“Sparse crowds as the Preakness races toward an uncertain future.” So rang a headline in the Baltimore Brew Monday. The whole article, which includes details on the state’s massive bailout of the racing industry, is worthy of your time, but here are my highlights:
“But one thing was missing compared to previous years: A big, revved-up crowd. Preakness Saturday attendance every year from 2011 to 2019 exceeded 100,000. In 2023, the announced number was 46,999, with a combined 65,000 attending Friday and Saturday events. Attendance at the two-day event was down to 63,423 this year, according to officials, who did not provide the figure for Saturday alone.
“The couple was outside one of the corporate suites, gazing across the grassy inner track and the mucky outer track to the concourse and grandstand area, where many seats were empty and the food concessions had barely any lines.
“So far, efforts to reverse the plummeting popularity of the sport in general, and Pimlico in particular, have proven elusive amid challenges that include horse deaths, doping scandals and calls for horse racing to be banned altogether.
“Pimlico’s owner, the Canadian-based Stronach Group, has tried but failed to turn a profit by attracting a younger crowd and booking Grammy-award winning performers to play to the Preakness infield festival crowd.”
And best of all:
“Also undetectable in this bubble [Belinda Stronach’s ‘two-story glass-walled’ suite] was any reference to the debate over the sport’s treatment of horses and calls by some for it to be abolished. An estimated 2,000 horses die each year from racing-related injuries, according to Horseracing Wrongs. Outside the race course perimeter on Northern Parkway, dozens of protesters held up signs that said ‘Horse Racing is Animal Abuse,’ and ‘Say neigh to horse abuse.'”
With this photo included…
Again, thank you, Jen and company.
Thank you, Fred. I was thinking about that whole can of worms afterwards.
On national TV one year, they interviewed different people at the racetrack and they went into the jockeys’ quarters and showed the different things that go on back there. They even went so far as to go into the restroom to show the toilet, the specific toilet, designated for vomiting for the jockeys who need to vomit to make weight in order to ride.
At a different time and I believe a different racetrack, Bob Baffert was interviewed and one of the topics was about choosing a rider/jockey. He said that when he picks a jockey, he looks at their shoes. If the jockey has vomit on his shoes, he doesn’t pick that person to ride.
Oh, I forgot to say that the title of the MARCUS WELBY, MD episode is NOBODY WANTS A FAT JOCKEY.
Yes, head trauma. And many jockeys have to practice to be bulimic in order to make the weight. If they don’t, then they don’t ride. That is why many of them do not last in racing very long.
There is a very good episode of a television show called MARCUS WELBY, MD from 1970. The episode is about a jockey who is on top of the world in the LA circuit who secretly goes through hell with diet pills and such ruining his health in order to make the weight. I will not reveal the ending for those of you who may somehow be able to obtain seeing it.
Thanks Marie, Wow. It’s really a wonder that any young man or woman would even want to go in to that. The jockeys at the top are a very small percentage–kind of like the odds of being drafted into the NFL or something.
Thanks Joe, I am hoping that as races dwindle, becoming a jockey will not be something young men and women will want to do.
There is also the reality of jockeys becoming suicidal which could be due to the repeated head trauma when hitting the ground from the horse falling or unseating the rider. I haven’t seen any new articles on this subject recently but that is the type of thing that is always ongoing.
I know that humans have a choice but I don’t think it is moral or ethical to think that it’s okay for people who beat on horses for a living to be suicidal. It isn’t mentally healthy to be sadistic or suicidal either one. This industry has a lot to answer for…
Good info, Joe. I can also add, even if my horses ran last, there was a flat fee taken out of my winnings and given to the jockey, as you said, mount fee. Most jockeys in my area hustle from track to track, as there are 4 tracks in my close proximity, so they will race at one during the day, then run to the other at night, or pick up a few rides over the border at the 3rd track. On days off up here, they will also travel to other states close to me or fly to the south to ride tracks. It’s a very fractured, desperate lifestyle. Some don’t pick up many mounts, so maybe ride one a day. And, as you said, Joe, the top riders in the industry are millionaires. I remember a special on TV once that showed Victor Espinoza’s villa in CA. The jockeys by me live in apts, trailers, and occasionally a modest home or farm.
Two things:
I was going to comment on this post but Marie really said it all – and I wholeheartedly agree with every single thing she wrote. She is 100% correct, very insightful and relates both ethically and morally sound judgement. As a former bettor, along with most of my former gambling cohorts, we almost NEVER bet on Pimlico – other than on Preakness Day. Racing there was always ‘the pits” as we used to call it.
Secondly, to shed some light on melnickteresa’s comment:
I think it stands to reason that with less races there will be less jockeys. Jockeys work on a percentage of the purse. Here is some info I culled from the site Indeed.com “career guides”:
The average national salary for a jockey is $80,496, but like many professional athletes, this varies widely, as, without riding winners, jockeys will find themselves out of work very quickly,. Most are self-employed, but the best jockeys have agents whom they count to to get their mounts.
Jockeys are usually paid a ‘mount fee’ which is a sum of money for each horse they race. But they also receive a percentage of the prize [purse] money if they place first, second or third which usually accounts for the bulk of their income, and can be quite substantial, particularly if you ride the winner of some races with $1,000,000+ purses. I would venture a guess that every single high-profile jockey you may have heard of is already a multi-millionaire.
Most jockeys are extremely competitive and will pull out all the stops to win a race, so you can imagine that with these large sums of $$$$$ at stake they can also be somewhat morally and ethically challenged….
-Joe
This is certainly great news!! That’s a pretty big drop in attendance! If it can happen at the most famous of races, that’s a real victory.
I have a question for those of you who are more race-industry savvy: At some point, with tracks closing every year, will there be a shortage of experienced jockeys? I mean, it doesn’t seem like someone could make a living with fewer and fewer races in which to compete. Do they get paid by the race? Or does the owner/trainer have to pay them a retainer whether they ride or not? Just wondering….
I watched it to see how it would play out, and granted, the weather was crappy, but, indeed, I noticed the grandstand area had numerous empty spots. Even NBC seemed to focus on the drunken shenanigans in the infield, where people were playing and sliding around in the mud, and not even paying attention to the races. I can only imagine the thousands of dollars the track had to spend to clean all that up, and to fix the infield after the revelers trashed it in the mud.
Even pro racing folks on racing sites are saying that keeping pimlico open is a waste of money. How telling is that?? Per the racing folks – the area around the track is reportedly some of the worst crime areas in the city, and they even say that other than Preakness day- the stands are consistently empty. What a waste of money- that the city would have been smarter to spend on cleaning the area up!