Gagliano:

Thank you. Well, good morning, everyone. Our closing panel of the day is going to examine trends, statistics, challenges, and potential solutions related to how weather is affecting our respective industries. And to begin, we’re going to take a look at some information from Equibase tracking weather related cancellations, race cancellations from 2015 through 2024. Let’s get started. Over the 10-year period, total race days declined by 24%, yet the number of weather-related cancellations increased by nearly 25%. The average number of cancellations rose from 68 and a half per year, between 15 and 18 to 85 and a half per year from 2021 to 2024. The highest year on record was 2023 with 103 cancellations. Summer months saw the most significant change, no surprise, from an average of seven and a half summer cancellations between 2015 and 2018, the number increased to almost 30 per summer in the 2021 to 24 period, an increase of nearly 300%.

Notable spikes included 29 cancellations in June of 23 due to the heat dome and additional heat related disruptions in July and August of last summer. Winter weather also remains a major factor as well. February 2021 recorded 41 cancellations, February 2015 had 32, and January of 24 saw 27. So, to dive into this topic, I thank my fellow panelists. We have Glen Kozak, executive vice president of Operations and Capital Projects for NYRA. Glen oversees facility and track operations at Belmont, Saratoga, and Aqueduct, including all 14 racing surfaces and fleet equipment. He also leads the company’s annual capital improvement projects. Before joining NYRA in 2008, Glen and I worked together at the Maryland Jockey Club where he was vice president of Facilities and Racing Services. Additionally, we’re very lucky to have Dr. Allen Hershkowitz join us. Allen is the Environmental Science Advisor to The New York Yankees and serves as the official Sustainability Advisor to the NBA, Major League Soccer, The Los Angeles Clippers, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Playhouse Square. He also serves as the Environmental Advisor to Royal Albert Hall and to the United States Tennis Association. Since we’re here in Saratoga, let’s start with Glen. On the turf today or off?

Kozak:

Off the turf. Off the turf. Unfortunately.

Gagliano:

Late breaking news. We’re going to ask Glen to take us through some slides that he’s prepared to give you a peek into what’s going on at the new Belmont Park and some of the resiliency and programs they’ve put in to deal with weather related issues. Glen, take it away.

Kozak:

Thank you, Jim. So, as Jim pointed out, with what we’ve seen throughout the last 10 years, weather has impacted not only summer, winter. So, data collection has been incredibly important for us throughout the industry. So, working with not only the Racing Surfaces Testing Lab, but also our own data collection for, just as Jim pointed out, off the turf today, we’ve already had four tenths of an inch of rain. We’ve got three weather stations that we capture data. But what’s changed is, now it’s not just capturing moisture, it’s not just capturing temperature, wind speed, now in the summer months, we’ve all been exposed to not only the heat index with how it impacts racing, but also air quality testing. Who would ever think that we’d have to go through something like that where at Belmont Park prior to a day before the Belmont canceling a day of racing because of air quality.

So, there has been significant impact on how weather has affected racing. So, data collection with the decisions that we make for not only the turf racing, but also our scheduling, play a key part to that. Data collection, as I mentioned with Caleb Dempsey from Racing Surfaces Testing Lab, designing information equipment that is able to provide that real-time data for us. So, this is just Saratoga with the data collected for what the moisture content is in the track, what the cushion depth is, and also the resistance with a penetrometer. So again, technology has evolved with this, but more importantly for this panel is what we’re doing to capture some of this efficiencies with sustainability. So, with the new Belmont Park, there’s been a extensive use of reclaimed water, and Jim, we can go into that when we get a little bit further along.

Gagliano:

Great. Allen, first I’d like to share a short clip from a NewsHour video that’s available on YouTube that featured you. Roll the tape, please.

[VIDEO]

Gagliano:

Allen, how have you helped the Yankees integrate environmental-related considerations into their operations, both on the field and also with the stadium, the operations and the infrastructure that they’ve built?

Hershkowitz:

Yeah, thanks for the question and first of all, thanks to The Jockey Club for hosting this conversation. I’ve been here for the first couple of days, and I haven’t heard the words climate change and I’ve been hearing about schedules and cancellations and predicting schedules and how to address cancellations. And of course, as you indicated with your data, the primary cause of cancellation, which in the last five years and summer months have gone up 300% is weather related impacts. There is no professional sporting venue in the United States, in the world, that is not being affected by climate disruption, whether it’s heavy rains and floods, whether it’s excessive heat. Right now, heat related deaths is the number one weather related death in the United States. The Yankees actually, first of all, the leadership, you don’t get to be one of the most prominent and successful sports organizations in the world because you’re stupid.

