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Tracks offer plenty of horseplay

Race tracks get creative in fan outreach, often promoting entertainment over horse racing

Ask Nate Newby what he is doing to attract new fans to horse races at Santa Anita Park and he answers, “Well, do you have, like, five hours?”

Newby is vice president of marketing for the famed racetrack in the Los Angeles area, and, like many racetrack executives around the country, bringing new fans to the facility, especially young people, is something he is 100 percent focused on.

The Hill tailgating area at Keeneland Race Course is popular among young people.
Photo by: Team Coyle
Rock concerts, gourmet food trucks and wine festivals in the infield are some of the things Santa Anita has experimented with for years, Newby said. “We have tried all kinds of different things. The most successful thing we do is just repetition.”

Santa Anita is not alone. Tracks around the country are promoting entertainment over horse racing to battle attendance declines and an aging fan base that has plagued the sport for years. Many tracks have closed in recent years and some tracks have turned into casinos.

Handle, or the money bet on horse racing, has taken a hit as well. The Jockey Club, horse racing’s trade association, reported that from 2000 to 2014, total handle in the U.S. declined from $14.3 billion to $10.6 billion, a decrease of 26 percent. The drop in on-track handle, which reflects bets made at actual racetracks versus off-track betting, was even steeper, from $2.3 billion in 2000 to $1.2 billion, a nearly 48 percent decline.

Such trends are why on March 21 this year, for the fourth year in a row, Santa Anita held a barbecue competition. A total of 102 teams competed, and many more people came to sample the barbecue as well as the horse racing.

“Our total crowd was 15,000 and about half of them were there just for the barbecue competition,” Newby said. “It

took over the entire infield.”

Over the last four years, the people going to the barbecue event has increased from about 3,500 the first year to about 7,500 this year, he said. The trick is to get the fans going to the track for the barbecue and turn them into horse racing fans, and horse players, and that isn’t easy.

“You can set up all the booths and have people walking around and trying to teach them about racing and trying to teach them and help them to make that first bet,” Newby said. “A lot of our promotions will include like a $2 or $5 voucher so you can get them through the barrier of going up to the betting window and making that first bet.
Hopefully it’s a good, smooth experience, and if they win, it’s even better. But it’s hard to control that one.”

Oh, and horse racing, too

Del Mar Thoroughbred Club has been one track that has bucked the overall trends in horse racing attendance. In the four-year period from 2010 to 2014, Del Mar’s average daily attendance was 17,511, an increase of 4.8 percent from the four-year period of 2005 to 2009 when the average daily attendance was 16,712, and a jump of 10.6 percent from the 15,832 average from 2000 to 2004.

Del Mar was one of the first tracks in the country to promote entertainment and the social aspects of the racetracks over the horses and the betting, starting in 2001.

An episode of “Entourage” (top) was shot at Del Mar, which touts itself as “Cool as Ever.”
Photo by: Del Mar Thoroughbred Club
“You will see, looking back to 2001, there is almost never a horse in our ads,” said Craig Dado, executive vice president and chief marketing officer of the San Diego area track. “We don’t do jockey jokes, like, maybe the other tracks do. We don’t do fans cheering the horses down the stretch. It’s not that we don’t love horses, but we want to push the beautiful women and the fashion.”

Del Mar began advertising that the track, which was founded by the late singer Bing Crosby in 1937, was “Cool as Ever” and promoted it as a destination for young and beautiful people, especially women, while de-emphasizing the horse racing and the gambling. Del Mar has booked bands and musical acts, including Billy Idol, ZZ Top and the B-52s. The HBO show “Entourage” shot an episode at the track, which only emphasized the idea that the track was the place to be for young, cool people.

The track also has promoted romance, including the “Battle of the Exes” featuring jockeys Chantal Sutherland and Mike Smith, who had been a couple and had broken up, as well as a contest for female fans called “Miss Cougar Del Mar.”

Horse racing traditionalists scoffed, but Dado noted he had more reporters cover the Miss Cougar contest than came to cover the Pacific Classic, the most prestigious stakes race during the race meet.

