Over the past year my wife Amy and I have gone from sheepishly investing virtually all the spare money we had (relax, we still have Ava and Oliver's college funds), to now watching our third child, thestable.ca, branch out in multiple directions.
Expansion has been overwhelming; we have received help from writers, met with marketing experts and enlisted computer programmers to help us handle the potential growth of thestable.ca. 2016 has been a life changing year for us, and 2017 will be exponentially bigger. Our plan is to introduce thousands of people to horse racing all over the world with an aggressive marketing plan.
That sounds foolish, the word "introduce", because horse people believe that everyone knows what horse racing is. Most horsemen think the public knows where and when we have races, and that these same people simply choose not to attend.
That has always been our biggest problem; we assume.
We assume our industry is dying, we assume it is impossible to build a fan base for horse racing, and we assume investment for our industry, for the most part, simply isn't out there anymore.
The problem is that it's expensive to own a horse and complex to understand the industry. All we have done at thestable.ca is simply take something complex and expensive and make it simple, fun and economical.
We have created and displayed a successful business model, and now we will show you how to use it.
Our numbers can be easily extrapolated over many stables because our investor base is spread across every demographic all over the world. Whether it be England, Ireland, Japan, or China, horse racing will be seen in a different light everywhere. In the coming months we will show the horse racing industry how to grow their clientele, meet potential investors, and expose the general public to horse racing.
Wagering on horse racing may not be as crowd pleasing as it once was, but the world is ever-changing, and as horsemen realize that there are millions of dollars of investment out there, racetracks will see that a percentage of our new clients may actually become their clients as well.
Our fan base and clientele will be forged from inclusiveness and participation.
This will achieve growth for both horse ownership and investment but also create new revenue for our racetracks and on-site casinos.
This industry doesn't have to be at war any longer. Casinos don't have to be a crutch or an enemy. If we show this type of growth and exposure, it changes our status from simply "mandated leeches" in the eyes of the casinos, to actual partners.
You may say this is pie in the sky and a dreamer's fable, but numbers don't lie.
We have shown growth with little marketing and minimal advertising.
This fall when thestable.ca affiliates four more training stables, maybe then the industry will see the growth that will help even some of our more vocal pessimists.
Our numbers are real, our clients have been great to deal with and horse racing is not going to die on our watch.
Horse racing indeed alienated gamblers, we sold ourselves short, we watched as our industry almost burned to the ground.
Look at our numbers, judge for yourself, I wouldn't write the obituary yet.
Anthony MacDonald
The views presented in Trot Blogs are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Standardbred Canada.
I have to say Anthony that at
I have to say Anthony that at least you have shown initiative and foresight into your future in this business. Time will tell if your business model is successful in the long run. Its for sure one of the things missing for years is education and promotion of the sport. You are doing that on a small scale. Now if you cold get the big heads of the industry, racing participants, track owners, government, and the list goes on to do the same theirs a chance.
Mr Leber's comments should be
Mr Leber's comments should be a warning to all!!
Anthony, I think what you've
Anthony, I think what you've done is outstanding. The business model makes sense as long as costs can be kept down. Purse money has gone down but trainers and vets haven't dropped their prices at all.
I have had as many as 37 horse in my stable but I am down to 15 and probably going down to fewer than 5 plus breeding stock. My homebreds are just a drain on finances.
If this business is going to succeed we will need government assistance. We don't need a handout, we just need to go back to the model where we get to keep what we had and not allow a greedy Liberal government to steal it and then claim victory in spin.