Ohio Harness Horsemen's Association

Innovations of the Decade

January 1, 2010

#5--TRAKUS....Developed by Massachusetts-based TKS, Inc., Trakus was initially used by the New England Patriots, the NHL, NASCAR, and the PGA for real-time data collection before the parent company switched their focus to horse racing. Now implemented at several tracks, including Woodbine, Keeneland, and Del Mar, Trakus has become an integral part of those track’s simulcast and in-house productions.

Using a wireless radio frequency system with small radio antennas positioned around the racetrack and corresponding ultra-lightweight radio tags located within a horse’s saddle-cloth, Trakus provides real-time data that the track can display. This is done with either the chicklets, which Woodbine uses to display the horse’s position on the racetrack, or as part of an automatically updating full-field rundown, which is used by both Keeneland and Del Mar. Following the completion of a race, Trakus can also be used to generate a three-dimensional replay or a race chart.

Furthermore, after tracking each horse during the race, Trakus also stores information in a database about the horse. This information includes how many feet the horse ran during the race, how much ground it covered in comparison to other horses, how fast it ran during the race, and the horse’s final quarter. Trakus is also useful because no matter what kind of weather the track may be experiencing (fog, rain, snow, etc.) or what kind of camera angle the track uses, the Trakus system is always available to display the exact location of the horse.

Trakus is taking a multi-pronged approach to the future. First, they are making races available via mobile phone through their website, trakus.com. After signing up for the service, a fan or bettor can access a Trakus feed of any race at their participating tracks.

#4--CONDITIONAL WAGERING...Horseplayers have many laments: Takeout rates are too high, data costs too much, and stewards rarely explain their calls. And then there’s the frustrating problem of late odds changes, particularly those last-minute odds drops in which a horse enters the gate at 2-1 and leaves it at 6-5.

While conditional wagering can’t save handicappers from the fickle fluctuations of the tote in the final seconds before a race, the technology does give players significant control over the conditions under which bets are made. Introduced by Premier Turf Club in 2007 and now available through TwinSpires, Youbet and other ADWs, conditional wagering allows bettors to select the horses they want to play and the minimum odds they’ll accept well in advance of the time wagers are placed by the system, which can be anywhere from 45 seconds to post to several minutes out. If the minimum isn’t available, the bet isn’t made.

“You’ll never have to wait around again for a specific race to ensure you get a fair price on a runner you want to back. This will end the cries of, ‘If I knew that 6-to-1 morning line horse was going to pay $30, I would have played him,’”

Those cries can still be heard, but conditional wagering surely has freed many horseplayers wagering through a number of ADWs from tote-watching and worry about underlays or missed opportunities.

#3-HANDICAPPING SOFTWARE...Reading a racing form to prepare for a day of racing can take hours. In harness racing where horses race week to week, having your pulse on each horse is a full time job. But computers have changed everything.

During this decade, software, spreadsheets/databases and myriad other tools have exploded with horseplayers. We have all seen the ads, or heard a friend speak of a new handicapping tool he/she might be using. What took some players hours upon hours, might now take only seconds. This has arguably helped handles. With wall to wall racing (on some Saturday’s we can play over 30 tracks) how can one possibly handicap all of them manually.

“I can play every track if I want to with software,” said professional player James Erickson at a recently concluded conference at the Meadowlands. “It gives me information in a manner that makes it easy for me to have an opinion on the race. I still have to use my brain to decipher the numbers that it gives, but it gives me a quick, precise summary on what I have to look for. When I go to the track without my software I might only play $20 or $30 for fun.”

To contrast handicapping by hand, and with software, take this scenario, where the two players land on the same horse. Let’s assume the players have never played this racetrack. Also, let’s make the winning horse lone speed, dropping in class, the track bias is heavy to speed and the trainer of the horse is shipping him in and has a hit rate of over 50% with dropping shippers.

With a program, the pen and paper handicapper will see the lone speed, after some study. She will then go through all the charts and see the track bias of the past several cards. She will find, either in the form or elsewhere, trainer numbers, but maybe not a subset of them. Regardless, she lands on the lone speed and believes that the trainer is pretty decent in this situation. It takes some time, and skill.

