Roses in April?

Did you know?

“Every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood.”(1) “This results in the need for more than 38,000 blood donations every day.”(2)

“On any given day, more than 6,000 men, women and children desperately search the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) Registry for a matching bone marrow donor. These patients have leukemia, lymphoma and other life-threatening diseases that can be treated by a bone marrow transplant.”(3)

After the breakdown and euthanasia of Eight Belles in the shadow of the Kentucky Derby, the sport, “…has come under heightened public scrutiny…” and “…needs to take drastic action to reverse a very disturbing trend toward open criticism of horse racing for our perceived cruelty,” according to NTRA CEO Alex Waldrop.(4) His blog entry concerning the aftermath of Eight Belles received 803 unique comments.

These statements made up the opening paragraph to a proposal that went out today to Santa Anita Park and the NTRA about preforming a blood drive and bone marrow registry during next year's Santa Anita Derby. The proposal already received initial approval after a phone conversation with the track's marketing department. The idea behind the program is pretty simple. Make horse racing look good and help a lot of people while doing it. Its a direct response to the last two pages of the NTRA Online Task Force's 48 page document released in September at this year's NTRA Marketing Summit. The document is available in its entirety here.

Recently horse racing has been upping the ante in showing that its more than what some call a "cruel sport". Pat Day will be auctioning an autographed saddle at Ellis Park on the 13th to raise aid for the horsemen who were involved in the November 20th fire at Riverside Downs that killed 30 horses. Late in November, Churchill Downs put on a food drive for the Thanksgiving holiday. Events like this should be a staple in our sport because every one of them that happens improves our sport's public image.

Do we need to improve our image? Very much so. While attending the NTRA Marketing Summit in Las Vegas there was a quietly held meeting where the impact of Eight Belles was discussed in the way of statistics. The numbers are frightening. Of people surveyed following the 2008 Kentucky Derby, only 27% gave the sport a "favorable" rating. The NFL received a 74% favorable rating. Illegal dog fighting anyone? The MLB received a 57% rating. Steroids? Clemens fiasco? The NBA was given a 43%.

So where does a 27% rating place us? According to the speaker thoroughbred horse racing is equivalent in approval rating to boxing and ultimate fighting. For those unfamiliar with the recent explosion in ultimate fighting, the 'sport' involves putting two men in a wire cage and watching them beat one another senseless until one goes unconscious or submits. From the few minutes I've seen during a lecture in grad school, the two roll around in their own blood in body locks trying to punch one another in the kidneys. To think that horse racing is considered on the same level of this 'sport' is troubling.

Other notes taken from the meeting include the following: 33% surveyed believe our sport has integrity. Of a similar survey conducted in 2007, this number was 41%. The speaker said that an 8 point drop of integrity has never been seen in any sport before. He continued to say that in the last two months (July-August) 25% of core racing fans think the sport has gotten worse. For those who are concerned only with handle, the speaker reported that the impact of Eight Belles has been a 5% decrease in wagering, or $1.1 billion dollars.

I won't belabor the point. Rather I'll just say we need to start doing something fast to improve our sport's image or we won't have a sport left. Will "Roses in April" do that? I'll give you 100-1 that it will.

Perseverance!