Last Lap for Some L.A. Horse Owners

0

Bruce and Aase Headley have been racing horses for years.

Familiar figures at the Santa Anita race track just blocks from their Arcadia home, the couple owns or has shares in more than 100 thoroughbreds, which they breed, sell, train and enter in competitions statewide.

Recently they had to give away three mares that they were boarding in Fresno.

“It was too expensive to keep them,” Aase Headley explained. “We couldn’t sell them because there’s no market. We gave them to friends because we wanted them to have good homes.”

Indeed, racehorses and breeding mares are being sold at discounts and even given away throughout California. As a result, some major racing venues are beginning to turn up short of ponies.

Late last month, Inglewood’s iconic Hollywood Park, apparently for the first time in its 71-year history, canceled a day of racing because there weren’t enough horses. Both Golden Gate Fields and Bay Meadows in Northern California have had to decrease their racing days for the same reason. In addition, the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club in San Diego County recently reduced its historic race week from six days to five.

“There’s definitely a shortage of horses,” said Drew Couto, president of the Arcadia-based Thoroughbred Owners of California, which represents racehorse owners statewide. “Our racing inventory is at a much lower level than it was just a year ago.”

This means that some races can get scratched because there aren’t replacements for injured horses. Each canceled race means a revenue loss of about 6 percent of the daily take for the tracks, which are already struggling financially.

Races aren’t canceled often, said Ron Charles, chief executive at Santa Anita Park.

However, most Southern California tracks have reduced the number of horses in races from as many as 14 to about eight.

“The field sizes are very important to the players and fans,” Charles said, “and what we’re seeing is a reduction in the average size of the field.”

Santa Anita’s on-track betting for the most recent meet was down 3 percent from the previous year.

Since this time last year, Couto said the active membership of his organization has dwindled from nearly 10,000 to about 8,000 a 20 percent decline. During the same period, about 4,000 occupied horse stalls in Southern California have decreased to about 3,200.

“The economy has made it more difficult to stay in the horse racing business,” Couto said.

The reasons are manifold.

Though most owners see their horses as investments, he said, it’s one of the riskier components of their portfolios and the first to be sold off during difficult times. And while most racehorse owners get into it hoping to make money, relatively few ever actually do.

“It’s a very expensive hobby,” Couto said.

The average thoroughbred racehorse which sells for anywhere from $1,500 to upwards of $3 million is costly to maintain. From the time the breeding is contracted until the horse enters its first race, a process that generally takes about four years, the typical owner spends $30,000 for stud fees, stable maintenance, training and feeding. From then on, training alone costs $30,000 to $40,000 a year.

Racehorse ownership “relies on discretionary income,” said Doug Burge, head of the Arcadia-based California Thoroughbred Breeders Association with 1,500 members statewide.

“When you decide to breed your mare now you’re basically trying to determine the return on your investment in three or four years,” Burge said.

One of the question marks in Southern California is the future of such major racing venues as Hollywood Park, set to close in August, and Santa Anita, which is slated to be auctioned out of bankruptcy by its owner. While the Santa Anita track is profitable, the parent company is losing money.

Another obstacle is the relatively stagnant purses the amount awarded winners in California. Though still in the range of about $8,000 to as much as $1 million per race, they have not kept pace with those of other states in which horse racing is augmented by gaming venues such as slots.

California voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure in 2000 that prevents card clubs and race tracks from installing slot machines, limiting them to Indian casinos that share their revenues with the state.

As a result, Couto said, “for some time now we’ve been seeing a migration of horses away from California into other states in which racing revenues are slot-infused.

“With this economy,” he added, “that migration has accelerated.”

So when thoroughbred owners start feeling the pressure of upkeep expenses, they try to sell their horses often at depleted prices to out-of-state buyers. Failing that, some either give away their animals or have to unload them at local auctions.

Caroline Betts, the founder of Southern California Thoroughbred Rescue, a Norco non-profit that tries to save retired racehorses from slaughter, said she’s seen a fourfold increase in the number of industry horses put up for auction in just the last year.

“People are getting out of racing and the mares are suffering,” said Betts who purchases the animals when she can raise enough money and then finds them good homes.

E.W. Bud Johnston, 72, proprietor of the Old English Rancho who lives in Claremont and owns 150 horses in Fresno, has an unusual take.

There’s not a glut of horses, he quipped, “but a shortage of people willing to pay their bills.”

No posts to display