Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Keeneland Reaction From the Social Airwaves

I am still pretty fascinated about this press release, in the here and now, about Keeneland going to dirt. It came at a pretty strange time.

I think this tells us (like we did not already know this) that racing is not about bettors, you or me, the horses, or anything else. It's insider run, with decisions made by insiders for the benefit of other insiders.

I'll spare some tweets from the people who like dirt (there are lots) and share only the ones who cut a knife through the interesting logic (illogic?) in this situation.















4 comments:

Unknown said...

...and so it goes, I guess the only thing to do is compare breakdown rates from 2012-2014 versus breakdown rates for Fall 2014-2015 and see the comparison. We can only hope for the horses and the jockeys at this point. This decision won't be overturned between now and installation.

Ron said...

This is great news, I haven't bet Keeneland in nearly a decade. I will be betting this fall.

Sal Carcia said...

I felt the same when many tracks decided to go over to synthetics. I was not happy because these tracks didn't care to consult or survey what the bettors felt about it. It was just in another sign of disregard for the customer.

It really came across as a bad case of sour grapes on my part. After all, it was for the safety of the horse.

Now, it is happening again in the other direction. I am once again on the wrong side of the issue. I am happy about the change back to dirt. I am not sure I can justify it. Maybe, I was still angry about the first move. I guess in the end, it can be concluded, I just have a bad attitude!

Anonymous said...

Seems like as always, "facts" can be manipulated to achieve a desired result. Has anybody questioned the POSSIBILTY that since most of the synthetic tracks are of the "higher class" variety, then MAYBE the reason there are less fatal breakdowns is because a much sounder, "classier" horse tends to be racing over those surfaces? Does the possibility exist that if you took the old, lame horses currently racing primarily on dirt track and had them race on synthetic surfaces that MAYBE they would break down just as often? And conversely, if you raced a lot of the horses currently competing on the synthetic surfaces and put them on dirt tracks, that MAYBE they'd hold up just as well? Sorry for the long-winded response - my point is that perhaps fatal breakdowns are more a function of the type of horses that are racing, rather than the surface they are racing on.

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