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?

George Weaver - Champagne still flowing!

Article by Bill Heller

Eight years removed from his first unsuccessful starter at Royal Ascot, trainer George Weaver was already a winner when his two-year-old filly Crimson Advocate stepped onto the track to contest the Gp. 2 Queen Mary Stakes June 21. That’s because his love, his partner and his best friend, his wife Cindy Hutter, was able to accompany him and their 20-year-old son Ben to England nearly one year after her gruesome injury on the Oklahoma Training Track at Saratoga Race Course. A horse she was galloping suffered an apparent heart attack and collapsed on her, causing severe brain damage and multiple injuries—changing their lives forever.

Imagine their joy when a photo finish showed that Crimson Advocate and Hall of Fame jockey John Velazquez, had won the Queen Mary Stakes by a fraction of a nose, making Weaver just the third American trainer to capture a race at England’s most prestigious course, in a field of 26. “It was very, very emotional for us,” Weaver said. “ It was kind of miraculous—a beautiful experience much more than winning a race at Ascot. It was kind of spiritual.”

Cindy said after the race, “It was kind of like a dream come true.”

It happened 12 days short of one year after the nightmare at Saratoga.

Weaver was walking back to the barn with another horse when Cindy went down. “By the time I got there, the ambulance was there,” he said. “She was unconscious. She was bleeding. It was a bizarre day. It was a very scary day. It was a very stressful time. We didn’t know if she was going to regain consciousness. We didn’t know what the future would hold.”

Cindy had suffered broken ribs, a broken collarbone and a lung injury besides bleeding on the brain. Though seemingly unconscious, she was able to give a thumbs-up sign after hearing a voice command from a doctor. There was reason for hope.

Hope can go a long way. No one envisioned Weaver and Cindy standing in the winner’s circle at Royal Ascot less than a year later. “We’ve been doing this our whole lives,” Weaver said. “It was an exciting day for us.”

Weaver, 53, was born and raised in Louisville and knew at a very young age that his life would involve Thoroughbreds. He thanks his father, Bill, for that. “My dad took me to the track and told me how to read the Form since I was very little—less than a year old. It was exposed to me early on, and it stuck with me.”

His brother, Scott, went to the track with him, but after working briefly with horses, he turned to business and works for a computer company. 

Weaver has never left the business. “I was never really in doubt about what I wanted to do,” he said.

He worked on a farm briefly for Kenny Burkhart but didn’t take long to know he wanted to work at the track. While still in high school, he began walking hots for trainer John Hennig in the summer. “I was 17,” Weaver said. “I told him I didn’t want to be a hotwalker. I wanted to learn. He took me to Philadelphia Park. He taught me how to be a better hotwalker, how to groom and horsemanship.”

When Hennig left to work for Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas at a training center in California, Weaver was given a choice in 1991: go to California and work for Hennig or travel to New York to work for Lukas’ New York operation under Jeff Lukas and Hall of Famer Todd Pletcher. 

“Working for Wayne, he had some very, very nice horses,” Weaver said. “It was a source of pride to come out of that program, learning to train horses. It’s a lot of trial and error. That was my schooling as opposed to college. I went to the University of Wayne Lukas.”

Lukas remembers both Weaver and Cindy fondly: “The two of them were both working for me at the same time. It was a treat to have them in the shed row. Both excellent horse people. I never doubted for a second they’d be successful. He’s an articulate, good horseman. I’m very proud of him. I saw him on TV at Ascot. It was a treat to see him over there. If George doesn’t do anything else, he married smart.” 

  Cindy, a native of Romansville, Pennsylvania, began riding at an early age and began working for Bruce Miller when she was 16. She galloped horses at Delaware Park and, in her early twenties, began working for Lukas in New York.

It was not love at first sight. They knew each other for years before they began dating. They’ve been together ever since. His respect for her horsemanship is considerable: “She could be on her own… attention to detail…perfectionist. Over the years, she could help a horse who was nervous or a head case. She was always our go-to girl. She’d fix them. I can’t tell you how. She has a great instinct for a horse. She’s a great rider. She’s one of a kind. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone like her.”

When they learned Cindy was pregnant, they decided to go on their own in 2002. “It was time to make a go for it,” Weaver said. “It was time for me to give it a go: come together as a family and see how it went. Luckily, we’ve had a lot of success over the years. She managed the barn so I could focus on our clients. We’ve always worked well together and done well.”

Always? A husband and wife together 24/7? “I won’t lie to you; she has strong opinions,” Weaver said. “Obviously, you have clashes. But we have a mutual respect. It starts with that. We both have the same philosophy: keeping the horses happy.”

