Joe Harper's two-year term as president of the Thoroughbred Racing Associations, the organization that represents the racetracks of North America in industry matters, will end next month.
That title will be gone and Harper will have to be content with the strung-together ones – president, CEO, general manager, director – he has with the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club and the titles he holds with various other organizations in and out of racing.
But given his place in racing's hierarchy, Harper is entitled to speak to the state of the game at any time. And there would seem to be no time like the present when, already in 2005:
The first sanctions against trainers have recently been taken in the Southern California "milkshaking" probe, which got real traction from results of testing done at Del Mar last summer.
The Jockeys' Guild is in attack mode on issues of the scale of weights and medical insurance for riders.
Scandals regarding how business is conducted have bubbled up in such far-flung places as the mainstream New York Racing Association and off-track betting hubs from Maine to North Dakota.
The 2004 Owner of the Year, Ken Ramsey, was fined and suspended for the ethical breach of offering another owner a bribe.
"It seems more of our problems have come to the surface in a shorter amount of time than usual," Harper said this week from Santa Barbara, where he was part of a family vigil awaiting, with his wife, Barbara, the arrival of their ninth grandchild.
"I think it's the result of a combination of factors, including the changing environment of the game and the realization within the industry of the need to clean up our act and (resultant) efforts to do that."
But when asked what concerns him the most, given the multiple-choice, dirty-laundry list of items mentioned, Harper's answer was: "None of the above."
"Those are mistakes we've made or problems that have been created. But they are day-to-day problems that can and will be solved," Harper said. "Of greater concern to me personally is the marketing of the sport, because that's the most important thing we need to do to ensure its longevity."
Harper's belief is that the intrinsic elements – color, action, intrigue – that generate interest, popularity and the lifeblood public support of any sport, are already there in horse racing.
"We need to reinvent how we present our product to the public in a way that is sexier and more appealing," Harper said. "We haven't been very good at doing that. But the more enthusiastic young people we can bring in, the better it will be. The key, to me, is looking at the bigger picture."
Not that Harper is glossing over the unsightly single-issue snapshots that have lately come into public focus.
On milkshaking: "We (at Del Mar) were right to get the ball rolling. It's something that the harness racing industry went through and dealt with 10 or more years ago. It's something that you have to stay on top of, but our sport isn't the only one dealing with the (illegal substance use) issue.
"Check the sports section any day and you realize that."
The hot-button issue at the industrywide convention in December in Arizona was jockey insurance. How much was enough? Who should pay to get to an acceptable coverage level – the tracks, the independent-agent jockeys themselves or the Jockeys' Guild?
California, because of its workers compensation laws, wasn't heavily involved in the controversy. In Kentucky, where the dispute was centered, recent agreements have been reached wherein the tracks will contribute to higher coverage.
"That is an easily solvable situation with the riders; I hope it's as easy a situation to solve with the guild," Harper said.
The new hot-button issue with jockeys in California is a push to raise the scale of weights and change rules that, in effect, force many riders to maintain dangerously unhealthy lifestyles in order to compete.
Meeting Thursday at Santa Anita, the California Horse Racing Board gave preliminary approval to an increase in the minimum weight for a thoroughbred jockey from 112 to 116 pounds. The ruling is subject to a 45-day period for public comment and another vote by the board.
Southern California racing secretaries, including Del Mar's Tom Robbins, are unanimous in seeing plenty of potential problems with the change.
But problems, Joe Harper knows, are a fact of racing life. Not just in 2005, but every year.
Hank Wesch: (619) 293-1853; hank.wesch@uniontrib.com
