‘The Heart of Horse Racing’ Offers Positive Narrative

Since joining the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association board about 10 years ago, Tina Bond has stressed the need for more marketing and public relations initiatives to present positive messages about the sport.

Now she has launched one.

Bond has teamed with FINN Partners to create theheartofhorseracing.com, a website that gives trainers, owners, jockeys, and fans a forum for promoting the sport by offering their opinions of what they love most about horse racing. The site has more than a dozen interviews with key industry figures such as trainer Todd Pletcher, owner Jayson Werth, and jockey John Velazquez from 10 hours of interviews at Saratoga Race Course, with many more to come.

“The goal of ‘The Heart of Horse Racing’ is to create a new narrative and elevate the sport to attract new fans and owners while ensuring our existing stakeholders remain deeply committed to the sport,” Bond said. “I don’t think we’ve done a very good job in the past of telling people what and who we are.”

Though Bond is now the president of NYTHA, “The Heart of Horse Racing” is her own venture, and it has received seed money and unanimous support from the NYTHA board to get off the ground. Bond is seeking sponsorships and donations to help grow a venture that promotes the virtues of the sport.

“As (trainer) Jena Antonucci says in her interview, this is not your grandpa’s sport, it’s not your dad’s sport, it’s our sport, and it’s time that everybody sees how much the horses are loved and cared for. That came across in every interview: that the horse is everything,” Bond said.

Bond, who runs the racing partnership offered by her husband, trainer James Bond, wants the website to become a national site rather than New York-centric.

“We have 10 hours of footage and a lot more to update,” she said. “We’re trying to get the funding to go forward. We want segments on different parts of the country. We also know the average person doesn’t know when horse racing is on television, so we want to add information like that so they know what races they can watch. We have to tell people what we are and where we are.”

Bond believes there was no time like the present to launch “The Heart of Horse Racing”.

“With the foal crop in decline we have to do this now,” she said. “We can’t wait 10 years to do it. There are so many other things people can do, and I think we as an industry have not fully explained what this industry is. I think once people are exposed to it, they are going to fall in love with it and fall in love with the industry. We have to bring the next generation on board and expose everyone to things they have not been exposed to in the past. I think there’s a great opportunity to grow the sport. We need to grow the fan base and add more owners as well.”