Beyer on Maryland Racing

[Travis Stone]

Whether or not it happens via Maryland, Louisiana, New York, Kentucy, Illinois etc. etc. etc., a consolidation of the overall racing product is a good thing. In my opinion its basic supply/demand. If there demand isn't there, decrease the supply.

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Scenario: Racetrack A has 1,000 horses on the grounds so they schedule a 90-day race meet. They will struggle to make big fields and struggle overall, but probably get by. They'll handle $500,00 / day over 9 races for $55k a race. If you figure a blended take-out of 20%, then a 50/50 split with horsemen, their gross revenue is probably about $50k / day.

Now consider this...

Scenario: Racetrack A has 1,000 horses but they schedule a 30-day race meet. Instead of an average field size of 7, they're in the 10-12 range. Because of the larger field size, they handle more per race... say another 20k / race. so now they handle ~$680k which breaks down to $68k in an estimated gross revenue.

Even though the second scenario does better numbers, is better for racing etc, it's hard to justify the spreadsheet which shows money is being made, albeit little, on the first scenario.

When you have a giant racetrack not generating income and lots of red numbers, those black numbers, even if they're small, are hard to ignore.

Basically at LAD the more we race the more we make. But the more we race, the worse off we (and the region) are. It's a tough balalnce, and the industry has not found it yet.