Freakonomics Radio

Thoroughbred auction prices keep setting records. But tracks are closing, gambling revenues are falling, and the sport is increasingly reliant on subsidies. Is that the kind of long shot anybody wants? (Part three of a series, “The Horse Is Us.”)

• SOURCES:
  • Anne Archer Hinkle, owner and director of Hinkle Farms.
  • Cormac Breathnach, senior director of sales operations at Keeneland.
  • Emily Plant, thoroughbred researcher and statistician, associate professor of marketing at the University of Montana.
  • Mark Taylor, president of Taylor Made Farm.
  • Marshall Gramm, horse player, professor of economics at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.
  • Richard Migliore, head racing analyst for Fox Sports and New York Racing Association, retired jockey.
  • Sean Feld, bloodstock agent.
  • Scott Heider, managing principal of Chartwell Capital, thoroughbred investor.
  • Thomas Lambert, economist at the University of Louisville.

• RESOURCES:
  • Death of a Racehorse: An American Story, by Katie Bo Lillis (2025).
  • “State of the States 2025: The AGA Analysis of the Commercial Casino Industry,” (American GamingAssociation, 2025).
  • “An Empirical Analysis of Reputation Effects and Network Centrality in a Multi-Agency Context,” by Emily Plant (University of Kentucky, 2010).
  • Calculated Bets: Computers, Gambling, and Mathematical Modeling to Win (Outlooks), by Steven Skiena (2001).
  • Bill Oppenheim and Emily Plant’s Thoroughbred Market Reports.
  • Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority.

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