These folks are actually incredibly smart. They pay attention to science. Science is not just another opinion. Science is not a political opinion. They get it. And actually, back in 2005, I was invited to join with Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, and for two years, he and his staff and my staff, I was a scientist at a environmental research organization, we created the “Commissioner’s Initiative on Sustainable Ballpark Operations. That research work, which designed information for every single baseball team location specific began. The analysis began in 2005, and the information was distributed to all teams in 2007. Well, Yankee Stadium’s new stadium, which opened in 2009, was being developed and designed just as the commissioner’s office was actually putting together new guidelines for development and operations from the perspective of sustainability. So the Yankees benefited from that Major League Baseball momentum as a concern of the design of the new stadium.

Remember, an old organization is the shadow of its leadership, and if you’ve got Bud Selig and Hal Steinbrenner and Randy Levine and Doug Behar all behind this, you’re going to get something spectacular. Also, believe it or not, the Yankees benefited enormously from New York’s very progressive environmental regulatory infrastructure. The Yankees are subject to more environmental regulations than any sport team, arguably in the world, but certainly in North America. They’ve got New York State, New York City, local law 84 and 97, state laws, and federal laws, and these regulations are designed to make the venue more efficient and more resilient. The way regulations come together, as you all know, is you get folks from industry, you get folks from the science community, you get folks from government, they come up and they don’t do best practices because there’s always going to be some kind of compromise related to economics and operation, but they identify better practices.

So local law 97, for example, obligated the Yankees to have to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from 2019 to 2025 by 40%. The Yankees had to undertake very careful measurement and granular analysis of; I mean literally the gasoline we use in our lawn care equipment. Everything was evaluated and we have achieved that 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions for the stadium that complies with local law 97. Well, guess what? Local law 97 now says they’ve got to do another 80% by 2030, and these numbers come from science. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has basically put together progress that businesses need to make with regards to climate greenhouse gas reductions by certain dates in order for us to not tip over into irreversible impacts. But as we already know, irreversible impacts are already happening and literally people are dying. But everything from there’s now space at Yankee Stadium for heat stress.

When fans are stressed from heat, they now have a place to go and cool out. The Yankees have been installing literally dozens and dozens and dozens, and I mean more than three dozens of water refilling stations, and they are now popularizing the use of refillable bottles. The Intuit Dome, by the way, which I’ve worked on in the LA Clippers, Steve Bauer, the owner, has 280 water hydration stations. And again, as you notice, and I’ll vary a little bit off from the Yankees, although look, the Yankees just recently, and this hasn’t been publicly announced, I don’t know that we need to publicly announce it, but I’m an advisor to MIT’s Sports Lab and MIT’s climate machine. They do very granular AI driven analysis of supply chain greenhouse gas impacts. The Yankees and actually the ownership and the leadership, the Yankees just approve this. There’s now a partnership between MIT and the Yankees so that we could get even more granular and verifiable and accurate data on the impacts the greenhouse gas and environmental impacts of the goods and services we use at the stadium.

Gagliano:

Let’s turn that to Glen. That’s a great point about data, and I’ve heard Mick Peterson has said to us that you, Glen, collect more data than any other track superintendent that they’ve come across or add. What’s the data that you’re collecting each day and who are the experts that are helping you make decisions, for example, on what’s going to happen for the balance of your day and how you’re going to condition the track? For example, with storms coming.

Kozak:

We use multiple weather services. So, there’s three different weather agencies that we have an on-call service for to be able to get speak with a meteorologist this morning. Just going over timing of the storms. Anybody knows this morning, 3:30 this morning, we missed significant rainfall that just went about two and a half miles north of the track, so we missed about a quarter of an inch of rain. Then it came in here about five o’clock this morning. So, dealing with the weather services, we’re able to get information on how we prepare the track, what we’re doing with the track, and then it’s the discussions with the racing office and the officials on what we would do for the day. But what’s important is the data that we’re able to capture is the data that we receive on the first day is different than a week into the car just from where on the turf course.

So again, you’re able to correlate not only the numbers on what you’re getting for the penetrometer or the rainfall or even the time of the rainfall. So, the way that the rain is measured in the increments. So, a hard rain compared to a longstanding six-hour drizzle that gets into the course. Those are all things that play into it, but to be able to look back on that information. But it’s not only just the data from the weather stations, the sensors that we use that are on a turf course when we’re doing the racing up here, we’re able to capture that with moisture depth on how the profile is, what the moisture content is, and then also with the rebuild down at Belmont is the engineers that have been brought in just to design the optimal growing medium to handle these changing conditions. So, the infrastructure that’s put in underneath, but also the products that are used for the new design.

Gagliano:

What are some of the features that you have at Belmont that would surprise people that you now are planning for today?