Cindy agreed: “We keep horses happy. We do little things like take them to the round pen, let them graze, let them walk and do things before they even go to the track. I think little things make a difference. And we do well together. He gets to do more with the owners and the PR part. I’m more the worker with the horses. We both have our say, and it seems to work that way.”

They didn’t take long to find success. After winning one of eight starts in 2002, they topped the million-dollar mark in earnings in 2003 and have been over a million every year, including this year, already, thanks to a solid career win percentage of 15.

His top earner and best horse was Vekoma, whose six-for-eight record included victories in the 2020 Gr. 1 Metropolitan and Gr. 1 Carter Handicap. He earned $1,245,525 and is now standing at Spendthrift Farm.

In 2015, Weaver took a shot at Royal Ascot, sending over Cyclogenesis to contest the Gp. 1 Commonwealth. “He was three-for-three at the time,” Weaver said. “A big heavy horse. He was a nice horse. It just wasn’t his day over there.”

Cyclogenesis finished 14th.

His performance did nothing to diminish Weaver’s appreciation of the experience: “When you get there, it’s clear how special the racing is at Royal Ascot. I was amazed at the place. It’s a hard place to win. I thought when I left in 2015, how cool it would be to win a race there. It’s like a bucket list.”

Crimson Advocate ridden by John Velazquez claimed the narrowest of victories in a thrilling climax to the 2023 Queen Mary Stakes at Royal Ascot.

The filly who would bring him back was Crimson Advocate, a daughter of Nyquist out of Citizens Advocate by Proud Citizen. Crimzon Advocate was purchased for $100,000 at the Ocala Breeders October Yearling Sale by a large ownership group led by Randy Hill, who owned Vekoma and has been sending Weaver horses for 20 years. Other owners are St. John’s University’s new basketball coach Rick Pitino, New York Giants senior personnel consultant and New York Racing Association Board of Directors Chris Mara, Reagan Swinbank, Bill Daugherty of Black Ridge Stables and Jake Ballis of Black Type Thoroughbreds.

Crimson Advocate would make her debut at Keeneland on dirt April 26, well after Cindy had made major strides in her recovery—something she continued after four months in a hospital. 

An unending outpour of support and prayers, especially from horsemen, certainly helped. “It’s a tight-knit group,” Weaver said. “We’re motivated by our love of horses. You can’t do this without loving horses. When she got hurt, it’s a hard thing to go through. It was scary for quite a few months. So many people reached out. It felt good to have the racing community reach out and pull for us and let us know how much support we had out there. It’s been a tough road. We couldn’t have done it without help. There’s a lot of love on the racetrack, and we really appreciate it. This happened a year ago. We’re fortunate that Cindy made a good recovery. She’s still Cindy. We take things one day at a time.”

Crimson Advocate finished an okay third in her 4 ½ furlong maiden debut on dirt at Keeneland. Her next start, her turf debut at Gulfstream Park, was in the Royal Palm Juvenile Filly Stakes. Through a unique partnership between Gulfstream Park and Ascot, the winner of that stakes and the Royal Palm Juvenile Stakes became automatic qualifiers for the Royal Ascot two-year-old stakes race and $25,000 in traveling expenses.

Weaver won both stakes. Crimson Advocate won the filly stakes wire-to-wire by 3 ½ lengths. No Nay Mets, whose ownership includes Houston Astros star Alex Bregman, captured the colt stakes. He raced at Ascot the day after Crimson Advocate and finished 9th  in the Gp. 2 Norfolk Stakes. 

With two starters at Ascot, Cindy had added incentive to make the trip, if she was up to it. “We went to Aspen before Ascot,” Weaver said. She handled that and headed to England with her family.

Crimson Advocate’s new rider would be Velazquez. In a field of 26, his expertise and experience were paramount.

Watching a field of 26 two-year-old fillies racing five-furlongs on a straight course is an interesting experience. There were two distinct groups during the race far away from each other on the course. How a jockey can make judgment calls with that challenging perspective is a skill itself. Fortunately for Velazquez, he was in a sprint with two-year-olds. She would go as fast as she could.

She broke from the rail nearest the grandstand, and Velazquez hustled her to the lead. She seemed in good shape as her group seemed ahead of the other group. But then Relief Rally came flying at her late. They crossed the wire together. 

“I didn’t know if I got it or not,” Velazquez said afterwards.

Weaver, as his custom, assumed the worst: “Usually, when it’s that tight, I assume we got beat, just to prepare myself. After that, I watched a slo-mo replay. While watching that, I thought she might have gotten the bob.”

She had. Her number was posted first on the toteboard. “We were just out of our minds, hugging, kissing, on cloud nine,” Weaver said. 

