celebrated his victory at the restaurant 14 Hands. The
5’ 11” trainer was sitting at a table, wearing a long-sleeved dress shirt, jeans, and the same smile from the winner’s circle. He stated, ”I always expect to win. We put everything into these horses: conditioning, proper diets, daily care. It’s my position to decide what type of race they should enter for a win. If things do not go right, I blame myself, as I should because I am with these Thoroughbreds every day and know them inside out.”

Machowsky took out his trainer’s license in 1989 and saddled his first winner, Bidadip, on New Year’s Day at Santa Anita in 1990. Almost two years later, on December 22, 1991, Native Boundary became his first stakes winner, while Dancing Rhythm, winner of the Grade 3 Senorita Stakes in 1998, was his first graded stakes winner. In 2009, he won the $900,000 Sunland Derby with Kelly Leak, over future Kentucky Derby winner Mine That Bird in fourth.

Born September 19, 1965, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Machowsky was two when his family moved to Southern California. He became interested in horses through his physician father’s ownership of Quarter Horses and, later, Thoroughbred racehorses. When the popular, nearly white colt Vigors -- winner of the 1978 Santa Anita Handicap -- caught Machowsky’s attention, he never looked back.

He knew he had found his calling and would be relentless in its pursuit. He began working as a hotwalker and mucked stalls for trainer Clay Brinson after school and on weekends. At 15, he traveled to Del Mar with Brinson and stayed in a motorhome across the street from the track. He worked as a groom for trainer Henry Moreno for two years before moving to Mandella’s barn.

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Alan Balch - Achtung!

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Published in North American Trainer, Winter 2017 issue.

Now there’s a word to get your attention.  For those of us of a certain age, it comes freighted with emotions from our parents, who fought World War II.  As well as from countless movies and books whose characters would shout it at hapless suffering minions.

But it’s really a simple German word meaning just that, “attention,” although sometimes translated to carry “danger” along with it.  Here, I mean it both ways.

During this championship season in America every year . . . and the northern hemisphere . . . we’re treated to such definitive racing, including the Arc and British Champions Day.  Then the Breeders’ Cup, while still not really the “world championships” worthy of genuflecting, is a wonderful showcase of the sport.  Ending the calendar year gives us a chance to take stock of where we stand, what has changed, what hasn’t, and where we’re going...

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Alan Balch - Self-interest rightly understood

“Is that really in the best interest of the horse or the breed?  Is it justified by anything other than economic interests of the few as opposed to the many? ”

FIRST PUBLISHED IN NORTH AMERICAN TRAINER AUGUST - OCTOBER 2017 ISSUE 45

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When Viscount Alexis de Tocqueville journeyed from France to philosophize about “Democracy in America” in the early 1800s, he didn’t have racing in mind as he developed his observations on that distinctly American virtue of self-interest rightly understood.  Over the last half-century, however, I’ve often thought of them as I’ve observed the evolution of our racing, particularly in California, first from the standpoint of track operators, and lately from the standpoint of horsemen.

I was originally a suit with responsibilities of marketing and managing Santa Anita, later adding Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows.  I brought a perspective to my work that began with horses, since my earliest profession in the sport was handling their cleanliness and bodily functions.  As with so many of us.  I always wondered at and about the majesty and attraction of racing to the masses, over centuries, which seemed to survive and prosper despite our many gross mistakes and calamities in its management.

Wherever in the world you look, racing has been a regulated sport from its very earliest days.  Which is to say that governmental authorities learned almost from day one that complete freedom in its operation would lead inevitably to scandal and swindle involving one participant or another.  Most often, the “public” would be victimized; this led to regulations constantly citing the “public interest” upon their promulgation.  And that, in turn, led to innumerable scandals and swindles based on various official scoundrels reaping their own harvests off unsuspecting victims, always in the name of the “public interest.”

I cite this sordid history not to entertain but to educate:  what is loosely referred to as “the free market” doesn’t exist in contemporary racing.  If it ever did, in fits and starts, it was squashed, altered, or hindered.  By statute, regulation, and rule.  Even the vaunted principle of caveat emptor, which is the mother’s milk of buying and selling horses, has been under assault by regulators and governments forever.  Yes, the buyer should beware, but first let us accord him the government’s “protection” in all kinds of ways (just read the fine print in any sale catalogue), and provide him access to courts if he still claims to have been unaware of his risks.

And then there’s the routine interference in the “free market” by stud books themselves, and their own rules.  Let’s see now . . . requiring live cover?  Is that really in the best interest of the horse or the breed?  Is it justified by anything other than economic interests of the few as opposed to the many?  The very idea that there are true free markets even for our breeding and selling is sheer nonsense.

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Alan Balch - War of the Worlds

First published in North American Trainer issue 43 - February to April '17

The sunshine boys - Ron McAnally and Murray Friedlander

First published in North American Trainer issue 43 - February to April '17

Alan Balch - Interest and conflict

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First published in North American Trainer issue 42 - November '16 to January '17