DerbyWars Statement on Settlement with the Stronach Group

DerbyWars statement on Settlement with the Stronach Group

The Horse Racing Labs team is made up of life-long, passionate racing fans whose goal is to grow horse racing through new ideas and products. At Horse Racing Labs, we created new ways to follow horse racing at Horse Racing Nation, new ways to learn and engage in horse racing with DerbyWars and how-to guides to wager more confidently on stakes races with the Super Screener.  

While the rest of the world is committed to investing in technology to drive scalable growth, horse racing has been stagnant on that front. As passionate racing fans, we believe this is racing’s biggest problem - a lack of investment in innovation.

Contests have a long history in horse racing. In 2011, Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) was rapidly expanding and received the endorsement of major sports, and we thought this model could benefit horse racing and attract the same industry support.  We built DerbyWars in compliance with DFS rules of how to construct our contests, and launched DerbyWars in the Fall of 2011.  

DerbyWars grew for several years, and created many innovations in racing:

·              The only site in horse racing with free contests every day

·              Still the only site in horse racing with real-time chat every day

·              The only site in racing where you can win and receive congratulations from your competition

·              The first site where you could see other player’s picks and learn from your competition

DerbyWars grew and operated for several years along with several competitors. During 2011-2017, we have partnered with several tracks, including paid agreements with Hawthorne, Kentucky Downs, Cal-Expo, Sam Houston and trade agreements with Canterbury, Yonkers, Hoosier Park and Fair Grounds. 

While we (and the DFS industry) were disappointed in the recent court ruling in this case, the benefit is that the ruling has set a clear path for horse racing contest operators to proceed under the Interstate Horse Racing Act.  To avoid further legal action and business disruption, DerbyWars has settled with the Stronach Group to end the litigation.  From this point forward, DerbyWars will only run contests using races from tracks with which we have content agreements, and we highly encourage other contest sites to adopt the same policy.

With these changes, DerbyWars is positioned to continue to grow and be a leading innovator in contests and the horse racing industry. We are immediately signing new agreements with tracks and we see a bright future for contests as we will continue to commit our team and resources to driving innovation in horse racing to benefit all.

Mark Midland

CEO

Horse Racing Labs