Kozak:

Yeah, if I can get the slide up back on. So, the green space is probably one of the biggest things that’s changed at Belmont with access to the infield. So with the tunnels that are to access basically 20 acres of now usable space, the other initiative that we’ve taken on is to get off of city water, so our pump station for all of our irrigation, we’re now going to be able to irrigate not only the infield, but also the new one mile synthetic track and the new turf courses as well from well water through a Long Island well permit through New York DEC. So that’s a big step, and one of the things is just trying to future proof the building of what’s underneath all the surfaces. So, all that reclaimed water that I just talked about, the infrastructure that’s in the infield to be able to handle stormwater that’s then repurposed for the irrigation, not only for the infield, but also the steps have been taken to capture stormwater off of the building. These are millions and millions of gallons each year that we’re able to now repurpose that water rather than....

Gagliano:

I see the pond in the infield. How’s that different from the one that you had previously?

Kozak:

Yeah, I mean, the pond that we currently have is two weeks’ worth of irrigation. It’s roughly 15 million gallons. It’s a lined pond. The other pond was just strictly decorative that captured stormwater from some of our parking areas. So, it was just basically a couple feet of just water visually for aesthetics, but this is functional for the racing operations.

Gagliano:

Allen, Belmont Parks clearly a great example of public private endeavor. From your perspective, what should sports teams, leagues, people that are planning racing facilities want to address? What should they address concerning environmental and weather-related standards?

Hershkowitz:

Right, so as we heard, there’s a lot of granular operational details that you need to manage, but ultimately what we need to do is stop making the problem worse. So, reducing our contribution, our use of fossil fuels, which the scientific community, and recently, actually just last week, the International Court of Justice at the Hague settled a case by concluding that fossil fuels are the primary cause of warming climate. So, what’s going on throughout sports, and I’m talking about all 30 NBA teams. I’m talking about all Major League Baseball teams are now measuring, all hockey teams are measuring the US Open, Wilmington, the Australian Open, the French Open, are all measuring, identifying opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions wherever feasible. Switching to electrification, and as you know, many states, New York, California, Massachusetts, Texas, actually Texas, Iowa, Kansas have the highest percentage of solar installed of any states in the country, and they also happen to have the lowest electricity rates as a result of that.

But identifying opportunities for mitigation. Yankees will soon be receiving its first all-electric waste hauling truck. We have changed our chillers and we are looking for our refrigerants. We use low global warming potential refrigerants. We’re doing food donations to avoid food waste. We are measuring the food waste that we generate to reduce it because food waste when it goes into a landfill amidst methane, which is very potent greenhouse gas, everything we buy is looked at obviously from a financial lens, but also two other lenses. One is what does it mean in terms of its contribution to bigger ecological problems? The Yankees are, I don’t need to tell you this, how visible and powerful a brand it is. They cannot be implicated in doing anything that’s an environmentally destructive activity. Much of what I do, a lot of what I do, I protect the brand from engaging environmental liabilities.

And what that means is to the point earlier about authenticity, everything has to be verifiable and authentic, and it takes a lot of time. We did an energy efficiency audit back in 2019, and we identified 17 enhancements for energy efficiency, and frankly, we’ve implemented about four of them over the last six years. It takes time to get this stuff done. Fan education, the Yankees, by the way, worked with the New York City Department of Transportation and put in three bike sharing stations around the stadium. The stadium already benefits. One of the things about being in New York is we have a spectacular public transit system. Personally, I really can’t live anywhere without a public transit system, I’m so used to it. And the majority of fans who come to Yankee Stadium come through public transit and fan transportation is one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitting activities associated with any sport. The Yankees promote public transit. They work with the New York City Transit Authority to have more subway cars on game days, and they’ve worked to put in three bike sharing stations around the station, and that will actually serve as an expansion of the bike infrastructure for New York City throughout the Bronx. There’s so many things that are going on, it’s....

Gagliano:

You mentioned electric. Glen, you now have equipment in the field that is all electric replacing gas powered?

Kozak:

Yes, it’s a bunch of our turf equipment. We’ve gone to battery powered Gators, battery powered weed whacking equipment. We use it specifically up here at Saratoga in the barn area when even during race days when we’re able to go through that. Also, some of the efficiencies with some of the equipment, the horse hauling equipment. So yeah, we’re looking at the next steps. Our veterinary vehicles are also electric vehicles, so for doing pre-race exams or the Lasix techs, they’re all in electric vehicles as well.

Gagliano:

So, Glen, go ahead.

Hershkowitz:

Well, I was going to say to the point about information flooding impact maps right now, FEMA maps are out of date and people need to know that. And in fact, many businesses, many businesses that I work with are using supplemental private sector analysts to study what are the climate, especially flooding impact maps for particular areas. The FEMA impact map flooding impact map data have not been updated for perhaps almost 20 years and given recent announcements that they’re going to be cutting FEMA funding, we’re not expecting those mapping enhancements that are necessary to take place. And part of it is, frankly, some real estate interests don’t want to see the theme of flood maps expand because it’s going to limit where houses could be built, but insurance companies check with your insurance company. They know your flooding risk. And as we’re seeing in California with regards to fires, as we’re seeing in Florida with regards to floods and other areas, insurance costs are going up.

