Peter Schorsch
The thoroughbred horse racing industry in Florida is well on its way to scoring a win this Legislative Session, with a Senate measure stalled and a Governor who has suggested he might veto anything that could come out of the House, should the Senate even take it up.
But the monthslong process of crafting, amending and debating whether the state’s two thoroughbred horse tracks should be able to maintain licenses for card rooms and slot machines regardless of whether they host live racing — known as decoupling — has shed light on another issue.
That is, the main advocacy arm for the thoroughbred industry is receiving state subsidies but is not improving the industry’s outlook, raising the specter of whether it should be evaluated under elected leaders’ state goals to root out government waste.
The Florida Thoroughbred Breeders and Owners Association (FTBOA) collects 10% of gross receipts deposited into its Awards Account used to administer the payment of awards to race winners and placers and for general industry promotion. The FTBOA earns additional revenue from horse breeders and owners required to register their horses with the group, which amount to significant fees that are required to receive awards and incentives.
From 2011 until 2023, the group brought in $29 million in revenue, including $1 million in membership dues, $19 million from registrations and administrative fees, and $7.6 million from slots and electronic wagering under an agreement with the state that began in 2014, according to 990 filings reviewed by Florida Politics.
During that same time, the group spent nearly $10 million on executive compensation and employee benefits, and $3.1 million on lobbyists, consultants and lawyers. The FTBOA spent just $1.7 million on “advertising/promotion” of the industry.
And, the industry writ large receives significant state subsidies. Last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation establishing permanent yearly distributions of $27.5 million “to promote breeding and racing horses.”
Yet the industry has continued its decline.
From 2022 to 2023, the share of the North American foal crop fell from 6.4% to 6%, and the number of Florida registered foals dropped by 7.3%. The number of Florida-bred stallions dropped from 72 in 2023 to just 60 in 2024, a nearly 17% reduction. That’s after the number of Florida-bred stallions dropped by a staggering 76% from 2004, when 259 were bred in the state.
Auction results for Florida-bred thoroughbreds is also in decline, with 434 weanlings sold in 2004, but just 10 in 2024. And the average price paid for the weanlings dropped nearly 24% over that period.
So too are racing performance and participation trends on the decline, with 10,331 Florida-bred starters in 2004 and just 3,273 in 2024.
Already, lawmakers seem to be addressing subsidies that appear to not be working. The House Budget Committee on Tuesday OK’d a bill (HB 7033) that would maintain the current subsidies, but would remove FTBOA as a receiving or administering entity by striking the association from existing subsidy statutes and removing the $5 million in those subsidies that is currently directed to FTBOA.
It also removes the association from references to funding directly for Tampa Bay Downs and Gulfstream Park — the two thoroughbred race tracks at the center of everything — and removes the requirement that horses be registered with the Association.
But they could go further.
DeSantis in February announced a Florida version of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a state task force to “examine state agencies to uncover hidden waste, and even audit the spending habits of local entities to shine the light on waste and bloat.”
Senate President Ben Albritton has already praised Florida’s DOGE, arguing “people have a problem with unelected federal bureaucrats having so much unchecked authority.”
And while DeSantis is on breeders’ side in the decoupling fight, his reason, expressed during a visit to the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Company last week, seems to support a look into the FTBOA’s use of state funds. There, he said it seemed like the Legislature is “basically having proposals that have the effect of harming the industry here in Florida to basically benefit one special interest.”
To be clear, DeSantis was referring to the ownership team behind Gulfstream Park, which is from Canada. And he was clearly speaking against the decoupling measure. But, if applied in general, his statements support ensuring special interests don’t have an out-sized say in any particular industry.
Given the ongoing degradation to the thoroughbred industry, which industry leaders have acknowledged, and the fact that the FTBOA and industry are doing less with more, it doesn’t seem a stretch to take a closer look at how to continue ensuring state dollars are being used efficiently and effectively.
To put that into perspective, an analysis of available revenue and breeding data shows that funding for the FTBOA increased nearly $8,000 per foal from 2018 to 2024, from just under $6,000 to nearly $14,000. That is more than $10,000 per foal than is spent on early childhood education per pupil in Florida, and more than $8,000 more than is spent per student in K-12 public schools.
Those numbers are especially troubling when considering that only a fraction of FTBOA’s revenue is directed at boosting the industry its mission claims to serve, while spending far more on executive compensation and lobbyists.
