POINT/COUNTERPOINT

Commentary: Time to change the structure

Posted: Sunday, September 11, 2011 6:01 PM

Thoroughbred Times

by Fred A. Pope
In the movie Field of Dreams, the theme was “If you build it, they will come.”  Before 1968, that theme built a lot of golf courses with events to lure professional golfers. At that time, golf was a facility-centric sport, meaning the facility where the sport is played controls everything, the product, the price, distribution, and marketing.  Read more...
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Related information and background.  The Jockey Club Roundtable in August 2011. Jockey Club Roundtable - Aug 2011 VIDEO    Report by McKinsey & Co., "Driving sustainable growth for Thoroughbred racing and breeding".   Jockey Club - McKinsey Report - PDF file
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Commentary:  Fred Pope's Creative Thinking Based on Faulty Logic
Posted:  09/13/2011 1:08PM
The Daily Racing Form

by Stan Bergstein
Pope, a determined Lexington, Ky., advertising executive, racing commentator, and iconoclast, issued another lengthy commentary on the state of the game this week – this one taking up six pages of single-spaced copy on a PC printer – continuing his decades-long effort to convince racing it is following the wrong road.  Read more...

Stan Bergstein is executive vice president of Harness Tracks of America and has been administrative head of that association for 49 years. His wide involvement in racing has included stints as a television commentator, racing secretary, race announcer, auctioneer, owner, and breeder, as well as a seat on the board of the Racing Medication and Testing Consortium. Bergstein is the only person ever named to both harness racing's Hall of Fame and the Racing Hall of Fame.