KINGSTON, Jamaica - A significant fraction of a millisecond past midnight, changing the previous day to the morning of August 6, 1962, was the momentous occasion of Jamaica’s transitional evolution from a political arrangement of internal self-government, overseen by the British Parliament, to full control of the governance of the country’s affairs.
Significantly, three years prior, located on 200 acres of former sugar cane lands, there was the opening of a state-of-the-art horse racing facility at Caymanas with an electro-magnetic parimutuel totalisator system operational with the first race run in August 1959. This was a transformation from the gymkhana type operation at Kingston “Racecourse” Town Moor (adjacent to National Heroes’ Park, formerly George VI Memorial Park) and then to the Knutsford Park property (now New Kingston).
Jamaica’s racing industry was on stream in the then existing modern era of global horse racing promotion. The 1,800-metre or nine-furlongs circuit made Caymanas one of the largest racetracks in the hemisphere. This racetrack was designed with an important chute of 1,000 metres or five furlongs straight. This unique layout, with another chute extending from the 1,400-metre mark back to the start of the 1,800 metres or nine furlongs, was exclusive to Jamaican racing on this side of the Atlantic.
In its first full year of operation in 1960, with 1,400 stalls available, there were 29 Caymanas race days. The response from the fraternity was immediate, an increase to 60 race days for Saturdays and public holidays were scheduled for 1961. With the importation of thoroughbreds for racing, stallions and brood mares mainly from the United Kingdom, the breeding industry expanded output exponentially, and by August 1973 mid-week racing became a reality to ensure there were up to 80 race days annually.
Established in 1966, the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission Act was tasked to regulate the bookmaking industry, which was legalised three years prior. This was done basically along a similar arrangement that prevailed in the United Kingdom, where substantial annual renewable licensing fees for points of sale and levies on gross sales were imposed to assist with the development of the industry through the Consolidated Fund.
The bookmaking establishments responded to their legal status by moving swiftly to establish more than 650 points of sale across the island. Watson’s Off-Course Betting and Track Price Plus Ltd were the industry leaders, operating more than 450 of these betting offices between them, still, by 1980, there were 12 other licensees in operation.
By 1968, Watson’s, along with Track Price, also engaged agencies in England to supply information for wagering on horse racing from the United Kingdom. Extraordinarily, both companies engaged highly skilled commentators able to expand basic live telex messages into virtually live race-by-race descriptions of races in England, Ireland, and France.
These two gaming companies became six-day-a-week operations, offering wagering on more than 300 days annually, thus increasing their operating profits exponentially. The promotion of live horse racing and the bookmaking industry benefited in no small measure from live coverage on Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation radio and TV frequencies from 1963. Radio Jamaica (RJR), the island’s other major media house, came on board two years later.
Replacing the Jockey Club, the regulatory Jamaica Racing Commission Act was promulgated in 1972 and by 1977 fine-tuned a comprehensive set of racing rules designed to upgrade the operation of the promoting company into a proper legal framework; this to protect the integrity of the racing product and administer effective licensing of racing operatives.
There were two competing promoting companies operational in the 50s, but, eventually, they were overtaken by a lack of viability. Another entity, Lai Corporation, fared no better, although operating 13 race-by-race off-track betting (OTB) facilities in the island’s town capitals, it was subjected to receivership.
Recognising the obvious strategic economic importance and potential of the industry, the Michael Manley-led People’s National Party (PNP) Government established Racing Promotions Ltd (RPL) in 1975 in response to the revolving door of sundry promoters. Government ownership, with the new shareholders being the horsemen through their associations (breeders, owners, trainers, jockeys, grooms), enabled this type of promoting to enjoy favoured, subsidised status for survival.
Incidentally, damage to the Caymanas facility from a direct hit by Hurricane Gilbert on September 12, 1988 resulted in the suspension of race meetings until December 26, 1988. By sheer coincidence, exactly one year later, an outbreak of equine influenza in the horse population forced another hiatus until April 1990. Simulcast wagering on races held outside of Jamaica, mainly in the United States, came on stream in 1989, providing an important revenue stream for RPL’s cash flow.
Throughout the 1980s, the support for the industry was continued by the Edward Seaga-led Jamaica Labour Party Government and was enhanced with the return to power of the PNP in 1989. Seymour “Foggy” Mullings was the first minister of finance in the re-elected Administration and personally conducted a fact-finding exercise on the then current status and likely future of the racing industry.
Minister Mullings was instrumental in facilitating the financing of a computerised totalisator system and the much-needed rehabilitation of the racing surface. With a new digital tote operationalised in 1990, a most remarkable transformation was achieved. Prior to this, bookmakers enjoyed 60 per cent of market share but, within the first year, with the new tote, this was reversed totally to 60 per cent in favour of the promoting company in a significantly expanded market with betting parlours (OTBs) increasing to 60 from 27. By then, the breeding sheds were delivering around 400 foals on average.
This was the level of viability of the racing industry, despite unsubstantiated claims that most owners, trainers, and jockeys were practising — by “in and out running” — the manipulation of the form of horses to facilitate successful gambling. However, the growth of the market suggested the betting public harboured no such perception and demonstrated confidence in the integrity of the racing product delivered in a British Horseracing Authority (BHA) handicap methodology.
In terms of economic viability, the most successful period of the promotion of live horse racing ensued under the leadership of businessman and Member of Parliament Danny Melville from 1990. Despite the fact that the racing industry, with the introduction of a digital totalisator facility, was clearly on a strong path to growth, the board made a calculation that a claiming system, similar to what was deployed in the United States, would be viable locally.
This complicated USA system, which was in decline even at that time, is on in which owners were allowed to determine the value and placement of horses but operated in a jurisdiction where there were daily options for racing opportunities and therefore vastly dissimilar to the semi-professional scenario in Jamaica, with one facility and only around 80 race days possible annually.
By January 1993, this decision, sanctioned by the operatives of the Jamaica Racing Commission (JRC), led to the abandonment of the BHA methodology of the classification of horses through rated handicapping. A system which ensured horses of similar ability competed to drive wagering, thus ensuring viability of promoting companies, was abandoned in favour of the North American failing claiming arrangement, which declined 50 per cent by 2020, according to the US Jockey Club website.
From 1995 the racing product failed to deliver viability, and in 2004 the Government established Caymanas Track Limited (CTL) with a remit to privatise the promotion of live horse racing. Over time, CTL was subsidised to the tune of US$40 million until it was divested to gaming entity Supreme Ventures Ltd in March 2017 and had debt of $1.20 billion written off.
During the three decades, the proponents of claiming, through wilful ignorance, insisted, and still do, that handicapping to eliminate the main systemic flaw of the inferior conceding weight to the superior horses leading to overmatching in most races cannot be adjusted to a viable hybrid to enhance profitability for the promoters.
So far, SVL has invested $346 million in the Caymanas facility and has plans for its transformation into an entertainment complex.
