Sunday, December 26, 2010

Who Writes the Headlines at the Bloodhorse?


Has the Bloodhorse been taken over by Pravda?

Handle was off 23.6% and it appears to be the worst opening day in terms of betting handle since 1995.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Blood-horse is switching to hard news..... some headlines......

"New Coke" is a great idea

"Newspaper Sales are Growing"

"Internet Yet to Catch On"

..... seriously, how does an industry address problems, when the major press reports like this? The DRF story is only marginally better. The SA President who said it was "a good day at Santa Anita" must have been taken at face-value without any fact checking (I hope)

Anonymous said...

What's the scoop PTP? Why the bad day?

Pull the Pocket said...

I have no idea anon.

All I know is reading the numbers, it appears it was not weather (Tampa Bay handle was big, and cancellations should have helped, not hurt). The off the turf seems to be a red herring since three races were off turf in 2008 and they did 15 million in handle. And last, it seems it could not have to do with signal lockouts because last season the mid-atlantic tracks did not have the signal, which is a huge amount of handle.

So, like I said.... no idea. All I know is I bet zero this year, so my handle was lost. But it wasnt several million. I dont have that much in my accounts :)

I am shocked, quite frankly. All the scuttlebutt I heard from CA was that everyone was expecting a blow out handle today. I felt they really put quite a bit effort into opening day, especially since they have been getting so much bad press with the takeout increase/boycott.

PTP

Anonymous said...

Maybe they meant it was a success because nobody got shot? I don't think there was a shooting there today. So it was a successful day!

Anonymous said...

Interstate was down too, something like 15%. Bad day for some reason. I did not watch it... I have had enough of Cali-racing.

Pacingguy said...

This is the old style thinking coming into play. Any track that gets 34,000 people to show up is a successful opening.

They are not considering the handle.

Anonymous said...

Legend has it that a Broadway talent scout, after an audition by a young Fred Astaire, made a notation "Can't sing -- can't dance."

Could it be his great grandson, now speaking for Santa Anita, telling us "It was a great day for Santa Anita" and that "Maybe only 1% " of our fans" care about takeout?

SaratogaSpa said...

Good the bad weather on the east coast had an effect. I think a lot of east coast people were preoccupied with the snowstorm and simply did not have time to bet.

Pull the Pocket said...

Hey Spa,

I have no idea, but I am reading some posts around. I convinced myself it was weather, then I read that Tampa did 3.2M last year Sunday and did 4.8M yesterday, Turf Paradise (near the same post time) was up from 1.2M to 1.5M and Hawthorne was up as well. How do all these other tracks get higher handle and SA gets 24% lower if it is the east coast bettors?

Anyhow, I have no idea, Barry Meadow said it best at the PR. There are numerous reasons for lost handles. The problem is we have not seemed to recognize the trend and start trying to reverse it. We have to get cracking.

PTP

Anonymous said...

thank goodness we have aqu. on wed. and g.p. next we. to look forward to.
extra time to put together a bankroll.
cal. was finnished long before the idiots that run the board and the state raised the take-out.
they deserve what they get.
the new take-out is NOT 2-3%.
IT IS 10-15%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
no wonder the state is bankrupt.

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