A group of investors has raised funding to buy 36 racehorses this summer for the purposes of creating a novel, highly ambitious, league-type structure within the sport of horse racing, the organizers of the effort announced on Tuesday. The founders, who include Randall Lane, the chief content officer of Forbes, said they are attempting to create an event-focused league for Thoroughbred racehorses that will be modeled on other sporting leagues, though the concept has no precedent in racing. Under the concept, a company structured as a “league office” will buy the racehorses privately, conduct a draft among six team owners that are all equity holders in the league, and fund the purses for a series of races to be held on five weekends in the late summer and fall at five different tracks, starting with Kentucky Downs on Sept. 2-3, Labor Day Weekend. According to Lane, the purpose of the league will be to build “fun weekends where we can draw a lot of people out to experience this great sport.” The league office will sell tickets to events held in concert with the races, as well as seek out sponsorships and other revenue sources, Lane said. “Several times a year we see that Thoroughbred racing is as good as anything in the world,” Lane said. “The Kentucky Derby week is as good [an event] as anything in the world. The Preakness, the Belmont, the Breeders’ Cup. Why can’t we have more of that?” :: Take your handicapping to the next level and play with FREE DRF Past Performances - Formulator or Classic.  The organizers are calling the company the National Thoroughbred League. Under the structure, the league has already designated six teams headed by their owners, who are all equity partners in the company, though those teams will not technically own the horses. Instead, the horses will be owned by the company, which will pay the expenses for the care of the horses. Each league “event” will include three races open only to horses that are owned by the company, the organizers said. Each team will be able to enter one of their six horses in each of the three races, for a maximum field of six horses in each race. Betting will be allowed on the races, administered by the track, with the proceeds of the betting going to the host track and its horsemen, the organizers said. Tom Ludt, a former chairman of Breeders’ Cup Ltd. and former president of the Vinery sales and breeding operation, has been hired as the league’s president of horse operations. Ludt said on Monday that he will begin buying the horses for the company this summer, in anticipation of an early July draft. All the horses will be acquired privately, Ludt said, and the company will be looking for “high-allowance, low stakes-level horses.” “We’re going to try to get the best horses we can get without breaking the bank,” Ludt said. “It’s going to be a balancing act. We’re not going to be buying cheap claiming horses, but we’re also not going to be buying Grade 1 winners.” Under the structure, each team owner has bought an equal share of equity in the company, Lane said. The budget for the acquisitions is coming out of that initial funding round, Lane said. He declined to provide the budget for the acquisitions or the budget for the league office. The team owners will have the authority to pick the trainers and jockeys for their horses “within league rules,” Ludt said. The horses in the league will not be able to enter any races outside of the NTL-designated races, the organizers said. The organizers said they have scheduled five events throughout the fall, starting with the Labor Day event at Kentucky Downs and culminating in a “Championship Weekend” at Tampa Bay Downs on Dec. 31. The company will begin selling tickets to events associated with the Kentucky Downs weekend on Tuesday. Horses will accrue points for their teams based on their finishes in the league-restricted races, the organizers said, with the team that accrues the most points by the end of the series winning a $1 million “grand prize.” Lane will be the managing partner of the “New York” team. Robert Daughtery, a financier, will be the managing partner of the “Los Angeles” team. The other managing partners include Joe Besecker and Mike Carter for the “Philadelphia” team; Bruno and Victor Costa for the “New Jersey” team; Terry McCrary for the “Seattle” team; and Gene Rice for the “Nashville” team. When asked how the league would make money, Lane said that the entire business model revolves around selling tickets to events associated with the race dates and revenues from sponsorships. Lane also said that team owners would be free to sell stakes in their teams, and he said that several celebrities, including the NFL player Kayvon Thibodeaux and the rappers Nelly and Rick Ross, have purchased “minority shares” in some of the teams. :: Bet the races on DRF Bets! Sign up with code WINNING to get a $250 Deposit Match, $10 Free Bet, and FREE DRF Formulator.  “It’s an events model,” Lane said. “It’s based on the idea that we can bring thousands of new people to the track, and we can bring the kind of people that sponsors want to reach. So it’s no different than Preakness weekend this past weekend. We’ll be running events the entire weekend, not just the event at the track. It’s not just the races, it’s the lifestyle around the races.” Lane also said that the league would explore retaining revenues from the tracks and from wagering if they were successful in “driving more attendance, driving more betting.” In addition, the league intends to sell branded merchandise associated with each team, Lane said. “Out of the gate, though, it’s a pretty simple events model,” Lane said. “You’ll be buying access to something with world-class hospitality and experiences.” Ludt and Lane said that they are hoping to add more teams to the league in the future, along with adding more events to the series and expanding the rosters for each team. The league office will therefore need to refresh its acquisition budget in the future. “We have to look at this as a start-up,” Ludt said. “It’s probably going to look a lot different in three or four years. … It’s absolutely outside-of-the-box. That’s what’s so exciting about it.” :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.