Racing Q&A with Mike Repole: ‘Listen, we’re crashing’

The phone interview last week with Mike Repole was done mainly to find out who he was running Saturday in the Grade 1 Haskell Stakes. In time we learned he would keep Fierceness home with trainer Todd Pletcher at Saratoga and watch as Mindframe ran second to Dornoch at Monmouth Park.

But any conversation with the most high-profile and perhaps most polarizing Thoroughbred owner in the game mushrooms beyond the hook that lured him to the phone at his home in New England.

Flatter Pod: Hear the full interview with Mike Repole.

In the 27 minutes he spent on Horse Racing Nation’s Ron Flatter Racing Pod, Repole discussed some of the hot-button topics he has raised since last fall in his self-anointed role as commissioner of racing.

“Right now, listen, we’re crashing,” he said. “We just haven’t hit the ground yet.”

A businessperson who made his fortune building sports-drink companies and selling them for billions of dollars, Repole opened up about his adversarial relationship with The Jockey Club, the shrinking foal crop, small fields in big-money stakes, his call for revenue sharing and the need to reform sales in the U.S.

The 55-year-old New York native whose Repole Stable has produced six Eclipse Award winners brought up a plan he wants to hatch late this summer to put more money into aftercare. It is built on a formula he created with longtime racing research fellow Pat Cummings, who Repole hired last year to run his nascent National Thoroughbred Alliance.

This part of the Q&A with Repole began with a question about having to choose between the Haskell and next weekend’s Jim Dandy Stakes (G2) at Saratoga for his top 3-year-olds.

What do you think of the fact that the Jim Dandy and the Haskell are only a week apart? In fact, they were only a day apart until a few years ago.

I think the Jim Dandy is a great prep for the Travers, and the Haskell is a $1 million Grade 1. I don’t think it’s that bad. I think the problem we have right now is everybody in this game wants to cut every Grade 1 and cut every Grade 2 and cut this and cut this.

As we eliminate tracks, the horse population is going down. Every time a track closes, we lose graded stakes, too. I said this in a Tweet yesterday. Instead of saying eliminate or slash, what about build, invest and grow? Because building and growing takes time and money. A long-term view on horse racing is two months ahead.

We have organizations that are supposed to help us here and are supposed to protect the sport for the long-term good of the sport. We all know that I’m not good friends with The Jockey Club. When I say not good friends, it isn’t personal. I just think they’ve done, I’ll try to use a complimentary word, a s----y job. That’s as complimentary of a word I can come up with for them. And I think that they have done nothing to move the sport forward for the next generation. I think we are in this situation not for what happened last year or even four years ago but 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, and it’s just compounded.

I love the Breeders’ Cup. There’s a lot of money. There’s a lot of smart people. They’ve got a great CEO (Drew Fleming) there, (but) it’s two days we’re racing. It’s a big thing for a two-day party. They should be more involved maybe making a quarterly (racing) trial or something and bringing more excitement to the sport instead of a win-and-you’re-in banner, which doesn’t do much for me.

The stakes fields (the rest of the year) are so small again. Not all the time, but too often, right? That kind of ties into this, doesn’t it?

A hundred percent. It’s embarrassing. The Belmont Derby (G1) had five turf horses for $750,000. It is what it is. The issue comes down, I think, when you have 2-year-olds, you can fill those stake races up, because if a horse wins a maiden, or you can run a horse in a maiden, you’ll fill it up. I think these 3-year-old races are the ones that are having the biggest issue to fill. Then some of the older horses are retiring or going to have babies, so they’re going to get tough to fill. We have to grow. It doesn’t happen overnight. We have to figure out ways to incentivize getting people to run.

I’ve said this before. I’m all about revenue sharing. Then I get a committee that says, “Oh, Mike, you must be a socialist.” And I would say I guess the NFL is socialist, because they have f-----g revenue sharing, and it seems to work pretty good for Green Bay. It worked pretty good for Pittsburgh, and it works pretty good for Buffalo and Jacksonville. There’s nothing wrong with revenue sharing at a certain level.

California needs help. I’m an owner. I send 12 horses out to (trainer Michael) McCarthy. I won’t go to Del Mar for any races, but I see the value of trying to set an example. There are only people that run with one track or one trainer or just one area, and I think we’ve all got to chip in and help. Kentucky is banging their chests that they’ve done such a great job, and they’ve got the biggest purses and the best breeding program. But you know what? We needed a New York breeding program to help New York. We needed a Maryland-bred program to help Maryland. Pennsylvania, California, what have we done there? We’re basically competing with ourselves to stunt the growth or kill the growth in the sport.

