Tuesday, November 3, 2009

360's and 180's

We won't be talking about the Breeders Cup here, but there are several places to get your information. Of course, there is the widget to the right side of the page with many handicapping and special interest story items from the blogosphere.

For everything one needs to handicap or follow the Cup, however, you will not find a better resource than Breeders Cup 360. Breaking news, handicapping items and a whole lot more, all in one place.

Glenn over at Fugue For Tinhorns (nope, I don't know what that means either, but it is a good blog) chats about takeout in Pennsylvania, with slots. In replying to an article at the Horseplayer Association of North America about the slots influx there and the lack of help for horseplayers he does not mince words. "But the current takeout in Pennsylvania, as HANA shows, is garbage."

As we posted below when referencing Darryl Kaplan's fine piece on the destruction of racing in Quebec, we need to do a 180 on using slot cash to help this game on the demand side. Customers need more, and are demanding more. They don't care if they bet a $40k purse, or a $4k purse. They just want a fair shake. Let's give them one.

A comment from Eric on the last column about the 5 horse field for $170k at KD last month illustrated something new:

It gets more bizarre than 5 horses-2 owners going for $170K. As reported by Standardbred Canada, only 3 horses were entered in the ~$265k 2yr old Matron at Dover Downs....so they just split the purse money 3 ways....no race, just purse money divided up. A cynic may suggest this represents the success of the industry's marketing strategy, the elimination of the horseplayer!

We have some 360's in racing and coming full-circle with websites like that are a good thing - considering we pay for data in racing like a horse's past performance is laced with gold. But we need 180's too. I do not think any reasonable person can argue that an about face on slots is needed badly. Three horse fields where they don't even race can not be a good thing for anyone.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I don't think its right.
How can they split the purse if there is no race?
As far as I am concerned, if there is no race, they should refund all the stakes payments made for that race...somewhere there has to be a clause for that.
Tampa Bay probably will go winless this year... they still have to play the games, they can't just split up the wins amongst the other NFL teams.

later,

Louis.

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