BY GREGORY A. HALL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FLORENCE -- The man who saw his horse, Sorceror, suffer a fatal injury in Turfway Park's biggest race this year is returning as the event's new sponsor.
Gallery Furniture.com Stakes
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The sponsor: Gallery Furniture will sponsor Turfway Park's Kentucky Derby prep race for at least the next three years.
The race: The purse of the race, run the last Saturday in March, will increase from $600,000 to $750,000. A television deal with ABC Sports is being negotiated.
The history: Previously, the race was known as the Jim Beam Stakes. The bourbon maker sponsored the event the past 17 years.
The company: Gallery Furniture of Houston is owned by Jim and Linda McIngvale. They hope to use the race to market furniture on the World Wide Web offering delivery in a couple of days. They also plan to open about five stores across the country. A Greater Cincinnati site is being considered.
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The Florence track's Kentucky Derby prep race, formerly known as the Jim Beam Stakes, will now be the Gallery Furniture.com Stakes. Its purse will grow to $750,000 from last year's $600,000, and it will once again be broadcast on national television, likely ABC. The purse increase puts the Turfway stakes, to be run March 27, with the Santa Anita Derby and Florida Derby as the richest Kentucky Derby prep races.
Jim McIngvale
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Jim and Linda McIngvale own the Houston furniture store that plans to go national by marketing products over the Internet.
"Sponsoring this race offered us a nationwide platform to do that," Mr. McIngvale said Tuesday during a news conference at Turfway.
"It's going to be even more exciting than it used to be," said Turfway Chairman Jerry Carroll.
Gallery Furniture may also open a store here, one of five areas the company is looking at across the country, Mr. McIngvale said.
Compared to a stock car sponsorship that would cost $5 million, Mr. McIngvale said he preferred Turfway's race, which will cost him just under $500,000 a year.
"We've got to sell a lot of furniture to pay that back," he said.
Mr. McIngvale also has sponsored Houston Astros and Rockets games as well as a Texas horse racing championship day at Sam Houston race course.
Racing fans are good at patronizing the sport's sponsors, he said.
"We sell a lot of furniture to horse racing fans in Houston." The company is planning promotions for the race, including an Internet contest that would give away shirts and hats and eventually a free trip to the race for 20 couples.
That would play into the horse racing industry's efforts to market the sport to a younger crowd.
The agreement calls for a three-year sponsorship, but both Mr. McIngvale and track officials said that could be extended. As in other sports, sponsorships are seen as one of the best ways to inject new money into horse racing.
But getting companies to realize the benefit their products receive in turn has been a harder sell for horse racing than other sports, Mr. Carroll said.
"Whether we want to admit it or not, a lot of sponsors have a problem with the gaming element," he said.
Pepsi and Comair were among the four companies that discussed sponsoring the race.
But if it works for Visa, which sponsors the Triple Crown series, and Gallery Furniture, racing officials hope other businesses will be more willing to sign up.
Mr. Carroll, who has devoted considerable time recently to the opening of a stock car track in Gallatin County, said horse racing is still his first love.
"I want to see this race continue to flourish," he said.
In Turfway's 17-year association with Jim Beam Brands, the race ceased being known as the Spiral Stakes -- its original name -- and became an integral part of the Northern Kentucky springtime.
Attendance for what was simply called "the Beam" grew to roughly 20,000, becoming Northern Kentucky's single biggest sporting event and one of the largest in Greater Cincinnati, aside from a Bengals game or the Reds' Opening Day.
The future for some traditions that were tied to Beam, namely the race's signature bourbon-based drink are unknown.
"We're trying to steer completely away from saying Beam again," Mr. Carroll said, somewhat jokingly.
Mr. McIngvale made a special request that Turfway soften its racing surface to make it "a kinder, gentler" track. Mr. McIngvale's Sorceror became the third horse in the past two Jim Beam Stakes to be euthanized after breaking down.
Turfway President Mark Simendinger said an effort will be made to have more cushion next year by raking deeper into the track to create more loose dirt.
In an unrelated matter, Turfway is applying for an off-track betting facility for its southwestern Kentucky steeplechase race course.
The off-site betting facility for the Franklin, Ky., track would be in Hopkinsville, said Mr. Simendinger.