In 10 years, 80 percent of the racing will be in Kentucky, and the foal crop (17,200 last year) will be 8,000, and everybody’s going to say how the f--- did this happen? You don’t need a crystal ball. You don’t even need a brain to see it coming. It’s obvious.

I’ve got a lot ideas to help the sport. When I talk to people, they all agree on 90 percent of what I say except the 10 percent that affects them. You’ve got a $1 million purse? You know what? Give 20 percent to the bottom five horses. Fill it up. Give them $40,000 to show up and fill the race. Of course I don’t want to fill it up with a $10,000 claimer but maybe overnight stake horses.

When horses break, you do see 50-1 shots win. You do see 25-1 shots win. You’ve got to make it enticing, and then we have to be very open for sharing revenue. Kentucky breeders have a ton of money. Why not, if a Kentucky-bred wins the California, give that owner $10,000, because he has a Kentucky-bred he ran in California? You’re still rewarding the Kentucky-bred, but you’re also helping the owner and even the track in California. If a Kentucky-bred wins in Florida, I should get paid for it.

We’ve really got to help this entire sport. I’ve said this before on Tweets. Everybody says, “Mike, I’m behind you.” Silent majority. I turn around, and nobody’s there. I’ve heard that too many times.

Is there something you can do as a first step? “One small step for man.” Here we are 55 years after Neil Armstrong (said that walking on the moon) almost to the day. Is there something you could do as a small step from Mike Repole to try to move this boulder up the mountain? An early first step.

Pat Cummings, who’s done an amazing job for me running the NTA, which I fund 100 percent. I’d like you to find another owner that would fund that 100 percent. Actually, don’t even try, because there are none. We are working on an aftercare program. We’ve already talked to tracks. We’ve already talked to owners. We’ve already talked to the sales companies. We’re putting together a program by Sept. 1. We’re doing the pre-selling right now. Basically by taking pennies for entering horses, taking pennies at the sales ring (from) buyers, seller and sales company, (taking) decimal points, we think we can raise $15-20 million.

Believe it or not, even though I’m talking about chump change in the big scheme of things, there are still some big organizations and big companies that are, like, “I think that’s too much.” You know what? I’ve got news for you, the selfish, greedy people in this sport. If you can’t support aftercare, I’ll support it for you, and I’m also going to let everyone know who didn’t support it. You can’t buy a horse, sell a horse, run a horse and give $25 for an entry fee or get charged 0.002 percent at a sale.

One of the proposals with the sales companies is you buy a horse, for $100,000, you pay $200 to aftercare. Two-hundred dollars. If you sell it for $100,000, you pay $200. The sales company, they pay $100. So that’s 500 bucks. If you’re buying a horse for $100,000, and you don’t want to pay $200 for aftercare, or you sell one, get the hell out of the game. You shouldn’t be here. By the way, if you buy a horse for $1 million, you pay $2,000. The way Pat and I did the math with this 0.002 (percent) and then (0.001 for sales companies), with $1.2 billion traded last year at all the sales, that would be $6 million in aftercare. That’s breakage money. Okay? Six million. Right now (the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance) raises $3.5 million from tourists just by charging, God, a point-zero-zero tariff or tax or whatever you want to call it. Making it mandatory, you could raise $6 million.

I’m also saying stallions. If you breed a stallion over 100 times, you have to give one stud fee. If I own Uncle Mo with Coolmore, when he breeds 200 times at $150,000, and he makes $30 million, we have to give $150,000 again this year. We probably should give more. You add that up, that’s another $2, 3, 4 million. If somebody just went out there and had common sense.

My frustration right now is you’ve got to get 19 out of 19 or 18 out of 18 (steps in a proposal), and I don’t have time for that. We’re putting all these in steps. We’re going to present it at a certain point, but at the end of the day, no one has to listen to me. No one has to listen to the NTA. They don’t.

I’m sure you’ve heard this before. “I like Mike Repole’s ideas,” or, “I think Mike Repole is an a------.” I’m fine with either one, by the way. In fact, being the a------ probably motivates me more than “it’s a great idea.” I want to thank those people.

