vegas racing advance: was great while it lasted

[freeneasy]

well the vra went out of buss. i think, last week, due to what i dont know but man it was great while it lasted.
mind you 10 to 13 tracks daily 7 days a week. that was almost heaven itself. tight little speed figs. bold readable print where you didnt have to be a bat with radar vision in order to focus in on the reading. purse value for each pp race. lots of facts and stats. comparison values. none of this crap printing up 3,4,5 horses per page making it nessecary to use 4 sometimes 5 entire pages, due to advertising space, in order to cover a 9,10, 12 horse field.
last week or so when i went down to the 7-11 to copy they didnt have it, three or 4 newsstands later i found out that they wont be sending anymore editions out west. so i dont know if they went out of bussiness or right now at this beginning stage of bussiness that their not doing well enough out west to make it an affordable venture. hopefully thats the case. that its probably best to slow down a little, stay small, stay local, keep the cost down, circulate the east coast, focus on building up a strong local clientel then start to make the move to spread out and cover more territory. and if thats the case then believe me i'll be right here anticipating the day cause it will be well worth the wait. and when i asked, each stand said that the vra was selling way better then the drf.
if i was the vra id make an appointment with donald trump and pitch him on the idea for financial backing. i tell you tho that an idea with this kind of magitude could be someting that DT would be highly interested in. come to think of it i dont think he has ever had anything to do with horse racing. hmp something like that might be good for the sport on a whole as well. donald trump farms, donald trump stables, donald trump breeder, owner ect, ect. not to mention donald trump owner-partner in the vegas racing advance. hey wheres that guys phone number..... damn it i had it around here somewhere, ahh here it is, ring ring. hey ya donnie, free here, hows it going, yeah love the last man fired show, well anyway don the reason iam calling is i got a whole hatful of great propositions to make ya, got a minute? sure free, anytime for an ol palamine. next thing ya know we got DT firing everybody and their brother on the racetrack:D just kidding but yeah something like DT getting involved in the horseracing industry might give it a nice little pinch upward, ya know.

[superfecta]

I wouldn't be too sure of DT running things.He"s broke by your and my standards.Only thing keeping him alive is cash flow and he is so deep into creditors that they will go down with him if the cash flow stops.But being broke and looking so rich is a talent I suppose......

[freeneasy]

naw this is the first time ive ever heard anything like donny boy this close to his last flush. coarse iam not much up on those things. you'd think with all the hype he's got goin on that he wouldnt even be close to circleing the toilet bowl. oh hes good then, dam good :D funny supe funny.
hey supe, ever see that segment on the dave letterman show where they titled it "whose hair is this" where they take 3 photos and in each of those photos only the top part of that head is shown so's you only see the top part of the hairdo and one photo is donald trump and the other two are photos of two monkeys and you cant see whch photos are the monkeys and which photo is donald trump and your supposed to guess based on the hairdo that you can only see in the 3 pictures, which photo is doald trump? its too hairlarious. sometimes its so close you cant tell the difference between the hairdos on the monkeys and trumps. cracks me up everytime man, everytime

[linrom1]

"But being broke and looking so rich is a talent I suppose......"

That what the whole country is doing , so DT can not claim any special kudos here.

[takeout]

Originally posted by freeneasy
none of this crap printing up 3,4,5 horses per page making it nessecary to use 4 sometimes 5 entire pages, due to advertising space, in order to cover a 9,10, 12 horse field.

Good point. I wondered about that myself the last time I saw a DRF. They sure are wasting a lot of space on many of the pages considering that they continually use the excuse of higher paper prices to raise their own. The stuff in DRF is now so small that I swear it's no bigger than the pdf stuff that I print out from TSN. It just has a little more space in between it laterally. When you factor in that it's on the cheapest old paper that they can print with, you do indeed need "bat vision" to be able to read the thing in any less than optimal conditions.

It appears that maybe they're trying to save on ink too. And they surely will if they continue to leave out races and print only a partial product... especially if they are still charging full price for it. :rolleyes: I guess somebody over there thought that was a good idea. It's not.

