by Teresa A. Genaro

SARATOGA SPRINGS — As Saratoga Race Course 2025 comes to an end, I’m thinking about money.

No, not the money that I lost at the track this summer (I think I cashed one ticket the entire meet). I’m thinking about big money: who’s got it, how it’s spent, and who needs it.

We started the summer with the industry celebrating the passage of federal legislation that makes permanent 100% depreciation for assets purchased as part of Thoroughbred racing business, assets that include horses, land improvements, and equipment. That means that horse and farm owners can deduct 100% of the purchase price for these items.

Great news, right, if you’re a horse owner? Sure. Less great for everyone else, because that’s a lot of tax money that will no longer go into federal coffers.

The industry was slower to note that the same legislation deals a significant financial blow to gamblers, who have been able legally to avoid paying taxes if they break even or lose money. Now, losses are 90% deductible, rather than 100%, which means that if a professional gambler makes $100,000 and also loses $100,000 in a given year, they could still owe taxes on the $10,000 of their income that is no longer deductible.

A common argument in horse racing is over who is more important to the sport, owners, who provide the product to bet on, or bettors, who provide the money that funds purses and other operations. This bill comes down squarely on the side of the owners, leaving bettors to wonder about the economic advisability of their handle.

At this year’s Fasig-Tipton sales in Saratoga, owners spent $124,735,000 on yearlings. For several years, the people who sell those yearlings are charged .05% of the sale price, with the proceeds going to the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance. Fasig-Tipton matches that percentage. Buyers can contribute the same amount, but they are not required to.

That means that a minimum $62,367.50 of that nearly $125 million went to taking care of horses that don’t make it to the races or can no longer compete. (In the past, neither Fasig-Tipton nor the TAA would release the amount that buyers contribute.)

Average Cost of a Horse
The average cost of a horse at this year’s New York-bred yearling sale was $119,450. At the Select Sale, it was $626,366. So you could barely buy half a horse with the amount contributed to aftercare, and, depending on the level of care that a horse needs, its care can cost anywhere from $6,000 to $18,000 a year … meaning, at best, that $62,000 raised at the sale can take care of 10 horses for a year. Ten.

On Friday, Aug. 29 at the track, 7-year-old Baby Yoda made his 32nd start. The good news? He won, and in doing so, he became a millionaire. The bad news? He was claimed, for $100,000.

Baby Yoda was privately purchased after his second start, which means that he earned most of his million dollars for owners Pantofel Stable, Wachtel Stable, Gary Barber, and Jerold Zaro, and for trainer Bill Mott.

The dark bay gelding is a graded stakes winner and thrice graded stakes placed, and it seems likely that his best racing days are behind him … which is not to say that he can’t still be a competitive race horse.

He seems to be a sound horse, with perhaps good races still left in him. But … does he need to run them? Why not retire him sound so that he can be one of those horses that doesn’t need thousands of dollars of rehab when he goes to an aftercare organization, so that he can have a successful next career, as a pleasure horse or jumper or any of the myriad activities in which retired Thoroughbreds can engage?

Thoroughbred aftercare
New York offers a number of dedicated funding streams for Thoroughbred aftercare.

Jockeys donate $1 per mount to Take the Lead, the retirement program of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association. Owners pay $10 per start, and the new connections for a claimed horse pay a 1.5% surcharge on the claiming price, 60% of which goes to Take the Lead, with the other 40% going to the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance. Take the Lead itself donates about $400,000 annually to aftercare organizations.

Based on the jockeys’ and owners’ aftercare fees and the claiming surcharge, Baby Yoda has banked $1,720 in aftercare money, and he’s raced more often than many Thoroughbreds do these days. That money isn’t reserved for him; it goes where it’s needed, to support horses currently retired or retraining.

That’s good. It’s also, clearly, not enough, given the longevity of a Thoroughbred and given the number of horses that are still found in unfortunate circumstances across the country, and the number of fundraising efforts established to rescue those horses.

There is also, apparently, not enough money going to the humans in horse racing, based on the number of GoFundMe accounts set up for injured or ill jockeys, exercise riders, grooms, and even racing and breeding executives, to help them cover medical and other expenses. Some raise tens of thousands of dollars, some only hundreds. Like too many horses, too many humans rely on the kindness of strangers to assist when they can no longer do their jobs.

Pretty much everyone in horse racing — employees, gamblers, owners, trainers et al. — complains about the high cost of participating in the sport, especially in New York. (I get it: I live here, too.)

But there is also so much money in the sport, especially at the top end, that one must wonder why, despite significant progress in the last 20 years, so little of it finds its way to the horses and humans that need it most.