I know this is right. I know this is right for the sport. I’m one of the top owners in this country. ... A guy like me that’s winning two Eclipse Awards back-to-back years and one of the top owners shouldn’t be fighting to make it more competitive and shouldn’t be fighting for what’s good for the sport 20 and 30 years from now, but I am. Because I was that 14-year-old kid that had no money that wanted to get into horse racing. You know what? There should be more trainers, and there should be more owners, and there should be more syndicates.

And then there’s the 2-year-old sales that I’m totally against. When was the last time you watched the race, and (referencing breeze-up times at these sales) you saw a horse go 9-and-3 or 9-and-4 (fifths seconds) down the stretch? Show me when they’ve got do that again. They do before their second birthday. They’ll say, “Mike, some of the horses have turned out to be great horses.” I said, yeah, the strongest people in the world will survive like the strongest horses, but that other horse that could have been very usable will be a cheap claimer or never race. There was a horse that just galloped that brought $1.2 million last year. It’s happened. I was the underbidder. I bought two horses that galloped for $200,000 and $300,000. People go like this to me, the best thing they’ve ever said. “Mike, would you pay $500,000 for a horse that doesn’t breeze?” I said I paid $1 million for a yearling that just f------ walks. So, yeah, I would. What am I getting as a yearling? I see the 9-and-3 breezes as a yearling, and six months later he’s breezing 9-and-3, so you know what? That’s got to stop.

The sales companies need to step up. There’s too much cheating and the lying going on at the sales. In fact, people can even identify many of the liars and cheaters, but we look the other way. Instead of calling them out, you say, “We don’t buy from him. Just stay away from him.” That’s got to stop.

I’ve been buying horses in Europe and Japan. What I loved about Japan was the horse comes into the ring, and the reserve is 199. The first bid has to be 200. We don’t have these bid spotters who say, “Santa Claus says 20,000. Easter bunny says 40,000. The tooth fairy up there says 60,000.” Tell me what the f------ reserve is, and make it whatever you want to make it. Tell me what the reserve is, and that’s it. In England or France, they don’t tell you the reserve, but they say, “The horse is on the market,” which means he hit his reserve. “The horse is on the market.” Here we play the hidden-ball trick.

More people have to breed to race, not to sell. Horses get sold as weanlings, yearlings, 2-year-olds. By the time they go to the track, there’s many horses that have been sold three times in their career. Every time that horse sells, the person who’s selling them has to make sure that horse was perfect, because that’s his Kentucky Derby. How much is left by the time they get to the track? Then you want to blame the trainers when you’re sending him horses that three legs to begin with.

This has all been self-inflicted. We’ve done it. I wish I had an organization or a team around me that really would want to rally behind fixing this for the long term. There’s a way to fix and fly the plane. Right now, listen, we’re crashing. We just haven’t hit the ground yet. I don’t know if it’s going be two years or 20 years, but we all know the support is getting less desirable, more frustrating.

I think HISA (the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority) is great, but I think that if you add a little common sense to what they do and a little bit of low forgiveness vs. just zero tolerance, I think we can clean up this game, and everybody can just jump in and row in the same direction.

There’s a lot out there, man, and it seems like I’ve got the only answer. I’m not the only one that has these views, but it seems like I’m the only one that wants to put my voice out there. I want to thank every owner and every stallion farm and everyone in the world that says, “Mike, the silent majority is with you.” Right now I’m getting a little tired of the silent majority. I would just like the majority to be with me. People who know me know I’m not going to give up, and if it means being liked less, I think that’s a bonus. That would be a bonus. Less people to talk to in my life.

I know that this is the right thing. I’m not doing this for Mike Repole. I’m not doing this for anything but the best of the sport. Every sport has evolved. The NFL, NHL, NBA. This is a global game. I just spent $2.7 million in Japan. I’ve spent millions in Europe. They come over here and spend. We can make this really, really big. The NFL isn’t global. This could be a global game, and it’s not about the Breeders’ Cup on one weekend.

I’m excited. I’ve applied for a Japanese (racing) license. I don’t think any American has a Japanese license. I’m not saying I’m getting it, but I don’t think anybody has one. I’m excited about you know maybe going out there one day for the Japan Cup or racing a couple horses out there. I’m going to run some horses in France this year. I want to grow the sport, man. I want to grow it, and I’m worried about (it).

I’m 55. I’m pretty old. In this game, they call me kid, but what about the 20-year-olds that have a passion and the 30-year-olds and the 40-year-olds? I’m really fighting for them more than anybody else.