Johnny Mathis may have said it best when he sang:
Too much, too little, too late to lie with you again
If you’ve been following Beyond the wire or me for any length of time, you know I can’t handle being bumped. I don’t care about the optics of the ‘old boys club’, and I certainly don’t care about the ‘stay the course’ rhetoric, when the very foundation of this sport smells like a four-furlong workout in a hurricane.
The Jockey Club (TJC) recently launched a PR offensive. They launched one Traceability research to find out where our retired thoroughbreds are going (I could have told them) and they insist Thoroughbred Connect as the ultimate safety net. On paper it seems like progress. In reality? It looks like an organization that has finally realized that the villagers are standing at the gate with torches – trying to hand out blueprints instead of actually building a wall.
The tools: high-tech blueprints for a crumbling house
The Traceability research And Thoroughbred Connect are the right tools, but they are entirely voluntary. In an industry where we handle billions in bets but struggle to track a horse once it leaves the stable, ‘voluntary’ is just another word for ‘optional liability’.
If you’re a responsible owner, you’re already doing the work. If you’re the guy sending a horse to a cheap auction or a kill-pen pipeline, do you really think you’re going to log into your account to take a survey? The Jockey Club acts like one Passive architect. They made the plans, they bought the expensive software, but they flat out refuse to pick up the hammer.
The $100 Million Question: Reserves vs. Reality
In their ‘Open Letter’ of January 27, 2026, the Board of Stewards patted themselves on the back for their contribution $2.5 million for the aftercare this year. They boasted a total of $112 million (now updated to $120 million in their latest impact report) have been investing in the sector over the past 15 years.
But let’s look at the balance sheet. Based on the most recent data from ProPublica and nonprofit organizations, the Jockey Club has exceeded net worth $100 million. For a nonprofit dedicated to the “improvement of the breed,” that balance sheet looks more like a private equity firm than a life raft for a struggling industry.
When you compare that $2.5 million aftercare “boast” to the size of the problem, it’s a rounding error. Critics like Mike Repole – who has effectively appointed himself the sport’s ‘commissioner’ because no one else will take charge – rightly point out that $2.5 million is a drop in the ocean. We have a predicted foal harvest of just 17,000 for 2026. To ensure a safe landing for these horses throughout their lives, we need systemic billion-dollar solutions, not a ‘voluntary’ tick box on a registration form.
Why the sudden urge to ‘trace’ in 2026?
The timing of this is no coincidence. We are currently in the “Process era” of racing. Repole has threatened a national lawsuit, accusing the TJC of being a stagnant monopoly. The Jockey Club’s response – the release of these tools and their recent “Open Letter” – is a defensive posture.
They didn’t initiate this because it was the right thing to do; they have taken this initiative because their social license to operate is being revoked in real time. They waited until a billionaire with a megaphone forced their hand in January 2026.
The Missing Hammer: Mandates and Money
If the Jockey Club really wanted to solve the traceability problem, they wouldn’t ask us to complete a survey before June 30th. They would swing the hammer:
- Mandatory reporting: Would you like to register a foal? You agree to a lifetime digital ‘check-in’ requirement. Period.
- The Aftercare Levy: Instead of letters congratulating yourself, how about a mandatory $100 fee for each transaction that goes directly to the TAA? That would double their aftercare budget overnight.
- Real-time teeth: Traceability without enforcement is just a count of the dead. If a horse is scanned at an unsanctioned auction and the register has not been updated, the last known owner should be immediately banned from registering.
The bottom line is: use your voice
The Roundtable Conference 2026 in August is being set up as a big reveal of this research data. But we don’t need more data to know that horses are falling through the cracks.
Here is my call to action for the Past the Wire faithful: Don’t just complete the survey. Demand that the Jockey Club make these aids mandatory. Tell them that a $100 million asset pool and a $2.5 million aftercare budget is not “leadership,” it’s a PR strategy.
Collecting data is a prerequisite for progress, not progress itself. The Jockey Club has been serving as a registry for 130 years. It’s time for them to start acting like a leadership body. Build the tools, by any means necessary. But for the sake of the horse and the survival of this game, pick up the damn hammer.
Oh yeah, and there are still crickets all over the place cockfighting everyone just seems to want to leave.
#Jockey #Club #builds #tools