In the past decade, while most of the nation’s pari-mutuels zigged toward building slot businesses, Gulfstream Park zagged – doubling down on horse racing. And a lot of people doubted the decision.
Horse racing is a dying industry, those people reasoned. (FYI, they included me.) Sure, you can prop up horse racing for at least a few years, if you can get the slot and poker players to leave the casino, now and then, for the track outside. But that’s just mitigation.
In fact, on Saturday Gulfstream Park will cap off its winter racing season with the Florida Derby, with the expectation of record wagering. The Hallandale Beach track now draws 13 cents of every dollar bet nationwide on horse racing. While the total horse racing handle has remained at about $10 billion in the U.S. during each of the past five years, Gulfstream’s portion has grown from $900 million in 2013 to $1.174 billion in 2014 to $1.338 billion in 2015. And in 2016, to date, betting is surpassing last year’s numbers by 18 percent.
“You walk around here on a Saturday and you see all kinds of people, not just hard-core bettors,” Gulfstream General Manager P.J. Campo says. “You see young people, even families, having a good experience.”
That was the plan back in 2005 when Broward County voters approved slots. Owner Frank Stronach was in the midst of a $171.5 million renovation, with horse racing as the centerpiece and the casino as the side attraction. (Of South Florida casinos, Gulfstream is the only one to list “racing” first, as in “Gulfstream Park Racing and Casino.”)
In 2010, a $1 billion outdoor mall, The Village, opened with 70 stores. While the retailers who sold clothes and artwork struggled, many restaurants and bars flourished, especially Yard House, which was on the front end of the craft-beer boom. The mall now focuses more on food, less on fashion. The casino performs respectably throughout the year, with business increasing during racing days.
“I called it a three-headed monster: the racing, the casino and the mall,” Campo says. “If we can get them here once, it’s our job to get them back.”
The racing handle has grown significantly because the track went from a four-month meet to year-round racing, muscling out nearby Calder Race Course by paying higher purses and offering more incentives for trainers and jockeys. Horse racing fans also notice that Gulfstream offers fields of nine or 10 horses, while many other venues offer five or six. More horses equals more possibilities equals more gambling action.
Stronach, who made his fortune as a Canadian auto-parts magnate, has seen his reputation among horse racing fans change from demon to savior. The owner of Santa Anita, outside Los Angeles, Pimlico Race Course in Maryland, and other tracks, Stronach can be seen as erratic and egotistical. For example, he created Frankey’s Sports Bar at Gulfsteam, as well as the Adena Grill steakhouse, which he stocked with beef from cattle grown on his farm in central Florida. Then he oversaw every table and light fixture and flew in artists to paint the décor.
He also spent $30 million to install a statue of a Pegasus standing astride a dragon. It’s 11 stories tall, and weighs 715 tons. He has also launched “Frank’s Energy Drink”, and the outdoor bar near the beach is called “Frank’s Beach.” Get the pattern?
But with little investment in horse racing anywhere in the U.S., Stronach one of the few who does spend on racing, even beyond a reasonable price. “He took a lot of heat,” Campo says.
Last Saturday was another demonstration of Gulfstream’s growth, with a total of $10,782,375 wagered during a mandatory payout of the track’s Rainbow 6. That was part of $25.9 million overall bet on the program, and the largest Gulfstream handle for a single day other than Florida Derby Day. And the derby will be huge, this coming Saturday, with two undefeated horses, Mohaymen and Nyquist, squaring off.
“We could really knock it out of the park,” Campo says. “But the Florida Derby is just the culmination. People are watching us constantly nationwide.”
