True or false. What racing needs is:

A. Better cooperation among racing jurisdictions.

B. A higher profile i.e., extended TV coverage.

C.More ways to attract new owners.

D. Fuller fields and more horse heroes who enjoy a public following.

If you marked true to even one of the above, you had to be alarmed when this year’s MATCH (Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred Championships) series fizzled like a rocket that burns up before leaving the launching pad.

After months of uncertainty over when, and if, this year’s series might get underway, MATCH creator Alan Foreman extinguished the last shreds of hope in late April, announcing that MATCH will have a one-year hiatus. Foreman blamed the situation on struggles that the tracks in Maryland and New Jersey had in resolving their 2002 racing dates and stakes schedules.

However, he said the tracks already have given him solid commitments that will enable MATCH to return in 2003. But doing without MATCH, even for one season, is a step backward. And to think that it happened because of politics and infighting makes it even harder to take.

Foreman, a Columbia, Md., attorney who wears numerous hats within the industry, including that of chief executive officer of the Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Associations (THA), performed a minor miracle when he got race tracks and horsemen working together on a single series of races back in 1997. And holding it together was never easy. Every year was a struggle, Foreman said. MATCH grouped existing stakes at tracks within the region into five divisions, and offered hefty bonuses for the top performers within each division.

Racing secretaries got together and made up schedules, so that various categories of horses (3-year-old sprinters, for example) could follow a logical sequence from one stakes race to the next, and tracks were not put in the ugly business of siphoning talent away from one another. Horsemen’s organizations supplied money for bonuses, while the race tracks covered the operating costs, including marketing and promotion.

There was big money involved in all this, but it was an investment that paid substantial dividends for both horsemen and tracks namely, prizes worth shooting for and a first-class atmosphere surrounding each event. Owners, trainers and one jockey (the jockey bonus was instituted in mid-2001) reaped an astonishing total of $2,672,000 during the five-year course of the series.

Former rodeo rider Janis Gerace, now an owner/trainer based in Vincentown, N.J., became MATCH’s unofficial poster child in 2001, when she took home $190,000 in bonuses $150,000 for her overall series leader Sea of Green and $40,000 for divisional leader Loaded Gun. But the bonuses $25,000 to the winning owner and $15,000 to the winning trainer in each division in 2001, plus smaller amounts to the second and third finishers were not the only incentives.

MATCH wined and dined the horses’ connections, and made them feel special. There were trackside luncheons on the day of the race (and box lunches sent to the people preparing the horses on the backstretch), plus a dazzling array of giveaways including umbrellas, sweaters, shirts, jackets, briefcases and blankets. With each race in the series, the gifts became more lavish.

It was the Mid-Atlantic region’s version of the Triple Crown or Dubai, and local owners savored every minute. A first-rate website, lengths ahead of most within the business, provided knowledgable and up-to-date commentary on MATCH horses and their connections, and even offered the services of a handicapping expert.

MATCH, unlike some of racing’s higher-profile programs, embraced change. Horsemen’s comments about the lineup of races led to substitutions, such as the sprint race on the dirt for older fillies and mares, which in its inaugural 1999 running showcased that year’s overall champion, William Backer’s homebred Crab Grass.

Year-by-year there were subtle refinements redesigned trophies, a new logo, targeted advertising. Of course, some changes occurred not by design, such as the defection of Philadelphia Park and Penn National after the first three years. Charles Town, which proudly joined the series in 1999, was notably absent in 2001.

Restlessness within the ranks of some race tracks only Pimlico, Laurel, Monmouth, Meadowlands, Delaware Park and Colonial Downs saw it all the way through did not keep the MATCH series from being truly regional, or detract from its diversity.

The winner of the inaugural series in 1997 was based at Philadelphia Park: Arthur I. Appleton’s American Champ, trained by Robert W. Camac.

New Jersey horsemen took the overall championship three times: B. E. Stable’s Buffalo Dan (1998), trained by William W. Perry; Raymond Dweck’s Max’s Pal (2000), trained by Ben Perkins Jr.; and Sea of Green (2001), owned and trained by Janis Gerace. Maryland produced one champion: Crab Grass (1999), trained by Barclay Tagg.

It’s difficult to envision a series accomplishing more than MATCH did in a brief five-year span. Mid-Atlantic race tracks should do everything within their power to bring it back and support it in 2003.

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