HORSE RACING: NTRA should be Gone, Baby, Gone.

A national organization to further the causes and needs of Thoroughbred Horse Racing makes a lot of sense. An organization to represent the interests of everyone involved seems like something that tracks, horsemen and the public would want and need. However, the NTRA has become the latest attempt in futility for nationally organized racing, almost certainly doomed to failure or worse. Let’s take a look at five big reasons why this is not working.

Charisma Tim Smith, the current NTRA commissioner has not become a recognizable face in the world of sports. All national sports organizations are characterized by their leaders; they thrust themselves into the spotlight, they bring attention to themselves and their organizations. Outside of the racing industry, Tim Smith is virtually unknown. Pro Football became successful with Pete Rozelle, Pro Basketball with David Stern, the PGA with Deane Beman. Although these men have garnered more attention and possessed more power than any of the franchise owners would have liked or wanted, they were successful in bringing great success to their respective sports.

Ego Horse racing is like other professional sports in the regard that tremendous egos own the franchises and control the power. It is against the grain of egotism to share that power with a representative, a hired hand. The common elements of the national organization success stories in professional sports are of people who could overshadow the egos involved in the sport and lead the participants in the directions needed, regardless of their personal agendas. Racing needs a commissioner that wields a big stick and is not afraid to use it, Tim Smith has not emerged as that. More than likely, he was doomed from the start. Doomed by men who had too much control and ego to ever accept a back seat in the limelight of racing in this country. When you look at the Who’s Who of racing in America, you see racetrack conglomerate owners and organization leaders unwilling to give an inch for the good of all. That is probably the biggest reason that racing has never had any combined effectual organization on a national level.

Representation The special interests in racing have traditionally looked out for Number One. When you look at the prospect of a Churchill Downs-Magna control of the NTRA Board, with support from The Breeder’s Cup, it leaves little input from the majority of tracks in the country. The NTRA becomes a rubber stamp for the large interests in racing, who, as history has indicated, can come and go with the seasons. We are looking at domination of racing in America, a setting of the future directions, by representatives of public and private corporations, loyal to the interests of their shareholders. How can the NTRA not be anything but a representative of the have’s as compared to the have-not’s.

Perception I would imagine over 95% of the country has no idea who the NTRA is or what they do. A larger percentage would remember the disastrous advertising campaign they initiated. Any TV watcher has been turned-off by a terrible advertising representation of the industry on television. The “Sport of Kings” came off somewhere between the X-Games and Roller Derby. This was an insult to the people who work hard every day to keep this industry alive. What would have been the problem with just showing some stretch runs of some great races?

Faulty Decisions The NTRA has started out and continued a string of faulty decisions affecting its validity. The advertising campaigns, the TVG problem, the representation issue, the lack of a cohesive, national medication policy, the lack of a national sanctioning body, all of these combine to signal a lack of direction and thought. That is all anyone can think of it, if it truly was to be a national organization, unless you would like to think of it as succumbing to the special interests. The lack of decisive action on any of these issues have branded the NTRA as a failure almost from the start.

Well, after all of these gloomy perspectives, what do we do now? Racing in America needs national representation and organization. Can the NTRA do it? Certainly not in its present condition. To save the NTRA, drastic steps must be taken. Tim Smith has to go. Regardless of his qualifications or pre-requisites for the job, he has been rendered damaged goods. We need someone who the public knows already, someone who will be given a mandate, regardless of how painful to accept, of bringing racing into the 21st century.

We need representation to be equalized. In my home state of Pennsylvania, our representation on the NTRA Board was limited to a combined effort with our Mid-Atlantic neighbors. We have different issues as do they. We are fighting for racing in Pennsylvania, not just in Kentucky, California, Florida and New York. Until the NTRA can figure out how to deal with us as something other than a Red-Headed Stepchild, we have no use for them.

The NTRA must show the public it is doing something positive. It must rapidly undertake and correct the drug policy across the United States. There must be one set of rules, wherever you go, wherever you race. It must be enforced and trusted. They must become an organization of clout, political clout. They must take on the states that feed off the take-out of tracks for their general fund and bring the possibility of profit back to the average bettor. They must present racing as honest, dignified and fun.

These are weighty propositions, but, in reality, the same propositions that have been around for almost a hundred years. The question we all ask is, “How much longer do we have to wait?”