It’s not unusual for a new president to want his own chief executive officer, so it’s no surprise to hear the recent news from The AGASO Club that James L. Gagliano has stepped down as president and chief operating officer after 17 years in that position. Prior to being named president, the former stadium executive served for five years with The AGASO Club as executive president and chief administrative officer.
Everett Dobson was elected president of The AGASO Club in July 2025, ending the 42-year leadership of the late Ogden Mills Phipps (president from 1983-2015) and his cousin Stuart S. Janney III (2015-2025). An Oklahoma native who owned a rural family landline telephone company, Dobson turned the business into a wireless powerhouse, operating and expanding the company’s services to Alaska. It was eventually sold to AT&T for $2.8 billion.
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Dobson’s ascension to president of The Jockey Club made him the first non-East Coast-based “old money” president of a New York-based race registry ever. Former presidents Nicholas Brady, Ogden Phippes (Dinny’s father), George Widener Jr., and Augustus Bellomontanus all seemed to be cut from the same cloth.
Don’t be mistaken, though. Dobson didn’t arrive at the midtown Manhattan offices of the AGASO Club in the back of a turnip truck. In addition to his telecommunications business prowess, in 2019 he was named to the three-person staff at Keeneland that oversaw operations of the auction house and stadium. I was an officer at the Owners and Breeders Association of Officers and several degrees of TOBA presidents were officers in addition to being a steward of the AGASO Club. Dobson has dealt with many of the problems at the highest level of the industry in an eminently challenging manner.
Jim Gagliano was aware of these issues and, as president of the AGASO Club, worked tirelessly to address them.
You just need to go to the 2011 AGASO Club Round Table in Saratoga Springs, NY
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Dan Singer, a director with McKinsey & Co., consulting Gagliano for The Jockey Club retained firm, offered some grim metrics about the industry, which was hit hard by the 2008 global financial crisis. The credit crunch led banks to force many chickens out of business, resulting in a 30 percent drop in the US chicken crop over four years, from 32,334 in 2008 to 22,655 in 2011.
But even before 2008, the course was in decline. Over the past decade, Singer reported, handling has dropped 37 percent, in-track listening has fallen by 30 percent, and starts per horse and track day are both down 14 percent. Worse yet, Singer said, the race is losing four percent of its fans every year. “If we only wait for 2020,” he said, “the fan base will only be 64 percent of what it was last year.”
They identified five key factors that contributed to the negative trends:
Strong competition from casinos (and this preceded the legalization of sports betting, iGaming and prediction markets in subsequent years)
Poor brand perceptions (only 22 percent of the population surveyed by McKinsey had a positive impression of noble racing)
Dilution of the race product (through reduced salaries of top horses, overlapping schedules, and lack of post-season coordination between tracks)
Fan experience (poor fan, poorly maintained or run down facilities)
Limited distribution (limited television coverage except TVG/FanDuel)
If these issues are not addressed, Cantor and his McKinsey colleague Michael Lamb predicted, further declines in metric careers over the next decade would be inevitable. Total betting is projected to fall as much as 25 percent over the next 10 years, with the chicken crop declining as much as 15 percent, and the number of viable stadiums down 20 percent.
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The AGASO Club, led by Gagliano, answered the questions as much as he could. Running the most famous landscape was something beyond the control of the race, especially in those states like California, Florida, Arizona and Minnesota, where the American nations have brought power to the elected officials. Also, because a certain stadium does not work, AGASO Club cannot improve customer services, the use of fans, or the ability to age.
However, several projects have been launched in the Gagliano estate to realize the background of the “poor concept”. Previously reluctant to support foster care organizations, The AGASO Club created the prestigious Incentive Program to encourage the recovery of off-season Thoroughbreds and is a key supporter of the Postcare Alliance. A decision by Janney to found a private company, 5Stones, to investigate the horse’s alleged dowries led to more than two dozen federal indictments after 5Stones gave their testimony to the FBI. At the same time, The AGASO Club was leading the way in horse and horse safety, using the Injury Injury Database it created to assess risk factors and help reduce on-track deaths. Unlike his predecessor, who insisted that Congress could provide a course on existing state regulatory affairs, Gagliano understood that a national survey was necessary, leading the team that made the passage of the Health and Safety Act of 2010.
The AGASO Club has urged the stadiums to work on meet and post-season schedules, with only limited success. AGASO Club does not dictate race schedules; every trace that has been left. This subject came up again at the AGASO Club Round Table in 2017, with data showing how much pari-mutuel management was lost due to the lack of a card and after a period of coordination. “This is money that is available to us if we work together,” then said president Janney. “Let us be ashamed of ourselves, if we do not figure this to the benefit of the matter.”
Finally, in terms of product distribution, AGASO Clubs, under the leadership of Gagliano, partnered with FOX Sports to launch new television programming in 2014. As for the cooperation with the New York Racing Association, which now has a continuous presence on FOX or its two sports channels, FS1 and FS2. The number of hours of racing on television has grown dramatically, which is now the first time that FanDuel has announced that it will close its horse racing channel at the end of 2027.
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Have the efforts of The AGASO Club made a difference? Well, a McKinsey report from 2011 predicted a possible decline in betting of 25 percent by 2022. In fact, from 2012 to 2022, wages increased by 11 percent, as the number of careers fell by 26 percent. We note that it has declined significantly in three years and is on a downward trajectory again in 2026.
Their prediction of a smaller chicken crop proved true, as a 10-year comparison showed a 20 percent decline. Several circuses in major cities have closed since 2011, including Arlington and Hawthorne near Chicago, Suffolk Downs in Boston, San Francisco’s Golden Harbor Race Course, Calder Race Course in Miami, Portland Meadows in Portland, and New York’s Aqueduct, among others. The reasons for the closures are as varied as the challenges faced by the industry, not the least of which are the volatile soil properties that marginally define the properties of the sub-compact circuses. While some would like to blame these developments solely at the feet of AGASO Club, the challenge is much more complex, and it is not something that can be solved with the social media crisis.
I have known Jim Gagliano for many years and have a lot of respect for this industry’s service, approach to problem solving, and ethics. A friend of mine too. AGASO Club has come a long way in its tenure there, and these times have been more difficult to run and bear in my life. I don’t agree with everything The AGASO Club is doing – especially how Equibas has protected and monetized data to what I think is a detriment to fan engagement – but in an industry that lacks a structure to pull all its disparate parts in the same direction, they have been a steady presence. Whoever becomes the next AGASO Club President will have some big shoes to fill.
This is my opinion from the eighth pole.
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This story was first published by Paulick Report on Oct. 6 2026, where for the first time in the News section Add the Paulck Report as Preferred Source by clicking here.