Notes for a Friday

Hi everyone. It's pitch black here at like 4:15PM (I love December), it's kind of cold, but at least it's the weekend. Bachelor night again, with the dog and I probably playing the Meadowlands and watching sports of some sort. Right now the choice is heavily slanted to curling, but hey, it's Canada.

Anyhow....

Yesterday we spoke quite a bit about fantasy sports and racing's rather perplexing belief that somehow it can work for this sport. Scanning the twitter I see some asking if it can work in any way at all. I guess it could, but one has to realize that horse racing already has a fantasy league at the pari-mutuel windows. We bet a horse to win a race in the win pool, bet them to win in a set of races in a pick 4 pool, and bet them to win and run in a certain order. Daily fantasy games provide the casual fan a chance to wager on something that was previously not bettable. If someone wants to wager on racing, head to the track.

Mike Dorr had a look at what Fantasy Horse Racing might look like if done right in Horseplayer Monthly.

Kudos to Bill Finley for skewering Miller's (and the sport) reaction to the kicking fine he received for his actions on McWicked.  Harness racing truly feels beyond any hope. 

Handle at Turfway continues to be very good. Watch the bias there if you choose to play. It can sometimes result in some nice bombs.

Ryan Goldberg's lovely long form article on Japan racing is well worth a read. We have to be careful when we compare handles from Japan and here, however, because it's a trap. Japan has a regulated betting market and its a culture that bets on speed boat racing.

Lots of chatter about tying purses to field size. Something that should've been done long ago, I feel. California horsemen will explode if that happens. The culture there likes to race every seven weeks in five horse fields. They feel that's the weighted average that horse racing needs. Go figure.

Lenny had a few suggestions about how to improve racing in 2015. He predictably got skewered in the comments from insiders. 

I'm off to study the program for awhile. Whatever you choose to do this weekend, please have a good one.