Chat Board Chatter

It is always fun to scan the chat boards. Sometimes you get an absolute gem or two when reading. And it is rarely not entertaining.

Some examples:

Whip on Harnessdriver.com used 7 of 9 horses last night in the last leg of a pick 4. Yes, you know what's coming - he lost, by a head as one of the two he did not have beat him for $3400. He asked a fellow poster a question:

"Alpha.. I need you to smash a beer bottle off my head"

By the way, whip ain't dumb to be playing the Cal Expo pick 4. They just lowered their take to 15% on it.

Another poster on the same board (and this one really made me laugh), Caper, had a comment about takeout. It is on a topic where horse trainers and other participants are planning and discussing a poker tournament with a $130 buy in. This bettor poked his head in and said this:

"When you take the $130 from each horseman.... make sure after each one gives you the money you take $40 off the top.... light a match and burn it right in front of their faces.... and then ask them.... "how do you like it?"

A poster on Paceadvantage, on the Secretariat Belmont thread, which is discussing Big Red's blowout win in a track record 2:24, spoke about the fact that on the gallop out, he broke Man O War's 1 and 5/8's mile record. I did not know that. In addition, his 10 furlong time in the Belmont, broke the track record (1:59) for that distance. So, Secretariat, in one race, broke three track records. Amazing.

Elsewhere on Paceadvantage, Ray Schell has been a participant in the Pen and Micro-Chip challenge, a competition on who was the best Tioga handicapper for their meet, which ended tonight. The winner? A micro-chip player, the Chatsworth Consortium on Trackmaster. If you played along and bet their picks at Tioga, you were ahead 16%. The computer cappers outdid the pens overall, with a 4% overall win ROI, while the pens did not do bad at all, -1%. If the takeout hike was not lowered, both would have lost. Congrats to Tioga and to the players for some excellent handicapping.

The chatter about the new Standardbred Plan to up marketing and development spend by 5% of purses, is ratcheting up. I was told just last week that if horsemen groups came out for the measure he would give me 500-1 odds. Sure enough, he was right. The comments on the story are quite good. Dave Vicary, a retired technology exec posted a good one, that I agree with:

And the revenues continue to spiral downwards while the camps form and roadblocks are erected (for obvious political reasons)...

The RDSP team is willing to devote their energies to tackle this monumental industry challenge. They are building a plan, they are trying to move forward. These organizations can remain in denial and watch their numbers continue to dwindle or get on board and influence the outcome."