“These marketing trends fly in the face of traditional racetrack marketing,” Dado said. “But we don’t think traditional racetrack marketing has much of a chance to attract a new and younger fan base.”

Del Mar is fortunate, Dado concedes, as it is located in an area where people vacation and is within walking distance of the Pacific Ocean.

Keeneland Race Course is in a similar situation to Del Mar, in that the track has short meets and is seen as the place

to be. While Del Mar benefits from being near the beach, Keeneland is smack in the middle of Kentucky race horse breeding country, and young people there grew up going to the races. Additionally, the University of Kentucky is about 10 minutes from the racetrack, providing another major pool of young people in which to market.

For years people, and especially young fans, would tailgate outside the track, and Keeneland tried to entice them to come inside the facility, said Christa Marrillia, Keeneland director of marketing. “It’s been going on for years, and we [finally decided to] try to embrace it, instead of trying to get everyone to come into the grandstand,” Marrillia said. “We have created a destination called The Hill.”

The Hill opened three years ago and is a dedicated tailgating area outside the racetrack gates. Keeneland has installed a video board where people can watch the races, and food trucks and a gift shop are available as well.

Admission to The Hill is free and it attracts a young crowd that keeps growing, Marrillia said. Keeneland “BETologists,” savvy young bettors who have a presence on The Hill, help demystify the wagering process with tips and tools.

“Attendance has doubled and tripled, easily,” Marrillia said, adding that there were about 3,000 people on The Hill one night this month.

Churchill Downs, meanwhile, home to Saturday’s Kentucky Derby, is trying to attract an even younger crowd. Last year the track in Louisville, Ky., launched Family Adventure Day for families with young children on race days outside the marquee Kentucky Derby.

“We partnered with a whole bunch of local family activity vendors and brought in everything from face painters to bounce houses to video game trucks, and we mixed that up with interactions with horses and jockeys,” said Jeff Koleba, Churchill Downs vice president of marketing and programming. Kids competed to be able to call “Riders up!” in the walking ring for a real Churchill Downs horse race.

Churchill held the event four times last year and saw about a 20 percent bump in attendance those days, and most of the people were new to the track’s ticketing system. The event was such a success that Churchill is repeating it this year and investing more into it, Koleba said.

A tip of the hat to technology

New events are not the only way racetracks are trying to attract new and younger consumers. Tracks, as well as TVG (horse racing’s cable network channel), are investing more in technology, such as enhanced websites, social media and mobile apps, as a means to lure new fans.

TVG last year launched an app that allows its customers to place their bets on iPhones and iPads, said Bhavesh Patel, senior vice president of television and marketing. The app generated an immediate increase in customers, especially younger customers, he said.

Horse racing channel TVG says its apps have attracted a younger customer base.
“We saw new customers who came into these products being about 10 years younger than our normal,” Patel said. “We saw the overall age of our customer base drop by a few years. I would say it went from the mid 50s to about 48. And that is with releasing it within 10 months.”

Keeneland is pushing social media and has more than 181,000 Facebook followers, Marrillia said, adding it’s a way that the track can stay engaged with young fans. The track has held contests and sweepstakes through Facebook with prizes that include a trip to the track or a VIP experience.

The New York Racing Association, which holds races at the Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga tracks, launched a revitalized NYRA.com website in late March that has HD live streaming of the races. In order to watch the races, users simply sign up with a free NYRA.com account. “We didn’t do any concerted marketing effort behind that and we had 3,000 accounts signed up worldwide,” said Lynn LaRocca, NYRA senior vice president and chief experience officer, adding those users joined within three weeks time.

Del Mar has launched its own mobile app, which people can use when they are on the track to place a bet. “Our Del Mar app has been a big thing for us the last couple of years and we think eventually will be a big part of our marketing,” Dado said.

This summer members of Del Mar’s customer Diamond Club program can scan their phones at the admission gates to get into the track.

“It may not be the sexiest thing in the world, but that is one of the things we have new this meet,” Dado said. “We are really trying to push the technological envelope.”


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