TOBA Concierge Service Provides Valuable Resource To Owners
If you own a Thoroughbred and are taking it to a racetrack or to a sale where you’ve never been before, you probably have a dozen questions.
Who do you call to get stalls? Where should you stay? Where should you eat? How do you get a box seat at the track? Do you need a rental car, a car service or are taxis readily available?
Like the old movie line asks: Who you gonna call?
The Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and Fasig-Tipton have joined together to create the TOBA Owners Concierge Program. It is a service dedicated to providing owners with superior customer service.
They hope their members will call owners concierge services director Christina Bossinakis at 732-677-9626 or email her at christinaboss@toba.org to get needed help; or go to the website https://ownersconnection.horse, which is a guide to North American thoroughbred tracks and area resources.
Maryland owners, trainers and consignors traveling out-of-state can call on the service when they are going to unfamiliar tracks and sales.
“I think it’s a great idea,” says Maryland MTHA Director Bob Manfuso, who has been in the public eye this year due to the success of Cathryn Sophia, the G1 Kentucky Oaks winner who was bred at his and trainer Katy Voss’ Chanceland Farm. “Anytime you reach out to recognize the owner, to help him, her or them and get them to the racetrack is fabulous. I don’t think there is any question about its usefulness.”
It also means owners, trainers and consignors from elsewhere are being helped in similar fashion when they come to Maryland.
“If someone who had never been to Pimlico or Laurel Park, for instance, was running a horse there or just going to the tracks without a horse running, they might need answers to where do I stay? How do I get there?” says Bossinakis. “I might direct them to a car service, a charter flight. And I might direct them to track hospitality. It all depends on what they’re looking for.”
In Maryland, Phoebe Hayes is the Maryland Jockey Club’s well-known and respected director of horsemen’s relations. She says she appreciates TOBA’s new concierge service.
“The TOBA service really does help the owners who have never been here before, even new owners in the state,” says Hayes. “They now know who to call and it means people come to me in a better frame of mind because they haven’t wasted two days trying to figure out who to call and then how to reach that person.”
The program is free, funded by TOBA and the Fasig-Tipton auction firm. It is primarily for the use of owners and consignors, who are going to tracks and sales. But Bossinakis says trainers are using it, too, to help their owners.
“We’re finding a lot of trainers are making a lot of the plans for their owners,” Bossinakis says. “Some have someone taking care of customer service, some don’t. We’re trying to take some of that off their plates. Our aim is to help with the care of their clients.”
The program was launched in the spring of 2015, created after several TOBA board members, sitting together at a meeting, began talking about some of their needs that weren’t being addressed when they were traveling.
“They left feeling there needed to be a service for owners, trainers and consignors,” Bossinakis says. “This program came from that conversation and continues to evolve.”
