Despite the uphill task faced in their first five months of taking over operations at Caymanas Track Ltd (CTL) to become the sole promoter of horse racing in Jamaica, Paul Hoo, chairman of Supreme Ventures Ltd (SVL), is still of the view that it was the right decision.

Since the March 7 divestment, SVL, through Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Ltd (SVREL), has barely scratched the surface in their objective to raise the profile and revenues of the racing complex on a 30-year lease.

But Hoo pointed out that, as happened with the Jamaica Lottery Company (JLC) when SVL took over, the investment is aligned with a greater vision.

“The basis under which we made that decision is a much bigger picture than what currently are the hurdles. There is a bigger picture in terms of what this meant to the betting public, who we are a big part of already in terms of lottery.

“Truth be told, when we started lotteries the mountain was very steep; it was an existing business that had been sort of stagnant for some time and we thought that was something we could do for the industry. We didn’t make money in the first or second year either, and that investment was major,” Hoo said while addressing editors and reporters at the Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange at the newspaper’s Beechwood Avenue offices in Kingston.

He upholds a positive outlook that his team of strong and well-experienced professionals with expertise, especially in marketing, will eventually hit top stride, as they remain committed to the task.

“Some of the things that we thought we would be able to apply were based on experience, our expertise in marketing and understanding the gaming aspect. We wanted to see racing to the potential that we think, and still think it can be and that’s a part of our mantra in terms of when we started with the lotteries,” Hoo noted.

“So we still see the potential (in CTL). We understood that what we knew when we made the bid would have been far less than what we would need to know. But we took certain things for granted that we had the capability of being able to manage and we determined as we went along what those challenges would be and how we would manage to hurdle them,” he told the Business Observer.

Prior to taking over, the new operators in a broad-based development plan, sought to upgrade the facilities, include more local and overseas betting, introduce slot machines or video lottery terminals (VLTs) and set up restaurants at an estimated spend of $500 million.

And now five months into their tenure, that budget has galloped past projection.

“In our bid we had projected to spend $500 million, but over a period of time our anticipation is that as we caught up with the losses that that money would have been reinvested to upgrade the track. We have spent that already and we expect to spend a lot more,” Hoo declared.

He added: “I don’t think that we are even at 30 per cent in terms of the things that we had projected to achieve in order to increase revenues.

“It continues to be a moving target, and a prime example…a simple thing like distribution. We have been somewhat constrained by the lack of available terminals, but part of the inventory when we took over, we spoke to x amount of available terminals, those terminals are not working, so we continue to work with the same distribution network that existed prior.”

However, amidst the many obstacles, Hoo and his team are gradually making headway in the racing industry which impacts approximately 20,000 individuals both directly and indirectly and has the potential to haul in up to $80 million on any given race day.

“There has been growth, and to be fair and honest, it is somewhat below my own expectations. We would have thought that it would have been radically increased…it certainly is an increase and the positivity of the stakeholders leads us to be encouraged. But I would have to be honest and say that I am a little disappointed in saying how much that increase is.

“Some of the challenges that we have found over the last five months, obviously we would have been unaware of before taking over. So it is trying to reprioritise some of the investments to ensure that the track is being run as efficiently as possible,” the chairman revealed.

A part of the growth strategy was the injection of $100 million and a faster payout of purse allocation to the winning connections.

The previous waiting time for payout has been reduced from eight weeks to within five days and this Hoo stated is a “worthy risk”, with the payment now being made long before the results from testing of the winning horse.

“From a marketing standpoint we decided to take that risk and if necessary as an expense. It didn’t seem right that having past the post in front you should be the worst affected by that. And in one assuming that nothing is intentional and having checked the nuances of this happening historically in the past, we took a conscious decision to absorb whatever that risk is for the benefit of the industry,” said Hoo.

Hoo explained that another aspect of their long-term development is the possibility of selling horse racing at SVL outlets to make up for the limited number of Off Track Betting (OTB) parlours in a number of parishes.

“That was a part of our proposal and so that software is being developed with our current lottery provider in order to engage, and to be clear this is not going to be in the same domain to compete with our existing distribution network. In other words, you won’t, because you are a lottery terminal, be able to sell racing beside an OTB.

“The idea for utilising the terminals has to be in areas where it wouldn’t have been economically feasible for distribution of horse racing as a stand-alone outlet. If there is a lottery terminal in Wait-A-Bit (Trelawny) where you have the ability based on software then you can purchase a bet at those terminals, and that is being worked on right now.

“The same perspective that any business should have in Jamaica is the ability to be able to expand outside of the perimeters. We look at lotteries the same way if it is at all possible for us to expand our business in the region and certainly we want to do so with horse racing,” said Hoo.

In regard to increasing sponsorship for the respective Classic Race days, Hoo said they have identified but are yet to approach potential sponsors, opting to hold off a while longer.

“I would rather wait before we make a formal proposal to the potential sponsors, certainly sponsors who are not there as yet. We just finished sort of painting up the track and there is a whole host of things that we would need and that sponsors would be convinced to see how they will get value for money.

Meanwhile, SVREL’s Head of Marketing Kathryn Clark Spencer, who was hands-on when previously employed at CTL, gave her views on the changes and transparency that have taken place over the last five months.

“I worked with CTL under the previous Government for two years and I moved to SVL not knowing that this is where I would end up back, but seeing the transition has been phenomenal.

“This industry is not just about us as a company, it is about the people because people make up industry and that is the most important thing that we have shown the stakeholders at the track,” said Clark Spencer.

“The chairman will stand outside and greet the customers and that never happened before. The grooms and the jockeys never had a medium to speak — but they have it now and that is an ongoing process. It is a work in progress and distribution is very important to us and we have a long way to go but we will get there,” she added.