Stronach response runs hot and cold

Tim Ritvo warned everyone, right there in his black-and-white Los Angeles Times interview with John Cherwa dated June 5, 2017:

“I can tell you that the facility is underperforming based on the property value,” Ritvo said. “This place is worth, at a minimum, half-abillion dollars. We don’t get anything close to 4 or 5 percent back. They are not greedy people, they just want to get a fair investment so they can justify to future generations that it makes sense to race here.”

Ritvo was speaking as chief operating officer of The Stronach Group. The property to which he referred was Santa Anita, purchased in late 1998 by an earlier, publicly traded incarnation of the privately held current company. “They” are the Stronach family of patriarch Frank and daughter Belinda, now at odds in a lawsuit over company control.

There is something to be said for Ritvo’s up-front delivery of the harsh truth that Santa Anita’s bottom line had to perform, or else. The “or else” was unstated, but the drift was clear. Everything that could be done to maximize profit through parimutuel handle would be considered fair game to try. If certain profit expectations were not met, the future of California’s oldest and most famous racetrack would be up for grabs.

Whether or not the focus on a certain profit level had anything to do with the 22 equine fatalities at the current Santa Anita meet and the company’s reaction to those fatalities is a leap that needs to be made with caution. There is little doubt, however, that if the ownership goes through with its proposed ban on the use of furosemide (aka Lasix), the short-term result will butcher the bottom line that Ritvo’s prime directive held in such high esteem.

And that is too bad, because some of the other elements in the company’s response to the fatalities have true merit, including analysis and inspection of horses before they are asked for timed workouts.

Buried beneath the Lasix ban in the company statement issued by Belinda Stronach on Wednesday were such items as transparency of veterinary records and an increase in out-of-competition testing. There was also something about “increasing the ban” on such legal and regulated elements as shock wave treatment, joint injections, anabolic steroids, and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (translation: Bute). Perhaps there was a wording issue with the final draft, since it is difficult to ban something even more than it has already been banned.

For now, it is probably best to look at the Stronach statement of intention as a serious wish list. The California Horse Racing Board, which issues a track the license to operate, has yet to weigh in, while the Thoroughbred Owners of California, who have a say in the purse contract enabling Santa Anita to run a parimutuel meet, was composing its response to the Stronach proposals after being blindsided by the timing of the Wednesday announcement.

Still, the inclusion of a Lasix ban remains baffling, and completely unnecessary if immediate progress is to be made. Lasix is the third rail of U.S. racing politics. Touch it and you are burned without accomplishing anything beyond the further entrenchment of opposing views.

A loud chorus of those views comes from the Water Hay and Oats Alliance, a group of owners, breeders, and a handful of trainers who have signed on to what is referred to as a ban on race-day medications (translation: Lasix). The ban has been included in proposed federal legislation, introduced in Congress again this week, that also would place all drug testing and enforcement under the control of the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

Proponents of a ban want to bring U.S. racing in line with international practices, but those international practices also include a state-controlled industry in Japan, depressed purses in Great Britain, and a weight break for women jockeys in France.

Much as the sport badly needs a national voice and uniform medication rules, a ban on Lasix has served as nothing but an anchor toward positive change. The widespread use of the diuretic in North American racing has been in place since the 1970s, and the impulsive call to immediately ban Lasix at Stronach tracks in California – and only California – does nothing but trivialize the issue.

There is a temptation to believe that the pronouncements by Santa Anita management in reaction to the fatalities was primarily an effort to cauterize the wound of public opinion and deflect attention away from the handling of the racing surface during the storms of January and February. Short of installing a new main track, management has decided that what has been done is good enough. Okay.

But if The Stronach Group wants its proposals to be taken seriously, there needed to be a few holes filled. Where was the specific concern about the blood enhancements of EPO (other than out-ofcompetition testing)? What has happened to efforts toward assigning each horse a biological passport? And now that the company’s prime profit directive has been sidetracked, how about a commitment to promoting the quality of the racing product instead of the quantity?

Don Draper, the advertising guru from “Mad Men,” recommended a foolproof response for those who find themselves under siege. “If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation.”

The Lasix boogeyman has been trotted out in an attempt to change the conversation. Time to change it back.