Big Balk at the Big A

The strikers were straight out of the Social Register, Who's Who and Dun & Bradstreet: Cornelius Vanderbilt Whit ney, Ogden Phipps and Captain Harry Guggenheim, to name just a few. Their spokesman was Jack Dreyfus Jr., senior partner of Dreyfus & Co., the Wall Street investment house. Dreyfus & Companions are horse owners, and what got them riled up last week was the failure of the New York legislature to enact a bill that would have resulted in higher purses at the state's thoroughbred racing tracks. It got them so angry that they refused to run their horses at Aqueduct race track, thereby forcing the first strike shutdown in New York racing history and costing the state upwards of $300,000 a day in revenues.

The horsemen complain that New York State benefits more from racing than any other state in the U.S.--while doing less to encourage the sport. Out of every dollar that passes through the parimutuel windows at Aqueduct and Saratoga, 100 goes to the state, and 50 to the tracks for operating expenses and purses. The state's cut last year came to $66 million; at the tracks, $15 million was available for purses after expenses. Much of that had to be allotted to occasional (some 90 per year) high-priced stakes races to which the track contributes anywhere from $20,000 to $125,000 of the total purse. Only one horse in hundreds is of stakes caliber, and the rewards for owners of ordinary thoroughbreds--which account for 90% of all the races and an equivalent percentage of the state's income--can be small indeed.

Say "Aaah." The minimum purse for a standard allowance or claiming race at Aqueduct ($3,500) has not been raised in 20 years simply because the tracks cannot afford to; by law they are nonprofit operations, and all they do is break even. In those same 20 years, the basic cost of keeping a race horse in training has gone up from $8 per day to as much as $22 per day. In addition, every time a veterinarian makes his horse say "Aaah," the owner shells out $25; blacksmiths get $18 for putting on a pair of horseshoes, jockeys get $25 for riding--even if they finish dead last. Of New York's 2,500 thoroughbred owners, 95% lost money in 1966.

The bill that was before the New York legislature would have reduced the state's take by 10 of every dollar bet, thereby giving the tracks another $3,300,000 a year for purses. When the state assembly adjourned without even reporting it out of committee, the horsemen struck. For some, struggling to get their horses ready for big stakes such as the Kentucky Derby, only four weeks away, the boycott was a severe training setback. But horsemen insisted that the principle was worth the price. Said Johnny Nerud, who trains two top Derby prospects: "The people up in Albany will learn that we are not running an illegal crap game in a circus tent but a big business."

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