Dennis Mills - Committed to the future of horse racing.

Racingfuture.com Contest Winner Selected

We are pleased to announce that MIKE CAGGIANO of Royal Palm Beach, Florida is the winner of the RacingFuture.com Idea Contest.

Dennis and the RacingFuture.com team would like to take this opportunity to applaud all of the contestants for their outstanding overall effort and for the creativeness and dedication they demonstrated for our cherished sport. We want to emphasize that while we only have one outright winner of the contest, we fully intend to implement many of the ideas and concepts that we received during the competition in some way, shape, or form as we move forward and we are excited about the potential they hold.

Mike’s response was selected as our winner not so much because of any one specific executable idea, but rather his understanding of the dynamic and competitive landscape the sport of Horse Racing shares with other forms of entertainment and our critical need to proactively attract a new base of fans and players. To better understand how Mike’s input fits into our strategic plans, we have taken his broad recommendations and translated them into action items.

We strongly agree with Mike‘s concept of the “big paydays” and we are working hard at developing large guaranteed multi-leg pool wagers that will attract lottery-type players and create more carryover opportunities. His suggestion that the industry needs to follow the “poker boom“ hits the mark in our opinion, as television coverage has created a new league of poker superstars and a huge international fan base. We believe we need to do the same in racing, with televised traveling handicapping competitions for large jackpots and create fan awareness in terms of acquiring the skills and opportunities to compete as well. We envision shows where handicappers share their methods and logic to handicap races, ultimately leading to the televised running of the races and competition results, with play at home participation as well. His unique recommendation to develop crossover poker/handicappers through “combination” tournaments is somewhat like the triathlon phenomena currently happening in local sports, and could be a great way of recruiting new players. Some of his ideas are already well along in our development path, such as the recent upgrade of our Gulfstream Park facility and the model it represents in terms of upscale entertainment. We plan on extending the lure of that new facility to our other properties as we move forward. Mike addressed the need for better off-track venue efforts, and we are focused on creating a new OTB model that will bring racing to a broad set of entertainment venues so that racing will be exposed to a potentially diverse fan base with various forms of integration into the social experience from sports bar establishments to elegant dining and club environments. While Mike only briefly touched on the ownership and breeding aspects of our industry, we heard from many contestants that the overhead of ownership needs to be fixed so that the ability to effectively own and race horses is available to a broader base of the population. We are deeply involved in this aspect of our industry as well and we continue to explore legal and operating structures to facilitate a broader base of ownership through syndication and racing clubs. While we recognize that the challenges we face are long-term efforts, we believe that Mike’s ideas offer clear, meaningful, and timely solutions that will help ensure the success of the sport today and in the years and decades to come.

Mike Caggiano has been wagering on races since his late teens, starting as many players have, with harness racing, at the sadly defunct Roosevelt Raceway. It was there that he fell in love with the racing lifestyle in an area called “The Cloud Casino.” Mike is 50 years old, has been married for 26 years, has one son, age 25, and is currently living in Royal Palm Beach, Florida. A poker player who also follows sports, Mike’s true love is race handicapping. “There is nothing like predicting the future with historical data and watching the results.” Mike has been betting the races for many years, but has only begun to make steady profits in the last 6 -7 years. He says the intellectual pursuit has been rewarding in itself as well as his love for the majesty of the sport and the people (characters) that surround the game. Mike has selected Golden Buckle as his foal of choice for his 50% ownership interest prize.

Please join us in congratulating Mike on a job well done! We hope you follow his future success with Golden Buckle as we provide updates on RacingFuture.com. We will keep you apprised of our progress as well, and look forward to your continued interest in our ongoing RacingFuture.com community events.

The executive summary of the contest with all of the semi-finalist entries can be read here:

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