THE mission of the Thoroughbred Owners & Breeders Association (TOBA) is to improve the economics, integrity, and pleasure of the sport on behalf of owners and breeders.

This entity was established with this stated objective in the United States in 1961. Incidentally, there are several other public and private entities established to enhance the development and provide service to the horse racing industry in North America.

Based in Lexington Kentucky, the TOBA organisation is excited about hosting at the end of May its upcoming Thoroughbred Breeding Clinic to offer an exclusive, hands-on educational experience. This has been deemed to essential to the long-term success of ownership and breeding. But those who think there is a sustainable path for the continuation of the industry in North America are seemingly not paying attention. This is optimism without data to support such a position.

I find it extraordinary that my research across the spectrum of the various US organisations has revealed no plans anywhere for the type of investment needed to spark growth in the industry. The breeding of thoroughbreds is a business, whilst the owning of racehorses is a sport. Outside of local TOBA President Andrew Azar’s rightful appeal for more to be done for the grooms, there has not been much by way of addressing other issues.

In 1990 the breeding sheds in the United States delivered 40,333 foals, and fast-forward to 2025 it stood at 16,025. As a consequence, over the period 72,664 races in 1990 declined precipitously to be at hugely concerning 29,401 in 2025. As far as I am aware no investigation of this progressive disaster has been undertaken to determine why the industry has stubbornly remained in decline mode for three and a half decades.

Truth be told, of all major sports, horse racing is the most complex and was taken globally by the colonial establishment. However, the organisers in the British Commonwealth jurisdictions — for example in Australia, India and here in the Caribbean — ensured that for the purpose of wagering, it was organised in a manner in which the product was easily comprehensible. Importantly as well, horses of similar ability in a handicap competed to enhance the profitability of promotion of the sport by bookmakers and later by pari-mutuel wagering.

This was achieved by way of classification through handicapping of thoroughbred populations for the purse of racing promotion. The methodology, including a weight-for-age table, was introduced by Henry John Rous in 1850, which revolutionised the sport. Wisely, continental Europe, France, Italy and other jurisdictions adopted the handicap system and have had flourishing industries since.

Not so wise were the Americans, who thought the owning of racehorses was a business from which a profit could be guaranteed, and introduced the overly complicated claiming system in 1930. Central and Latin American jurisdictions followed suit, with varying degrees of lack of success, for example in Trinidad & Tobago where a departure from the handicap system has seen 44 race meetings annually nosedive to 12.

Still in acknowledgment of the 96-year-old error, effective October 2025 the US Jockey Club has now switched to classification, but the anti-handicapping, profit-immune claiming system still has its architects in Jamaica pretending it is working — even with less races in the future as the hapless local promoting company struggles with its financial balancing act.

One would have thought that with sophisticated handicappers such the likes of O D C Sharpe, Enos Miller, and finally Lesie B McCrea, whose classification skills used to keep the photo-finish apparatus active with regularity and the sport growing so strongly, Jamaica as a jurisdiction may have been immune to this North American, mathematically challenged idiocy.

Unfortunately, this was not the case. In 1992 a group of anti-bookmaking and anti-handicapping conspiracy theorists convinced the then Jamaica Racing Commission(JRC) Board of Directors that the trading of races in a claiming system is a viable business venture. Also, that a handicap system that yielded 29 races in 1960 and 84 in 1992 at 10 per cent growth rate annually lacked integrity and was being manipulated by corrupt practices.

The betting public had no such perception, and from January 17,1993 the current claiming system malaise commenced. Ironically, it was and still is the remit of the JRC, and not the promoting company, to protect the integrity of the sport but the board capitulated then, and ceded various aspects of its regulatory function, including handicapping, to the short-sighted conspiracy theorists of the promoting company.

I have been looking at the Betting, Gaming & Lotteries Commission’s last quarter report on the performance of the entities in the sector, and the negative impact of Hurricane Melissa is reflected heavily in the returns. In this particular circumstance it is therefore okay for the operatives, and especially those dependents on earnings, to take an “It could have been far worse” posture and breathe a thankful, collective, sigh of relief.