And in some cases, like in Florida, they can only get insurance very often only from the state because private companies will not insure because of the data that they’re using with regards to flooding. So, it’s definitely going to affect your businesses big time financially. Billions, about tens of billions of dollars of economic adverse economic impacts at sporting events and sporting communities has occurred just in the last year, and it’s growing. This is the thing. This is not going away. Greenhouse gas emissions are still going up and the science is telling us they need to be going down, but they’re going up. And the more they go up, the more severe storms, the more disruptions we’re going to experience. We’re seeing more roofs now. Games that used to be played outdoors are being played under a roof. Marathons are being run at night because of the heat.

The schedule of UEFA and the World Cup had to be changed from the summer to the winter. Now there’s heat timeouts in professional tennis, Cricket. I’ve worked with Cricket Australia and the Australian Open. Cricket is under tremendous, tremendous pressure to talk about cancellations of games and people passing out and players vomiting from the heat. I spend time in India and around Pakistan, and of course I go to England, and I watch, and I worked with Cricket Australia. They’re very, very concerned about what these temperatures and floodings and climate is going to do, and there’s no big answer. That’s the thing. Every little bit matters. So, as Mother Teresa said, there’s no great things, only small things with great love. I spent nine months changing the straws just for the Super Bowl, and it was a good thing because then the Yankees used the straws too.

Gagliano:

We’ve got a couple minutes left. Glen has a couple last slides. Thank you, Allen, that’s really valuable information. Thank you for being such an advocate. Glen, take us through these last couple slides and then we’ll conclude. Thank you.

Kozak:

Sure. What Allen just brought up about flooding and drainage, that’s probably the biggest improvement that’s been made at Belmont for the new facility. So, it’s not a very sexy topic, but it’s critical for what we’re doing with the infrastructure that’s there. So, the reason I point that out is the old racing surfaces had minimal drainage. The main track had small trunk lines. It was built in a different era. And again, we’ve made improvements here at Saratoga with the drainage at both facilities on Oklahoma, the main track. But at Belmont, as I was mentioning earlier, all the storm water, I mean this map dictates what the different scenarios are for the drainage of both turf courses as well as the synthetic track. What you see on the western portion of this facility where that D is, is that 15-million-gallon storage, but you’re also noticing that on the main track, every one of the little black dots on the inside and outside is storm water drainage.

So again, to keep the surfaces in the best possible condition to handle those 1, 2, 3-inch rainfall events, we’re able to accommodate that now where we weren’t in the past. We didn’t have the infrastructure for it. And again, the green initiative on that is every one of those 200 wells that you see the water perk rights through the natural sand that’s out there. So, it’s just a recharge basin that we’re able to reuse for watering not only the synthetic, but then also the two turf courses. And we even have future-proofed with irrigation if we ever wanted to do anything on the main track. The other thing is just for the sustainability side of it, every one of the little dots that you see, every one of the little wells out there that you see are ponds. That’s for the dirt track drainage. So, we’re able to separate the material that comes off the dirt track because anyone that’s been around a true natural dirt surface knows the silt and clay that they see that travels with the on a rainy day like today impacts the drainage, will actually plug up the drainage. So, the emphasis on the drainage is probably one of the key points that’s changed with the construction down at Belmont and to be able to reuse the product for the millions and millions of gallons that I was mentioning.

Gagliano:

That’s really impressive planning. I’m glad you were able to share it with our audience today. Panelists, thank you very much.

Hershkowitz:

Can I just add one thing? I see a lot of water bottles. If you go to a business meeting at Yankee Stadium, you’ll see people with refillable bottles at Yankee Stadium. They’re beautifully black because that’s Yankees colors. Same for the NBA, same for Major League Soccer, same for the USTA. They have switched to refillable bottles and they’re adding more hydration stations. Last point, last year, well, in 2023, the Australian Open had to get rid of 90,000 plastic bottles. Last year they had to get rid of 400 because they found a partnership with Water Drop and they switched to refillable bottles, sold them. There were lines of people going to buy them, added more hydration stations in collaboration with a sponsorship from Water Drop, and they were literally able to reduce the amount of plastic. And remember, plastic production is petroleum and it’s a very high greenhouse gas emitter. They went from 90,000 bottles to 400 bottles in one year just by, and actually everybody feels better about having this.

Gagliano:

Similar ones in Keeneland. Thank you all for your time. Thanks.