Through his Off The Hook LLC partnership, Joe Appelbaum has enjoyed significant pinhooking and racing success, but his greatest contributions to the industry have come through his involvement with the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association. Appelbaum served his first term on the NYTHA board from 2014-2017 and was named president of the organization in 2017. As the Saratoga season winds down, the TDN caught up with Appelbaum to discuss his evolving role with NYTHA and his passion for the game of racing.
TDN: Let's start by talking a little about NYTHA and its role in the New York racing community. What are your primary goals? Are you essentially a representative for anyone with a stake in the game?
JA: NYTHA represents the owners and trainers. The owners obviously own the horses. So, yeah, in negotiating or managing the relationship with NYRA, who runs the tracks, we're a little like a player's union–but also like an owner's rep. We also represent the trainers who sometimes have divergent, but mostly similar, goals as the owner.
However, our biggest goal, our biggest mission, is supporting our backstretch workers. Two-thirds of our budget, and almost all of our efforts, go to helping the guys who work here in the backstretch. The guys who are taking care of the horses. So we fund and help manage a medical clinic for them. We have a scholarship program for their children. We have English classes. We have recreation programs for them. So we have a full range of services and close to $2 million a year is being spent on these guys and women, and it's really at the core of what we do. So, yes, while we do go to Albany and lobby for our concerns, and we do sit with NYRA and negotiate things like purse levels, those are all true–but really at the core of what we're doing, is supporting our workers.
TDN: NYTHA also plays a large role in aftercare initiatives. Can you talk about the importance of finding second careers for racehorses?
JA: We just don't want horses out in a pasture somewhere, grazing around. You want them doing something so they feel useful, and that their human counterparts have use for them, and that they're supported properly. Some of the saddest things I see are random wild horses running around without proper food, without attention. We really work hard here to get them into second careers.
TDN: Since you have become president, has NYTHA changed its outlook at all? Do you have any new initiatives that have developed recently?
JA: One thing that we're getting into which is a bit new, we're trying to attract new people to the game. So if you don't own a horse, here's my pitch: It's great fun, it's great excitement, there are thrills, there is despair, and everything else that makes life worth living. So if you are interested, give us a call at the New York Thoroughbred Horseman's Association, we'd love to teach you how to own a horse. The ins, the outs, the pitfalls, and how to make it a sustainable experience for you.
TDN: On a more personal level, how did you first get into the game of racing? Was it right here at Saratoga?
JA: When I was a teenager, I went to a summer camp about a half hour north of here. And I had some older friends who would come down here on their day off or maybe even sneak out at lunch hour, and I used to hang around with them, so I started coming here and was attracted to the kind of pageantry and excitement and action of the place.
My wife calls me an urban cowboy. No horse background, never rode, but was attracted to the speed and the passion and the excitement of it all.
In 2001, I was up here for the weekend–it was Travers weekend, and there was a Pick 6 carryover and me and five friends decided to play. There was a $200,000 carryover. And we decided to play and Dr. Kashnikow kind of split horses in the Fourstardave and got home, and we won–the Pick 6 was about $109,000 total. And me and two of the guys who hit it took our proceeds and later that year claimed a horse. We were off and running.
TDN: And that running start has clearly blossomed into something much bigger in the ensuing years. Can you discuss your current involvement as an owner/breeder?
JA: [Our operation] is Off the Hook LLC. We have a business, I have a partner named Carlos Morales, who was a trainer for 20 years, both in Venezuela and then here. Most famously, he won the Met Mile with a horse named Yankee Victor. So we have an operation, we are most known for selling 2-year-olds. What we've done over the last few years also is start a lot more breeding here in New York. So between me and partners, we have 18 brood mares here in New York. We produce babies, and once they're weaned, we bring them to Ocala, and that's really our specialty–developing young horses until they're two. We either sell them or we race them. So, we have our fingers in many pots. We have developed champions like Informed Decision, who won the Breeders Cup Filly Sprint and was an Eclipse Award winner, [as well as] other Grade I winners like El Deal. We raced a Grade I winner. We won the United Nations [with Turbo Compressor], which is always a fun race for me to go down to the [Jersey] Shore.
TDN: Looking at the industry as a whole, what would you say are the most pressing concerns that need to be addressed?
JA: We haven't grown our handle in 10 years in this country, while the rest of the world is growing handle. Let's just focus on the simple metrics. Are we selling more horses? Are more owners coming to the game? Are we giving owners a good enough value proposition? We know how hard it is to survive at the track. We know it's a great challenge. We know many of us don't make money while we're racing our horses, but let's give our owners a great value, great utility. They get to can their horses run, they keep them in training longer. That will attract more people because attracting new owners is really the lifeblood of this sport.
If you don't have a product to sell, if you don't make your product better, if your product doesn't modernize and compete with all the other things that are pulling on people's time and money, you can market it all you want, but it's just hollow marketing. I think we have to step back and look, kind of, “What is the basic values here, and what are people getting out of it?” Why would they come and do this?”
TDN: Turning our focus back to New York, Saratoga is winding down and racing returns downstate, where it is conducted for the majority of the year. How important is it to have a self-sustaining industry in the Empire State?
JA: In New York, we have a commitment to year round racing, which we think is really important. If we want to support our summer, spring and fall racing programs, we need to keep both staff, trainers and horses here throughout the winter. Traditionally, we've always run through the winter. Also, it's a great support to our breeding industry. New York is producing 1,500 foals a year, and a majority of winter racing is in support of those horses. So, it's about keeping jobs here in New York, it's helping us fill cards year round, and it keeps people working in a way that otherwise would be very difficult for them.
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