A divided house stymies progress

Prior to last week’s column, which pointed to horse racing having ‘one of the most powerful but under-utilised lobbies of any local industry’, few persons would have been aware of the deep ties of Karl Samuda, Daryl Vaz, Derrick Smith, or the late Don Wehby, to Jamaica’s thoroughbred scene.

There are many other names of repute, spread across business, politics and hereditary family ties, that make local horse racing, one of, if not the most connected industry, ranging from agriculture to commerce, in all of Jamaica.

Having mentioned attorney Walter Scott’s ties as a former chair of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission (BGLC) last week, also being a former director and chairman of McKayla Financial Services, a micro-financing subsidiary of Supreme Ventures Limited (SVL) – the parent company of racing promoter Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Limited (SVREL) – it should be noted that SVL Group’s executive chairman, Gary Peart, had also chaired the BGLC.

It was under Peart’s chairmanship that the BGLC-sponsored Diamond Mile was introduced, which Smith’s Seeking My Dream, the 2015 Jamaica Derby champion, won twice, his biggest accolade as an owner, followed by I Dream Again winning last year’s Jamaica Derby and St Leger for the former minister of national security, who currently sits on the board of the Jamaica Racing Commission.

How can such a marquee industry not be able to use its all-powerful lobby to circle wagons, as done in every other racing jurisdiction in the world, for the betterment of all involved?

Amid the United States’ creation of the six-race Thoroughbred Championship Series to popularise horse racing in North America, there is a development in nearby Florida where horsemen are readying themselves for the possibility of ‘decoupling’ at Tampa Bay and Gulfstream Park, whose casino licences are tied to hosting horse-racing meets.

Though the state and powerful horse-racing lobby steps in whenever the Stronach Group takes its case of unfair competition to the legislature, Florida’s horsemen, through the Florida Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association (FTBOA), have been actively seeking to build a new track in Marion County, whose main city is Ocala, known as ‘the horse capital of the world’.

The proposed thoroughbred racetrack and entertainment complex is being planned primarily for live horse racing rather than as a casino operation, a project being advanced by Gilligan Racing LLC in partnership with FTBOA, which holds the state’s sole remaining non-profit licence to host thoroughbred racing.

Among the investors is John Morgan, a billionaire attorney based in Florida who is best known as the founder of the personal injury law firm Morgan & Morgan. Morgan has an active involvement in various thoroughbred partnerships based in Kentucky.

Therein lies another example of how horsemen circle wagons in anticipation of Tampa and Gulfstream being allowed to drop live racing, which some see as inevitable, that the state’s massive breeding and training hub in Ocala still has an active venue to race horses.

Meanwhile, locally, horsemen and promoter are firing slingshots at each other instead of doubling down on the main beneficiary from racing, the Government of Jamaica, to reroute some of the $750 million which annually flows into the coffers of the BGLC and JRC, not as a handout but as stimulus to create more tax revenues, increased prize money, improvement of the local-bred stock by eliminating the General Consumption Tax on all importation of horses, as well as establishing industry-wide pension and health benefits akin to the now-burgeoning tourism pension plan.

Whenever there is development at Caymanas Park, sales move accordingly. Investments such as a new totalisator system installed in 1989, which allowed the establishment of satellite betting outlets, off-track betting parlours (OTBs), advanced the sport exponentially.

For horsemen to be opposing an outright sale of Caymanas Park, responding to SVL’s proposed US$100 million investment, without inviting government to the table for a joint conversation, is being somewhat Maryland-like, the state whose Preakness Stakes, originally the second leg of the North American Triple Crown, has been excluded from the new six-race Thoroughbred Championship Series.

Horsemen, don’t be a Maryland. Governments are about doing what they believe will bring the most money to their coffers. The FTBOA understands that and is already making plans for decoupling because the Stronach group could likely win a Supreme Court ruling.

Instead of opposing for the sake of opposing, try to benefit by locking in SVL, legislatively, to what it states is its commitment to the local racing industry.