Ian Stewart's April 8, 2014 Letter to Virginia Horsemen-Annotated

President and CEO of Colonial Downs Ian Stewart has been a waging public relations war with Virginia horsemen over the current dispute over racing dates and purse levels. He somehow believes this will win us over by making the public put pressure on us. I am not really seeing the Paris mob outside my farm. His latest letter (published online and in public for everyone to see) sounds like his "final offer," if you will, as he done dealing the VHBPA. Here is the letter, he wrote and I will warn you, it is long and boring. So, for your pleasure, I have annotated Mr. Stewart's letter because he left a few things out (typos I am sure). The executive summary of his letter is this: Mr. Stewart and his team knows nothing about horse racing, the business of horse racing, and are trying to place blame on the people who stand to loose the most. Click the image to enlarge the letter (in two parts).

Colonial Downs to install new statue in honor of Virginia horsemen

Yeah the meeting went that well. Last ditch effort to salvage something is this Monday at 10 am at a VRC meeting (at colonial downs backstretch).

In all seriousness, Colonial refused to bargain in good faith. They came into the meeting with an already ridiculous proposal of twelve days of racing. They doubled down, stating six day/$500,000 per day purse at the mediation. $3 million, sounds like alot of money to be walking away from, right? Wrong.

Here is the problem with six or twelve days. Lets say our horse, Marq Your Bible, a certified Virginia-bred horse is ready to race. Guess what? Under a six/twelve day meet, he will get to race once and what if he flops as horses tend to do. He will need another race. For stakes horses this is not a problem, they race one or two stakes races at the meet and leave. For allowance and claiming horses like ours, frequency of racing is just as important as the purse itself. Hence, why the VHBA proposal of stretching out the number of days was important.

Now, we hear that Colonial is looking for scabs, another horseman's organization who will bow down to Ian Stewart (President of Colonial Downs) every demand.

Colonial Downs and VHBPA Heading for Meditation

So has to come to this. The Virginia Racing Commission is telling (not asking) Colonial Downs and the VHBPA to submit their arguments to a professional mediator. This is the latest attempt to end the impasse on the number of racing days and amount of money to dished out each, that each side must agree to. There is no word on whether or not this mediation is binding or just another way talk things out. If it is binding, the horsemen are going to get screwed.

Here is Colonial's argument in a nutshell: we are losing too much money horsemen and we want you to pay, among other things, for cleaning up your horseshit (no, really, manure removal is one of the things they want horseman to pay for).

The argument that Colonial is losing money therefore they need to change the business model is an old, old, old sports owner's arguments. Given that Colonial is owned by a privately-held company, they do not have to open up their books to show how much money they are loosing. NFL, NHL, and Major League Baseball clubs do this all the time when negotiating collective barraging agreements with their players' union or when they claim they need a new stadium and want the public to pay for it. They whine about their loses, when in actually they are making money hand over fist. Its only when you take deprecation into account that their balance sheet looks bad.

So Colonial, in my opinion, is doing the same thing. They of course, attempted to put public pressure on the horsemen by shutting down the OTBs in the western part of the state, stating we were to blame. Now they are saying their balance sheet is worse. Why? Because of the OTBs shut down out west.

There is one thing about racing in the Mid-Atlantic that Colonial management should remember. We can take our horses elsewhere. There are six tracks within driving distance. In our case, we have decided to prepare for the worse. Marq Your Bible is currently in South Carolina training to be a steeplechase horse.