No Monday blog the last couple of weeks with a lot going on, but......
Most everyone saw the debacle that was the Saratoga late pick five on Sunday. With the super-late change to off the turf, about $1M in wagers became a total mess. Someone then dropped the ball and didn't delay post time so people could cancel or change their tickets. To make things as right as they can, there's a $100k pick five seed slated for this Saturday.
How do things like this seem to continually happen in this sport?
Sure there are a lot of moving parts in getting a race card, or race off. Mother nature and acts of God certainly play at least some role at times. Sometimes things are nobody's fault.
However, a good deal of the time they are someone's fault. And I think it's because no one is employed in virtually in any of these corporations-run-as-racetracks that's there to mind the betting store.
When Churchill quickly cancelled a last race on a card with a customer having a chance at $700,000 as a sole ticket jackpot winner, no one was there to say "we owe it to the customer to wait it out and get this race off". I doubt anyone who made the decision even knew about the will pays.
When the Kentucky Racing Commission allowed Churchill to take half a carryover pool - something Steve Crist called the "Sick Six" a day later - and use it for an upcoming card, there was no one there to say, well, Steve Crist is going to write about it tomorrow because it stinks. There was apparently no one employed who even recognized this would become an issue.
The list, of course, goes on and on.
There are people out there, perfectly capable to say, "let's give bettors five minutes to change their wagers", or "hey, can we wait for this cell to move through because one of our customers has a chance at $700,000", or "let's not card a 12 horse field maiden claimer on synth as the third leg of a pick six mandatory", or "hey, these will pays are weird we need to look into this race" or ..... you get the picture.
But the problem is, there's no job opening for them to do it.
Without someone minding the wagering store these things will happen again and again and again. It's fixable, but for decades they seem unable or unwilling to address it. It completely boggles my mind.
Have a nice Thursday everyone.
1 comment:
Yes. Someone said on Facebook the hell with the bettors, only the horses and jockeys count. The safety of the horses and jockeys are the main priority. It is just a little common courtesy for the bettors would nice.
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