I once told a friend that I feel like I have a serendipitous life, and I felt that again earlier this year when I saw what looked like the fastest horse in the world.
It was March 30, and I was sitting at home with nothing to do. But a friend had declared his bachelor party would be held in Saratoga during the annual horse-racing meet this summer, so I decided to take a gander at what was going on in the sport of kings. Maybe I’d learn something.
As it happened, the $1-million Florida Derby was running that day, and I sprinkled a bit of money on the race, in which a horse named Fierceness was the clear favorite at odds of even money or so. Those odds were immediately justified when Fierceness got off to a good start that turned into a strong medium run that turned into a blistering finish.
No other horse was in sight when Fierceness crossed the finish line, 13-and-a-half lengths in front of the nearest competitor.
The Fierceness Effect
Like the horses behind Fierceness, I was blown away. When he entered the Kentucky Derby in May, I said that’s my guy. Oddsmakers felt similarly, as he went off at 3/1, the shortest of all the other entries in the 20-horse field. Long story short: while he started decently enough, Fierceness didn't have it that day, and finished a distant 15th.
Fast forward to July 27, when Fierceness won again (with my money on him) at 9/5 odds at Saratoga Race Course in eastern New York. He was back. We were back.
News then broke that Fierceness would run in the 155th edition of the famous Travers Stakes, held at Saratoga on Aug. 24. I'd be there in person, and I felt joy. I even made a few t-shirts for the aforementioned bachelor party, one of which was for me that said:
Fierceness
If You Ain't First You're Last
Spoiler alert: Fierceness finished first, with me feet from the rail screaming my head off. And he only just held off history, beating the filly Thorpedo Anna by a head. If Anna would have won, she would have been the first filly to win the Travers since 1915.
Fierceness was just good enough to nix that storybook ending.
What a race! Fierceness' win in the G1 Travers was something special! 🤩
— U of A Race Track Industry Program (@UA_RTIP) August 26, 2024
Congratulations to trainer & #RTIP alum @PletcherRacing! pic.twitter.com/Vbkd4lmPnR
Fierceness has helped make me a full-blown horse racing fan, and betting on Fierceness helped make me a fan of wagering on horse racing as well. I’ll now mix in a few race bets every so often alongside my usual wagering fare (football, NASCAR, golf, etc.). And if Fierceness is running in a race, I guarantee I’ll be backing him.
Now, since I write about this industry for a living, I suspect I have become exactly the sort of convert that online sportsbook operators are targeting with efforts to cross-sell stick-and-ball bettors on horse racing. I feel even more convinced about this because I bounced my story off of Andrew Moore, general manager of racing at FanDuel, in an interview earlier this week.
“There's a confluence of things that have occurred there, the perfect kind of chemistry that brought you right through the summer,” Moore said. “And that's, frankly, what we'd like to do.”
FanDuel and a few other operators have been trying to nudge sports bettors toward horse racing, and they are seeing gains. FanDuel, for instance, reported earlier this year that more than 550,000 customers wagered on horse racing using FanDuel Sportsbook during the Triple Crown season, up 20% over the previous year (it also has a standalone racing app). That helped grow handle for the FanDuel Group of companies by 10% over 2023’s Triple Crown period.
Want to watch Travis Kelce's racehorse run? Join us Saturday on FanDuel TV! We will have the race LIVE at 5:19p ET. pic.twitter.com/pjWo1VKcpj
— FanDuel Racing (@FanDuel_Racing) August 29, 2024
Other numbers suggest horse racing is getting a sports betting-related bump as well. Saturday's Travers Day card at Saratoga drew record all-sources wagering of $63 million, up 13.4% over the previous record of $55.6 million in 2022, the same year mobile sports betting went live in New York.
"Gains from sports betting in big races has shown up most clearly in the win, place, and show pools, especially in recent Triple Crown races," Daily Racing Form's Matt Hegarty recently reported. "Betting in the straight pools for Saturday’s Travers was $6.4 million, up 25.5 percent compared to $5.1 million in the straight pool last year."
Horse racing is seeing gains from the ongoing legalization of sports betting in the U.S., and while some success has been had in enticing sports bettors to wager on horse racing, operators have arguably only scratched the surface.
Total parimutuel wagering on horse races in the U.S. dipped slightly in 2023 compared to the previous year, declining by 3.7% to $11.66 billion. Meanwhile, in New York, nearly $20 billion was bet using mobile sports wagering apps from April 2023 to March 2024. And that’s just one state, even if it is the largest competitive market for online sports betting.
Put differently: there is more wagering to be had on horse racing, and operators are trying to unlock it. Online betting on horse racing is even available in states such as California and Minnesota that have yet to legalize sports wagering, offering opportunities for growth there as well.
It ain't easy
But there are challenges. One is getting sports bettors interested in horse racing in the first place, and keeping them interested. It helps that the Triple Crown and other major races fall outside the football season, although the NFL is almost upon us again.
