NYRA Board Mulls Ways to Lure 'Pharoah'

By T.D. Thornton

With the only business voted upon at Wednesday's New York Racing Association Reorganization Board of Directors meeting being rubber-stamp unanimous approvals certifying the slate of NYRA officers and the roster of peace officers, the talk among board members touched on topics related to bolstering big days on the circuit and whether or not Triple Crown winner American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile) could be incentivized to compete in the GI Travers S. at Saratoga Race Course.

“We are trying our best,” said NYRA chief executive officer and president Chris Kay. “I think it was a total of eight minutes after we had given [representatives of Zayat Stables LLC] the Triple Crown trophy” that NYRA officials “engaged in a variety of conversations to try to make it happen. It's a very complicated and competitive landscape at the moment.”

“We talked about the GII Jim Dandy S., but the Travers looks like the one that is the greatest interest to them, as well as the

GI Haskell [Invitational S. at Monmouth Park],” Kay said. “So those two would fit in nicely…We are working diligently on that.”

NYRA ex-officio member Rick Violette Jr., who separately serves as the president of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, said that in terms of dangling more cash to American Pharoah's connections, he recognizes that NYRA is “limited by some of the things we can't do that private racetracks can do.”

But Violette said he has already floated the idea to NYRA Senior Vice President of Racing Operations Martin Panza about raising the purse of the Aug. 29 Travers from $1.25 million to $2 million.

Violette said he believed the horsemen would be “willing to bump it up…with the caveat that [the $750,000 Travers overpayment] gets paid right back to purses [based on an immediate handle revenue reconciliation]. And then after that $750,000, we're back to the same splits. Because [the horsemen] can't take all the risk.”

“It's interesting mathematics,” Violette continued. “I'm sure we could work around it. But everybody has to have some skin in the game if we're going to bump this up.”

Separate from the Travers conversation, Kay spoke at length about what he termed as NYRA's successful implementation of turning big race days like the GI Belmont S. into “must-see” events.

But NYRA special advisor John Hendrickson cautioned that the stacking of so many of the racing association's resources on single, big-event days could have the unintended consequence of watering down an entire race meet like Saratoga.

“I think it's fantastic. I think they're great,” Hendrickson said of the “must-see” days.

“But we have to remember that [at] Saratoga, every day [used to be] a must-see day. So I hope we're not diluting the rest of the calendar as we're going forward.”

In ongoing backstretch upgrades, Kay reported that NYRA is in the midst of a four-year, $28.8 million dormitory upgrade project at NYRA properties that will be completed by 2017.

NYRA board member Michael Dubb said he knows a $28 million-plus investment sounds like a big commitment, but he implored the board to expedite the backstretch improvements and to do even more for NYRA's hands-on horse workers.

“Doing five [dormitory] cottages at Saratoga sounds like a lot, but there's hundreds of cottages at Saratoga, and the conditions are not good,” Dubb said. “The people on the backside deserve better.”

In personnel moves on the NYRA board, Wednesday's meeting was the first chaired by Michael Del Giudice, who was appointed to replace Anthony Bonomo earlier this month. Bonomo took a leave of absence just before the Belmont S. after his company was revealed to have allegedly provided a “no-show” job to the son of the former New York State senate majority leader.

In addition, Andrew Rosen, a longtime New York-based horse owner, was chosen to fill the spot vacated by the April resignation of Charles Wait. The NYRA board is still awaiting an appointee to fill the spot vacated by Barry Ostrager, who also recently resigned.