Hill told Bob Ehalt of Blood-Horse, “It was great. It was so emotional. Cindy was there, and she was crying. I couldn’t get over it. I am so glad for George. We’ve been together for so long and have won some big races together. I know how much this meant to him.”

Just getting to Ascot meant a lot to Weaver and Cindy. “She saw a lot of people she hadn’t seen in a while,” Weaver said.

Cindy said, “I had to really try hard and be strong to try to make this trip,” she said. “I was just hoping that she wound show up and run a good race.”

While waiting out the results of the photo finish, she said, “If she was second, it was okay. I knew she gave her best.”

So did Cindy.

Alan Balch - Remembering where we come from

Victor Espinoza photo

Like so many of us in racing, I’ve been horse crazy my entire life.

Some of my earliest memories are being on my dad’s shoulders, going through the livestock barns at the San Diego County Fair, and then lighting up when we got to the horse show . . . which, back then, was located just outside the turn at Del Mar into the backstretch, at the old 6-furlong start, long before the chute was extended to 7/8. All their horse barns back then were the original adobe, open to the public during the fair, and we could walk down the shed rows talking to the horses, petting those noses and loving the stable smells.

At least I did. My mom was appalled, of course.

She assumed, I’m certain, that I would grow out of my weird fixation. But the way those things go at certain ages, the more I was discouraged, the more obsessed I became. The fact that our family was decidedly not elite in any respect, certainly not educationally or financially, became a great opportunity for me to work at what I loved the most: taking care of the horses, to begin with, and camping at the barn whenever possible. At first, I wasn’t getting paid at all—except in getting to learn to ride by watching and listening and then riding my favorite horses without having to rent them. Lessons were out of the question.

I gradually learned that the people who owned and showed and raced horses had to have the money to do it, and being able to do that myself was beyond my imagination. I don’t remember ever caring. Nor do I remember ever being mistreated because of my lowly station. In fact, it was a great bonus for me to get out of school at times to travel to shows and live in a tack room in the stables. And, as I grew older, to start getting paid actual wages for my work.

Making it through college and graduate school without having to wash dishes in the dining hall led to my loving equestrian sport in a different way and at a much different level—especially when I met Robert Strub at the Forum International Horse Show in Los Angeles (which I was managing while attending school). He offered me a position at Santa Anita. 

Elite equestrian sport, racing and non-racing alike, became the rest of my distinctly non-elite life. And, I venture to say, my fellow non-elites in these sports vastly outnumber the elites. 

Almost all trainers, jockeys and racing labor on the backstretch, who make the game go from hour to hour, day to day, month to month, and year to year, weren’t elite when they started out, at least by any definition except the one that counts: their merit, their specialized skills, and their commitment to horses and the sport. I remember how moved I was a decade ago when one of international racing’s most elite trainers got choked up when describing how it felt to be appointed a director of an esteemed racing association. “I’m just a trainer,” he said, as though his accomplishments and expertise didn’t qualify him to rub shoulders and contribute to deliberations alongside wealthy and powerful elite decision-makers. They did. And they do.

In this greatest of all sports . . . where the interdependence of all its critical components is its essence . . . elites of accomplishment and merit, like him, comfortably perform alongside all the other elites, including those of birth, inherited or self-made wealth and royalty.

Horses have brought us all together, and many of us have been lucky enough to know—and be appreciated by—some of the world’s most famous personages.

So it was when Victor Espinoza, the self-proclaimed “luckiest Mexican on Earth,” won the Triple Crown, and later had occasion to meet and joke with Queen Elizabeth II at Royal Ascot. Doesn’t his story sum it up? And remind most of us where we came from?

The eleventh of twelve children, born on a dairy farm in Tulancingo, Hidalgo, growing up to work in a manufacturing plant and the stables, Victor drove a bus to pay for jockey school. Anyone who has endured Mexico City traffic knows the elite skills that must have been required! He aspired to more; his skill and determination resulted in successes reserved for the very fewest of the world’s top athletes. As the famed Dr. Robert Kerlan – who treated athletes at the highest levels of every major sport – once observed, “pound for pound, jockeys are the greatest.”

When honored by the Edwin J. Gregson Foundation, which has raised over $6 million from the racing community in 20 years—of which 98% is dedicated to backstretch programs including scholarships for its children—Victor again cited his luck in achieving what he has without much school, as well as his amazement at the Gregson’s success in its scholarship program. Hundreds of backstretch community children have gone to college because of it—in fields ranging from mechanical engineering to biology, nursing, graphic design, criminal justice, life sciences, sociology and everything else.  

A few are now even among the world’s elites in architecture and medicine. The backstretch teaches tenacity.  