Other challenges include the quirks of the parimutuel wagering system, such as odds that continue to change even after a wager is placed. There are also data and numbers pertaining to a horse’s performance that can be hard to wrap your head around, making it difficult to form an opinion needed to place a wager.
Those are things operators such as FanDuel are trying to address. Still, even though casual sports bettor-type customers will pop in for a bet on the Kentucky Derby in May, there is a "big drop-off" afterward, Moore said.
“There's a community aspect that I think is a real challenge for us to create, because it's not just the information onboarding, it's about sharing the experience with someone,” he added. “So I think they're both tied, and narrative helps, but sometimes these things work against us.”
For example: a bunch of guys named Dan were no doubt invested in Kentucky Derby winner Mystik Dan, right up until the horse stopped winning races. Thorpedo Anna’s near-win at the Travers was another great story — a filly running against the boys! — but one that came up a bit short.
WHOA‼️
— Luis Kimmel (@Lskmml_) March 30, 2024
FIERCENESS (City Of Light) wins the G1 Florida Derby by a street
Clear cut #KentuckyDerby favorite? pic.twitter.com/WplPPdb3aR@RepoleStable
FanDuel is aware that building the types of narratives someone without a background in horse racing can grasp doesn’t just start at the Kentucky Derby or Travers.
Notably, FanDuel TV (formerly TVG) broadcast prep races for the 2024 Kentucky Derby earlier this year, the Florida Derby included. FanDuel Racing even offered customers a $10 "No Sweat Win Bet" for all of those races to try to get customers invested in the lead-up to the Run for the Roses.
That investment outside of Triple Crown events will continue this weekend for FanDuel, which is sponsoring the $1-million Pacific Classic at Del Mar racetrack in southern California.
The Grade 1 stakes race is part of the “Win and You’re In” Challenge Series for the Breeders’ Cup Classic in November, one of several year-end championship races that will likewise be held at Del Mar. So, win the Pacific Classic, and we’ll see you again in the fall, another thread for bettors to follow and keep them interested in horse racing.
The Pacific Classic had a great storyline, too, as top mare Adare Manor was set to race against eight other male horses. However, that narrative was scuttled this week, after trainer Bob Baffert reportedly said the horse "tied up a little bit" in training and would sit the race out.
Nevertheless, FanDuel will give the Pacific Classic the full-court press of coverage, with FanDuel TV set to broadcast live from the track for the race. Those efforts are valuable, Moore said, because they highlight to bettors the importance of the race and provide context about the sport.
“I think if we were to just drop in and sponsor one race on the calendar, it would be a little bit hollow,” Moore added. “So we actively sponsor at different tracks across the country, across the calendar, because we feel that having our brand attached to horse racing helps elevate the sport and brings credibility to the sport as well. There's a sort of ecosystem that we play in, and we know that we can contribute to the growth of that ecosystem by introducing horse racing to new customers, and not only introducing them to it, but hopefully they enjoy it, and they stick around.”
FanDuel believes its brand is one of the reasons why bettors will stick around. The company also has an edge over other operators in the technology department at the moment, as FanDuel Sportsbook users in most states can deposit via the app and then click over to horse racing and wager using those same funds.
But the bet on name recognition is one that FanDuel's chief rival is making as well.
DraftKings sponsored last weekend's Travers, and there was a set at Saratoga where the company’s marketing partners, Barstool Sports, set up shop to talk about the races. The crowd was three or four people deep around the stage, with people gawking at personalities such as Barstool founder Dave Portnoy, who won $245,000 after wagering $50,000 on Fierceness to win the Travers via DraftKings’ DK Horse app.
“The influence and reach that you and your team have with 18-35-year-olds is 100x bigger than horse racings reach with that age group,” said "Commissioner" Mike Repole, of the Fierceness-owning Repole Stable, in a post to Portnoy on X this week. “You guys have the marketing horsepower that can take racing to the next level.”
Mike Repole joins the show and guarantees that Fierceness will be under 3/1 by post time #dkpartner @draftkings pic.twitter.com/ZXk3d4QBSK
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) August 24, 2024
Even though it was DraftKings in the spotlight last weekend, Moore considered it a win for them too, as more customers and wagering is an opportunity for all. Other online sports betting competitors are making inroads into horse racing as well, such as bet365, which has a partnership in the U.S. with 1/ST Technology.
The bigger the pie, the bigger the slice an operator can potentially cut for itself. And what FanDuel and others want is as big a pie as possible, built on the wagering of newcomers like me, who drop in for a race or two, like what they see, and stick around.
“If someone is out there promoting horse racing and bringing it to a new audience, whether it's us or someone else, that's a really good outcome, because as a company … we will always fancy our chances to win market share,” Moore said. “So if the total addressable market is growing, we think we can win share within that total addressable market. We're out there trying to grow the total addressable market of horse racing all the time.”
