Nice Pool and Good for Kentucky

Big pick 4 pool at the M tonight:

$1 Pick 4 (Pool $227,949) (4-6-4-2) $6,870.00

Not a bad payoff as well with a $4.80 winner kicking off the sequence.

Not too long ago we were griping about sure you can raise a takeout on a pool, and sure you can just go through the motions. However, when you brand yourself with a pool, your track can win. The Meadowlands clearly (with the 15% take) has branded their pick 4. If you want to play a pick 4, you play it at the Meadowlands. Whether it is true or not is irrelevant. People think so, thus it is.

If an exec at the M ever wanted to raise their branded pick 4 to 25% (like some track we know did not long ago) they should be canned immediately. It is their bet for North American harness racing and they have taken this and ran with it by sticking with it. Ask a Madison Ave exec and he will throw a "6 in 60" at you. It costs $60 million and takes sixty months to brand something. It does not happen overnight.

I challenge other tracks to do the same thing - get a bet, make it low rake, and brand it. You have four hours a night to advertise it for free, there is no excuse for this. It's basic business.

Big news out of Kentucky today for bettors. No takeout hike to 'pay for stuff':

Clark also said he isn't pushing the other bill dealing with pari-mutuel taxes because he didn't think it could pass because of "so much pushback" from the tracks.

Good for the Kentucky tracks for standing up for bettors. Four or five years ago I bet they just would have silently pushed it through, then wondered a few years later why handle was down in some sort of ritualistic hand-wringing exercise.