And isn’t that just one reason why her late Majesty the Queen loved horses, racing, and its community, above all her other pursuits?  

Alan Balch - Inspiring Ascot

Although I’ve never been to Royal Ascot, I first went to the course in October 2012, for the second British Champions Day, where Frankel “miraculously” recorded his 14th straight and final win after having been left at the start of the rich Champion Stakes.  

On a cold, damp day, with the going “soft, heavy in places,” a capacity crowd of 32,000 was in attendance, and somewhat uncharacteristically for the British (I was told), yelled itself crazy for Frankel’s super effort. Not to mention trainer Henry Cecil.

Actually, however, Ascot has a true capacity far in excess of that day’s attendance. In the most recent Royal meeting, in June this year, crowds of over 60,000 were there. The television coverage of the masses of humanity in the stands, the infield and the various enclosures all along the mile straight, the paddocks, and on both ends of the strikingly beautiful permanent stands, gave any racing fan a thrill.

At the Cheltenham Festival for jump racing in March this year, attendance over four days ranged from 64,000 to 74,000 . . . “almost capacity,” according to management. And that left the media speculating about possibly adding a fifth day to its schedule, “like Royal Ascot.”

I was in London myself this year, late in March, amazed (and pleased) to see abundant advertising for Royal Ascot almost everywhere I went. Even though Opening Day was over two months away! Track managements in Britain clearly don’t take such attendance figures for granted . . . they believe in strong promotion and marketing, at least for their major racing, and undoubtedly their commercial sponsors (of which there are many high-profile brands) do as well.

What I see here in American racing attendance is virtually the opposite. And it’s a grave concern. Have we given up trying to persuade fans to go to the races?

The exceptions here seem to be the Triple Crown races, Breeders’ Cup, some Oaklawn days, the short summer meetings at Del Mar and Saratoga, and the two short Keeneland sessions. As one of racing’s dinosaurs, I admit to living in the past. But when I joined Santa Anita in 1971, I was told by one of racing’s most authoritative figures that I’d never see a crowd of 50,000 at our track again: “Those days are long gone.”  Within five years, however, the Santa Anita Handicap, Derby and Opening Day were regularly drawing well over 50,000. More importantly, our daily average attendance 15 years later, over 17 weeks of 5 days each, peaked at just under 33,000 in 1986. And that was when announced attendance in California was scrupulously honest and audited.

I mention this because now I hear the old pessimism again, all the time, walking through the nearly vacant quarter-mile long stand at Santa Anita . . . that the days of regular big crowds at race tracks, actually any real crowds at all, are long gone. The reasons cited are obvious: Internet, satellite and telephone betting, pervasive competition from other sports and gaming, and the proliferation of all sorts of simulcasting—all disincentives for going to the races.  

What worries me most is hearing track executives and horsemen saying, “It really doesn’t make any difference, not having fans at the track, as long as the total handle’s there, generating purses.”

Actually, I believe it does. Not just because bets at the track contribute way more to purses than any others, and non-wagering revenues are critical to a track’s finances. It’s also an enormous difference for the future prospects of the sport. Where are those future off-track bettors going to come from if they’ve never been to the races? And how about future owners, too—how much fun is it to win a race with a few loud yells echoing through an empty stadium, whether you’re an owner or a horseplayer?

Consider, in geographical terms, that California by itself is 1.7 times larger than the United Kingdom, and a few years ago this state surpassed that entire nation in annual gross domestic product. Competitive gaming and sporting opportunities in the British Isles equal or probably exceed those available in California, at least in terms of access. Yet—I am told—the reason there’s apparently so much more interest in racing there than here is “cultural.” Her Majesty the Queen and all that?

It's true that in many respects Great Britain is the birthplace of all equestrian sport. Queen Anne founded Ascot itself in 1711, official colors were invented and approved in 1783, and then the British Empire ruled the world for so long . . . until it didn’t.  

However, the Belmont Stakes and Saratoga commenced in the 1860s, the Kentucky Derby in 1875, and organized California racing in fits and starts beginning in the early 1900s. For a very long time, racing was far and away America’s most popular sport. That it hasn’t maintained a true competitive popularity here, despite the advent of so much competition, are sheer failures of management, marketing and promotion. American racing’s commitment to sophisticated, creative marketing as an investment, rather than a troublesome expense to be cut, then cut even more, has seriously waned or even disappeared over the last quarter-century.

It's never too late to rediscover and share the magical spectacle of racing. Whatever troubles our sport faces, its intrinsic allure of intersecting superlative beauty, elegance, human and equine athleticism beyond compare, coupled with its enormous array of gaming opportunities, is a marketer’s dream.

As anyone who attended Royal Ascot or watched it on television can attest.