'Mattress Mack' speaks on transparency, medication, more
Louisville, Ky.
Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale spent Tuesday evening as the featured speaker at the University of Louisville Equine Industry Program’s fall speaker series. McIngvale, owner of Runhappy and an avid gambler gave his takes on some of the challenges facing the racing industry.
Here are some of the Gallery Furniture magnate’s thoughts from the event.
On transparency
“Real simple, be totally transparent, nothing to hide.”
“I’m getting my boy Alex Bregman into horse racing. He plays for the Houston Astros. He makes $20 million a year. He can be very effective in horse racing. His father is on the New Mexico Horse Racing Commission, they have a long history in race horses. He was out at Del Mar for the Breeders’ Cup on Friday. The best horse he liked the whole day was in the last race, he bet the money on the horse and the horse runs for purse only. He’s thinking ‘what am I doing here?’ The horse wins and he gets nothing. Not a good optic. Optics are important. Optics are everything.”
“I’d put cameras in every stall and every place on that racetrack. Cameras are cheap now, they can do all sorts of things, and let everybody see how those horses are being treated. PETA would see those horses are being treated better than you and I.”
On medication
“My horses run on hay, oats and water. We don’t inject their joints, we don’t do anything to them because I don’t think that’s cool to the horse. I wouldn’t want anybody injecting my joints to make me run better.”
“Here would be my violation rules: first positive that you get, two year suspension for the trainer and the owner. The owner knows what the trainer’s doing. Why do they take all these horses and send them to the trainers? Come on. Number two, second violation, lifetime suspension, trainer and owner.”
On racing and sports gambling
“Horse racing needs to find ways to turn this wave of excitement to it, and make itself attractive and understandable to the audience of young people”
“They watch, they read, they consume that content. Horse racing needs to get into that.”
On fixed-odds wagering
“Fixed-rate wagering needs to be embraced so that horse racing betting is not so complicated. I think there should be an odd and even bet, very simple. Bet odd and even. The people get the wager they put in. You got to make it simple. People love to gamble.”
On advertising Runhappy
“I decided I would market Runhappy like a piece of furniture and I bought all sorts of sponsorships. I sponsor the Runhappy Travers Stakes, I sponsor the Runhappy Malibu, I sponsored all sorts of horse races. I sponsor the Runhappy meet at Ellis Park, the Runhappy meet at Kentucky Downs and also did lots of advertising on TVG with Runhappy. (Wednesday) I’m going to Keeneland to talk about Runhappy sponsoring the Keeneland November sale. Runhappy is a household word.”
“I am going to keep marketing Runhappy because I believe in that slogan, of ‘late to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.’ That’s what I do. I am a shameless promotor, I will be that until the day I die and I make no qualms about it.”