Friday Notes; Getting Caught Up

Well, I finally got some time to do some reading, and getting caught up on things that are happening in racing. The Guest Post Friday will come back next week.

First up, Cangamble has been typing away while I was gone. On Sunday he wrote an interesting post comparing Woodbine’s payouts for hosting Keeneland’s signal, as well as some other thoughts. With common pooling we expect common payouts. This as a horseplayer is NON-negotiable. I don’t care whose finger is in what pie, what horseman group wants what out of what pool: If you advertise common-pooling you common pool. How difficult is this? The first rule of marketing in business is never over-promise and under-deliver. Not paying out common pool payouts while they are being advertised to customers is simply unacceptable. Horseplayers have been nickled and dimed, hoodwinked and taken advantage of like this for far too long. It must stop.

From Cangamble’s post:

Lets just look at the results from Race 1 at Keeneland yesterday and compare what the payoffs were at Keeneland and other American racetracks versus what Woodbine paid out to their "loyal and valued" customers through HPI:

Keeneland Payoffs
Exactor 5-9 paid $188.20 $2 Triactor 5-9-1 paid $1040.20 $2 Superfecta 5-9-1-6 paid $18,016.20 Two more things: #9 paid $14.60 to place and #1 paid $4.40 to show.

What WEG paid their "loyal and valued" customer
Exactor 5-9 paid the same as Keeneland. $2 Triactor paid $963.80 (92.6% of what it paid at Keeneland). $2 Superfecta paid $16,681.70 (again 92.6% of what it really paid at Keeneland). Those who bet the 9 to place or the 1 to show received a dime less for their troubles as well.

If you swept the exotics in the Canadian "common pool" you would have gotten over $1500 less. That's $1500. A nice, top of the line 42 inch plasma TV. Who gets your TV? Woodbine, the government, a local horse owner? I don't know, but whomever does it is shameful. It's your money, not theirs. If they want a TV they can go buy one with their own money.

I see Majestic Son’s book is full and closed. This is great. He was not only a superior athlete, their owners were sportsman. They didn’t much like Glidemaster getting all the press in the US when they knocked heads, so they decided to say no to the bigger bucks of breeding and retiring the horse as a 3YO. They wanted to crush the world record, and go throughout the US as a 4YO and try and kick some butt. Unfortunately this plan did not work out that well and Majestic Son had to be stopped with because of an injury. This in no way tarnished this horse. If anything it made me respect and cheer for him even more. I am glad the breeders agreed and made sure his book was packed. I hope he becomes an awesome sire.

A rather self-serving, expected article on gambling contributing to the economy by the Canadian Press is reported on Standardbred Canada. Lotsa jobs, lotsa money, yadda, yadda, yadda. If we sunk money into ping-pong ball manufacturing, we would create many jobs making ping-pong balls. It’s a nothing report.

Here is an absolutely classic response from an owner of a horse, courtesy equidaily. I herewith apologize to everyone who placed a bet on my horse in the Illinois Derby. Horse owning is a frustrating thing, I tell ya.

Last up, I see the Meadowlands is offering a bit higher guarantee on their pick 4’s. This is due, I assume to common pooling. In Canada, through Woodbine and HPI, bettors placed about $7000 a night into the pick 4 pools. Now that is going directly into the Meadowlands pool. I don’t care much for the Meadowlands any longer. I feel they do not protect me as a bettor as witnessed by the Rucker decision, and not fighting harder against Ledford; but I will say, they are business people who try to raise handles with low pick 4 rakes and guarantees like this. That’s a good thing.

We’ll keep reading the voluminous news out this week and see if we can’t find anything else out there. I am sure there is.