Appearance Fees in Racing?

Money, money, money. It happens in tennis, it happens in golf. In fact it happens wherever a person of celebrity desires to pocket a buck at the expense of an event organizer who is more than happy to make the expensive hand out in order to glamorize their show. Now we can add one miss Rachel Alexandra to the list of celebrity cash grabbers. Is it right, or is it wrong for the Rachel Alexandra ownership to run their star at a track, and at a race, only when the purse is significantly raised ? It seems to me the idea of appearance fees is Capitalism 101. If the celebrity, or in this case, the owners of the celebrity, are willing to decide where they will appear based on cash, and the event organizers, in this case, a racetrack, are grinning ear-to-ear with their agreement, who are we to say the agreement, rooted in American capitalism, is wrong? OK, so it is acceptable for a celeb to make some dough by availing themselves to their fans in our chosen form of economics, but what about on the athletic landscape? Doesn’t this smack of forgetting the competition just to assure the attendance of one of the competitors? Doesn’t this lessen the importance of the actual competition? Well, yes and no. In golf, when Tiger Woods is paid $2 million to play in a tournament, while the winner of the tournament gets a measly $650,000, then yes, I apply pressure with my thumb and index finger directly to both nostrils. When the appearance fee is paid regardless of performance, it belittles the event. Does Tiger Woods have as much to play for as Joe in-the-field Golfer? Of course not, he already got his. Is this a worry in racing? No. Two big reasons why it is different. First off, Rachel does not know of cash. She will run just the same regardless of her owner’s bankbook. Secondly, this appearance fee is the good kind in sports. Jess Jackson is not being paid only to show up, he is being paid when Rachel wins. Many would say, knowing her brilliance, that these two things are the same. Maybe so, but the truth is the extra purse money is out there for all. Who are the losers as a result of this deal? Not team Rachel. Not Monmouth Park. Not the fans of the sport. We now get to see Rachel, and know ahead of time where we can see her. Also with the purse hike, it should attract at least as good a field as we would have seen in the Ruffian Stakes. Perhaps the losers are NYRA and their elite meet of Saratoga. To them I say, check your Econ textbooks. Monmouth won, fair and square. Besides, Saratoga should still host another Rachel race before their meet is done. Perhaps the American Graded Stakes system is a loser. Monmouth’s Lady’s Secret is ungraded, now rich, but still ungraded. Saratoga’s Ruffian is a grade 1. This may actually only hurt Rachel’s resume, while benefiting the Ruffian winner. In the end, I am not against this devilish deal between the good people at Monmouth Park and Rachel’s owner, Jess Jackson. It takes nothing away from our sport, even if somewhere Gordon Gekko is smiling. This matter is the topic du jour for the Thoroughbred Bloggers Alliance http://www.tbablogs.com/, please check out their main page to find numerous other points-of-view. Some not nearly so kind to JJ as I am.