Conversely, with the computer capper, he downloads the file and uploads it to his handicapping software. Immediately he is alerted to lone speed – he does not even see the form, it is there for him. He then checks the track bias “bot” in the software and sees that the track is heavily speed friendly. He then runs over to Formulator, or uses his own software and sees a model on the trainer signaling a green light shipper. He also has a minimum odds or probability line he will take on this horse, that he has used with this model through thousands of races. Poof, in seconds he has come to the same conclusion.

If you read chat boards, or follow racing closely with ADW players, you get to see just how important software is this decade. It is not uncommon to see talk and arguments on software packages and/or the inner workings of them, that a laymen might find difficult to understand. In fact, some packages have what many would describe as a cult status.

#2--RACE REPLAYS....Replays are interesting to me, since I used them as a kid and growing up: 1990’s standing at the track watching the replay center races and waiting for a race you wanted to watch, or having to get there early to watch yesterdays races – hilarious. When the racing channels came aboard we would tape the races and that was our replay center.

The proliferation of race replays has not only been crucial for a handicappers, it’s also an excellent way for potential and/or new fans to connect with racing. Not only are they useful as racing Prozac, they come in handy as a one-on-one gorilla marketing tool. I’ve been able to easily show friends and potential fans thrilling races.

#1--PEER WAGERING...In 1908 pari-mutuel betting came to Kentucky. This ushered in a whole new way to bet. The betting of the crowd dictated the odds, and those odds could change to post time. In addition, because of the anticipatory increase in betting volumes, the takeout was set at a very low 5% and racing flourished over the next several decades. This system is ostensibly the same system we use in North America today.

In the mid 1990’s, the way we lived our everyday lives changed forever. Internet access began to sweep across the globe. No longer did we buy a stock by calling our broker and paying a $300 fee, we now did this ourselves for $6.95 a trade. Pay phones - long ago banned at the racetracks – were beginning to be obsolete, replaced by cell phones. Email alone changed the way we communicated. People began to demand convenience, ease of use, interactivity, control, along with lower prices for virtually everything they did or bought.

By the turn of the century, many of these features were offered in the gambling market, by a start-up called Betfair. What was once a shell company, scoffed at by bookmakers as a fad, is now the fourth largest internet start-up in the world, trailing only Wikipedia, Facebook and Craigslist in size. In 2010, the firm will handle over GBP20 billion in turnover, and process more bets than the European stock exchanges combined do stock trades.

How did that happen? According to Nissan Gabbay at Sierra Ventures, they targeted a niche and expanded in primarily two main ways. 1) They targeted not the mainstream consumer, but the sophisticated gambler and 2) They offered a chance for bettors to win, by offering them a competitive price (most bets at the peer to peer exchange have less than a 5% takeout; ironically about what takeout was for horse racing over 100 years ago).

Nowadays it is not uncommon to see over $4M or more traded on a single horse race from the UK on the peer to peer exchange. Sophisticated gamblers, the general public and a new type of bettor – the stock trader, all play racing in their own way, on their own terms. Attracting a new market that has never given a horse race a look, has been an unexpected bonus. The evidence shows that Betfair considers horse racing their number one sport, and has put their money where their mouth is, sponsoring races, racetracks and expanding worldwide.

This type of betting becoming is becoming more and more mainstream. For example, for the first time deals have been struck between the company, several racetracks and even the Breeders Cup. Also, they have expanded into Australia and other countries. Betfair’s 2.5 million customers can bet racing, through the tote, and on the exchange.

Also this past year, the peer to peer betting leader has moved into the US market through Betfair’s purchase of TVG. This purchase has been looked at like a blessing by some and a curse by others. To some, Betfair will weed away margins for racing. To others it is chance to decrease prices, and expand horse racing to a willing audience, giving it a shot to survive.

Whatever the case, this form of wagering, with its aggressive marketing and expansion, is certainly an innovation that racing will remember forever, and a well-deserved winner of our panel poll. Will it lead racing from the abyss? Will it erode margins, making it more and more difficult for racing to survive? Those might be questions we’ll see answered in the upcoming decade.

One thing is for sure, this type of betting is here to stay and it should shape the landscape for many decades to come, just like pari-mutuel wagering did 101 years ago.

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Innovations of the Decade