There is a book store in Saratoga Springs, familiar to many summer visitors, that specializes in used and collectable tomes and inside of which there is a corner of shelves that contain books on racing. Often, an hour or so spent rummaging there on a summer dark day will result in finding things that make you smile; sometimes things that will make you shake your head.
E.S. Montgomery, a physician and author, an authority on dogs and a breeder and owner of thoroughbreds, undertook an exhaustive, 582-page study of the sport and all its various aspects called simply “The Thoroughbred,” which was published in 1971 and found for sale last summer at the Lyrical Ballad bookstore.
At the end of a work that dealt with many topics, Montgomery offered in summary a chapter titled, “Author’s Conclusions,” reflections and recommendations on what he saw as the major issues of the day – 28 years ago. It is astounding how little ground has been covered in that time. Many things have changed little, if at all, in the racing game over the last three decades.
“Racing should have a commissioner or a court of commissioners who would rule on disputes among racing participants in much the same way as the commissioners of professional baseball and professional football,” Montgomery wrote. “The formation of the court would be a giant step in producing increased public confidence in the sport of racing and cementing a feeling of stability and cooperation among racing participants and racing organizations.”
That’s still on the to-do list.
Montgomery: “I have often wondered if bettors -- $2 or $100 bettors – ever pause to think how their horse came into existence, was reared and trained, and how he came to be running in the race. This is the story Thoroughbred racing must tell. It must educate the public about horses as animals of breeding, beauty and business as distinguished from a mere number on the program. It must acquaint the public with racing as a sport and a business rather than just a form of gambling.”
This was written in which the print media was actively involved in racing coverage and well before the advent of simulcasting and off-track wagering beyond New York OTB, which was in its nascent days. This was written when all the legal casino gambling was in Nevada; when state lottery had something to do with the draft.
“Today, there is a scarcity of good stable help,” Montgomery observed 28 years ago. “The reasons are many, but the most-significant are: the lack of interest in working 12 hours a day seven days a week and living in the ‘home’ conditions that exist on the backstretch of almost every race track.”
Despite some spotty progress in the area of housing, not much has changed there.
“Each year for the past decade, all the Thoroughbred racing organizations have discussed long and hard the problems of racing,” Montgomery wrote. “… Drugs and masking drugs, uniform rules and cooperation among racing associations. Yes, the talk is loud, sometimes heated and always long; yet no one or no one group of Thoroughbred organizations and associations has made a determined giant step to move forward. Each organization has a definite interest of its own, which it defends from all outsiders.”
Sound familiar?
“The man who pays the bills is the $2 bettor,” Montgomery said. “He must be considered in every department of racing.”
There has been no meaningful progress there, though $2 in 1971, adjusted for inflation, is more than $10 today.
“Racing secretaries for the most part are a little odd in many ways, but especially in the way they write races,” Montgomery noted. “They write 10 races daily for the horses they wish were on the grounds instead of the horses that are there.”
This remains a common complaint in an age when it not unusual to see an overnight with 10 extras for the horses that may or may not be there.
It is sobering that what Dr. Montgomery observed in his study of the sport as shortcomings and problems remain so in the 21st Century. Secretariat was a yearling when “The Thoroughbred” was published. There was no such thing as a personal computer. The exacta had not yet been invented and it was way before Lasix and cobra venom.
Still, as in Montgomery’s day, the talk remains loud, sometimes heated and always long.
