July 3, 2019 - Letter from NYTHA President Joe Appelbaum: Increasing Our Aftercare Commitment
This morning, NYRA and NYTHA issued a press release detailing a new funding stream to support the aftercare of our horses. If you saw the condition book online last night, you will have noticed the changes to the conditions of claiming races. Reading race conditions isn’t the best way to communicate a new program and for that we apologize. What we don’t apologize for is our ongoing commitment we are all making to aftercare.
We have come a long way in the last eight years, with many stakeholders in the Thoroughbred industry now supporting aftercare. However, to ensure that every horse that races in New York has a proper retirement, there is still a significant need to increase funding. To that end, NYTHA and NYRA have announced a plan that is estimated to provide an additional $450,000 to the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance and New York's TAKE THE LEAD Retirement Program. With this additional funding, New York’s direct aftercare spend will be over $1 million annually.
Beginning on July 11, Opening Day at Saratoga Race Course, owners who claim horses at NYRA tracks will contribute a 1.5% aftercare donation on top of the claiming price of the horse. By example, an owner claiming a horse for $50,000 will donate an additional $750 toward aftercare.
In addition, we will double down on the existing owners’ aftercare contribution to the TAA, which will be increased from $5 to $10 per start.
We realize that no one likes new fees or changes to way our industry operates. However, after long negotiations with NYRA we believe this is the program we could both agree to. While horses are retired at every level of the game, the majority are our hard-knocking claimers that are so deserving of our support. Considering the effort that goes into re-training and re-homing these horses, it is fitting that we create a revenue stream to aftercare from the robust economic activity generated by the nearly $25 million in claims at NYRA tracks every year.
New York’s horsemen always have been at the forefront of Thoroughbred aftercare. The TAA was born of a meeting at Belmont Park in 2011, and the TAKE2 Second Career Thoroughbred Program was created by then-NYTHA President Rick Violette in 2012. TAKE THE LEAD, which has worked with many of our owners and trainers to find homes for our horses with TAA-accredited aftercare organizations, has placed more than 475 horses since it was launched in 2013. In 2014, New York’s horsemen committed to the $5 per start donation to the TAA.
We are light years ahead of where we were less than a decade ago. In addition to the $100,000 raised for the TAA through the per-start contributions, NYTHA donates more than $400,000 to TAKE2, TTL and other equine welfare initiatives annually.
Our beloved game is under incredible scrutiny. While it is natural to push back against criticism, we must be able to discern needed changes while filtering out the noise. In this past legislative session, many aftercare initiatives were advanced. Instead of having changes imposed upon us, we need to handle the responsibility of Thoroughbred ownership. We know that our horsemen are fully committed to providing for our horses when they leave the track, and we need to demonstrate that to Albany, the rest of the industry and the general public.
Sincerely,
Joe Appelbaum
NYTHA President
