Halsey Minor: Horse Racing Impresario? Not So Fast
CNET founder turned VC Halsey Minor is desperate to revive the sport of horse racing, but the sport’s declining fan base is just one of numerous obstacles in his way.
Minor first went public with his campaign to restore some glamour to the industry back in July, announcing his ambition to buy Florida’s historic — but now hurricane-ravaged — Hialeah Park racetrack, closed since 2001.
At the time, Minor hadn’t stepped foot in the park, which reportedly will require between $25 and $30 million to restore (money that wouldn’t include its purchase price, another estimated $40 million). Minor — who had studied pictures of Hialeah on the Internet — told the Palm Beach Post it didn’t matter. “What I really care about is what it looked like in its heyday. That’s what I want to recreate…I care about the end state.”
It seems Hialeah’s owner for the past 31 years, John Brunetti, doesn’t much care what Minor wants. Although he agreed to sit down with Minor in August and to review a “voluminous” study, Brunetti is apparently still not selling the track. In September, he told Blood-Horse magazine that “I don’t think [Minor] understands this business.” (In an online forum, a racing fan had another interpretation, commenting that “Brunetti would sooner sell his kids than sell Hialeah.”)
Minor hasn’t given up his dream of becoming a racetrack impresario. Still, his newer, more ambitious, plans aren’t looking any more promising right now.
Last month, Minor proposed to the board of Ontario-based Magna Entertainment Corp. — which owns horse tracks around the U.S. — that they let him buy hundreds of millions of dollars of Magna’s debt and take over the company. Where Minor would get the money is a good question. (He has been spending up a storm in recent years.)
A bigger problem are the dramatically divergent visions of Minor and the real-estate company that controls Magna, lent it $286 million, and has been cool to Minor’s offer, according to Canada’s National Post.
While Minor, a self-described purist, considers slot machines a “cancer” to Thoroughbred racing and told the Post that he would “rather go to jail than have slots,” Magna’s owner hasn’t just imagined slots at the company’s tracks but nearby shopping, as well.
The holding company is going to get its way, too — at least at its Laurel Park track in Maryland. Yesterday, voters there approved a ballot measure that will allow Magna to install potentially thousands of slot machines on its property.
Halsey Minor said on November 5, 2008
Connie, its such a shame you write such foolish prose. Given how poor your facts tend to be I would have expected you to make it up with words that quietly rolled from one to the next. Instead we get “spending up a storm” which is neither informative or elegant.
Did they keep you on at Portfolio after you wrote your silly, pointless and partially accurate story about me being a “Bad Boy” in Silicon Valley, a place I only see from the air if I see it at all.
Either pump up the prose, or secure some facts like other journalists, but this half fact, half invention in a pedestrian form just isn’t interesting.
Sorry, just one man’s opinion.
Pot Calls Kettle Black said on November 6, 2008
Halsey: while I found this article entertaining and well written, that too is just one man’s opinion.
Moving on to more objective judgements: your prose is far, far worse than what you imagine the reporter’s to be.
A forgiving summary of your errors would include:
First sentence missing apostrophe with “its;” second sentence missing a comma after “be”; “make it up” should be “make up for it;” “quietly rolled” perhaps should be “smoothly rolled;” “neither informative or elegant” should be “neither informative nor elegant.”
The second paragraph begins as a question, but there is no question mark.
I don’t know what to make of the third paragraph, grammatically. First, it should be two sentences, the second sentence should begin with “but,” but that’s only the beginning of the problem.
Re word choice, how exactly does one “pump up prose”? Like a basketball? How is a fact “secured”? Like Fallujah? Furthermore, the “pedestrian form” you refer to: do you mean the form of a blog entry? The shape of the story on the Web page? Perhaps you meant “format”? Perhaps you meant “style.” Also, if it truly is “half invented” it sounds anything but “pedestrian.”
I don’t know how Ms. Loizos would do as an investor, but at least she knows her wheelhouse.