Thoroughbred Racing Fan Association, Inc.
Thoroughbred Racing Fan Association, Inc.
Jockey Club Round Table About the Fans of Racing
8/17/2026
JOCKEY CLUB ROUND TABLE EMPHASIZED THE FAN
Any racing fan of today might have felt like a fish out of water at Thursday’s Jockey Club Round Table Conference on Matters Pertaining To Racing. There were few Hawaiian shirts and khaki pants with sneakers in attendance. Rather dress imaged the age of the attendees. Grey and blue suits with white shirts and ties set the fashion for the morning. Without data, one could guess the average age of attends hovered around 65. In fact, one of the presenters when he offered a new model for racing suggested that few in this audience could be expected to make or accept the changes he proposed. Another presenter discussing racing showed a slide with a few social media platforms displayed. She asked, “how many in the room uses any of these platforms to communicate to racing fans?” A few hands raised suggesting the disconnect between current racing leadership and their target market. The room with the darken lights and bright video screens was set to shift the racing paradigm as the next presenters took to the podium.
Charlotte Clement, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer for the Jockey Club, chilled the audience with data that inspired diagnosis of racing’s problems. She showed that only 24% of the attendees at the 2026 Derby were racing fans. The remainder were in attendance for the party or the bucket list, likely never to attend another race the rest of the year. The challenge was how does racing reverse these percentages? Unfortunately, the data, although powerful, lacked clean information that could be used to evolve strategies for the needed changes.
Joe Applebaum, Co-Founder of Off the Hook and Founder & CEO of Waigr, showed data pointing out how racehorse ownership has eroded over the last few decades. His analysis suggested that the old model of attracting owners fail to attract and retain current owners. They have money and the love for the sport, but they want more. They want to have fun and be treated like the important person they are to the future of racing. Syndicates like West Point Thoroughbreds realize this and cater to the wants and needs of owners. All one has to do is be at the backside at Saratoga any morning to see the West Point group having coffee together as they watch their horses work out discuss racing. Joe extrapolated this desire to new fans, as well, who want more than being treated like customer at the races while losing money at the parimutuel windows. The message that attention to racing’s base is essential to the future of racing.
Tom Hashimoto, Manager of the New York Office of the Japan Racing Association, emphasized the importance of focusing on the fan of racing. He argued that racing needs to understand the lifestyle of their fans and connect the racing product with it. He talked about how Japanese young folks are totally involved in video gaming. So, whatever their marketing goals, video gaming must be key. He showed a video of an avatar horse race where the horses resembled younger Japanese women who raced dressed in stylish clothing competing like horses on a track. Clearly this mimicked Japanese culture and lifestyle but messaged how American racing seeking to attract young fans must act. This showed the importance of the fan to Japanese racing. He showed how Japanese fans are invited to vote on horses to run in the major year-end races. ThoroFan has argued about this concept for years but has never been heard. We have even suggested the voice of the fan be used in Hall of Fame inductees as well. Still no answer.
The program ended with a Keynote presentation by Greg Maffei. He has proposed forming a Horse Racing League (HRL) with ten teams and eighty horses to be drafted by each team similar to the NBA draft. He hopes to begin in 2027 with three days of racing featuring four HRL races backed by $5 million in purse money and $5 million in prize money. He believes his approach will attract more committed fans to our sport. Time will tell, but he deserves a change to try it.
LINK TO: JOCKEY CLUB 2026 Round Table
Link: https://jockeyclub.com/default.asp?section=RT&year=2026&area=99