Racing fans are on their feet watching the horses thundering down the straight.
Horse racing in Jamaica: A crisis of confidence
As promised in my last article, I now turn my attention, in a general sense, towards responding to a couple of issues as there is an acceptance that the local racing industry, in terms of its viability, will continue to perform below the expectations of what should have been delivered by divestment over the last nearly eight years.
Promoting company Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment (SVREL) has been given an extremely difficult task to meet the targets of the divestment agreement in terms of the deliverables as it relates to the level of expenditure for the improvement of the plant and the expansion of the commercial side of the industry.
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The biggest challenge the promoting company faces is operating with an extremely flawed racing product to which the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (TOBA) and the United Racehorse Trainers Association of Jamaica (URTAJ) continue to insist that there should be no change. It is bizarre that there has been no review of the racing product by owners and trainers.
It is difficult to fathom the interminable stance of the operatives in these entities where the overwhelming collectively ignorant majority continue to think a claiming system can develop the industry. The 1993 the architects of this system thought it could be operated in the interest of the majority but it has only achieved the opposite having been established on the flawed premise that the racing product under the growing handicap system lacked integrity.
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From 1960 horse racing flourished for 32 years under a system of classification of the horse population which ensured there was at least a 10 per cent annual growth. However, the 1993 introduction of the American aberration of thinking that the trading of race horses for profit was a viable economic activity made its grand entrance with the claiming system.
From 1991, having lost over 50 per cent of the annual number of races and 60 per cent decline inseasonal foalcrop, the US Jockey Club has agreed the British were right all along in frowning upon the claiming system. I am not surprised that the local surviving architects of claiming, who are yet to eat their large chunks of crow, have remained quiet during the three-decade struggle of the industry.
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TOBA and URTAJ continue to be at odds with SVREL over the current purse structure and are eyeing the $4.2-billion SVREL gross revenue from simulcast as fair game to support purses. To say the least, this idea is questionable as the unproven claim is that the local product enhances the support of these races beamed from outside of Jamaica. This is a competing product and if it were not for the flawed claiming system the local racing product would be viable on its own.
It is clear the SVREL shareholders have no intention whatever diverting funds from this revenue streamto support the local product. Truth be told, if for any reason this source of funds should cease the local industry would no longer be lucky to have this promoting company as the local product cannot stand on its own o achieve viability with minority so advantageously placed.
In the meantime, URTAJ has not been operational for some time as the constitutionally deemed date for election of a new executive has passed and the members are seemingly quite content to do nothing. My efforts to contact President Patrick Smellie, who did suggest last year he would not be seeking reelection, was not successful.
The relationship between URTAJ and SVREL has been confrontational but if new leadership for the trainers emerges their interest may be rekindled.There must always be dialogue between the parties to seek common ground in the interest of the industry.
Next, I will be looking at the performance of the promoting company, through no fault of theirs, causing the unrelated, almost scandalous disparity in potential earnings for trainers and jockeys over the last five years.