Looks like from now on it's just going to be one investment group after another trying to squeeze the last few bucks out of the old DRF. Anyone want to get up a pool on how soon paper is going to go up again? ;)

[freeneasy]

and you know what else takeout? thinking along the lines of the cost of paper, well out here when you buy the l.a. times newspaper, it only cost like 50 cents from monday thru sat. and like $1.50 or 2 bucks on sunday. but the point iam taking here is, is that 3,4,5 times the amount of paper goes into the daily making of the LA times then what goes into the drf. iow you can fit 10 drf's into one L.A. times newspaper. and it only cost 50 lousy cents. now i realize that the times have a larger advertising base but at the end of the day when all the bills have been paid, that is writers, cost of ink, shipping ect, i would like to know how much it cost, on the average, the drf to print up one single solitary edition. thats all i wanna know. waddayathink? 25 cents maybe?:D

[freeneasy]

Originally posted by linrom1
"But being broke and looking so rich is a talent I suppose......"

That what the whole country is doing , so DT can not claim any special kudos here.



i didnt realize i was so broke, egad this has turned into a scary thread here:D

[Suff]

Originally posted by freeneasy
well the vra went out of buss. i think, last week, due to what i dont know but man it was great while it lasted.
mind you 10 to 13 tracks daily 7 days a week. that was almost , ya know.

I just saw it on Sunday at Suffolk Downs. I asked the seller... How long you been carrying this?

Answer "awhile"


Since I knew it just hit the streets 3 months ago I wasn't sure how to take that answer so I asked

"I buy the DRF here 3 or 4 times a week and have never seen it?"

Answer

"We don't put it out"

I asked why not?

answer "it doesn't sell... no one buys it."


I wanted to say... hey it just showed up here ,, you gotta leave it out so people can get a look at it..

But since I knew I was dealing with a nit wit and I knew I was at suffolk downs, where no one gives a freak about anything...

I just said "oh" "have a nice day"

[freeneasy]

you had to hurry down to the newstand to get one. they were selling better the the form.
the guy sounds like he dont know his butt from a burnt bisquit "oh, they dont sell cause we dont put em out" bet he had on his "gooffy" outfit that day and the name tag probally said "screwball squrail" :D i'll bet, didnt it suff uh huh:D

[freeneasy]

and maybe, just maybe they'll stay healthy enough to where at some point they can then begin to launch an all out assult and go toe to toe with the monopoly that the drf has on the market. if they stay focused and centralized then i think they a have pretty good shot to still be standing at the bell.

[hracingplyr]

knowing the racing form they are probably threatening these folks that sell the advance. i can remember some your ago the bradley tele theater where i go was getting the post parade pp's from ny then all of a sudden they stoped selling it, when i asked the head hancho, he said the racing form told them that if they conitnued to sell the post parade they would stop sending them the racing forms. so they are probably using there strong arm tactics again.

[takeout]

Originally posted by hracingplyr
he said the racing form told them that if they conitnued to sell the post parade they would stop sending them the racing forms.
I heard that they were demanding that tracks take a certain minimum number of Forms or get none at all. Amazing! I think they may be still be doing this. I can't believe tracks ever put up with it. I would love to own one so that I could quickly show DRF the flaws of that plan.

[Tom]

Just bought a Daily Advance tonight for $3.
I like it better than the Form. Much better.

[takeout]

Saw this on the DL board:

Subject: Heard On The Rumor Mill re DRF

Las Vegas Race Books looking to cut "the high expenses" may apparently opt for a new, lower priced form they will give away to their customers. It is called the "Vegas Racing Advance Form". No mention of when this starts.

Once they kick in the new freebie Vegas form, DRF fans will have to buy it in the Gift Shops. No mention yet whether Reno and Tahoe will follow suit, but properties in two or more of those locations will most likely do the same thing.

So, will the Vegas Racing Advance Form be run from Equibase data? Will it have Pars?
Will it be "worth what you pay for" it?

I do not plan to hit Reno in the near future, so can't check it out myself, but I'll try to have an acquaintance watch for the new kid on the block. If anyone on the list gets a look at the new player hope you will toss out your comments.
[snip]

[levinmpa]

The publishers will need deep pockets to go against DRF. I'm sure many of you remember "The Figs Form" and "The Racing Times" that went against DRF in the late 80's, early 90's. The Times was a terrific publication that featured the Beyer figs before DRF. Ironically Steven Crist was the Editor. It had many features that DRF didn't have at the time like records at today's distance and track, fractions broken down to 1/100 instead of 1/5, more than 4 workouts, expanded breeding, etc. These are things we take for granted now, but at the time they weren't available in DRF. I really liked the Times and was sad to see it die. Unfortunately many of the "old timers" just didn't want to give up their Form for something else, even if it had better information. Fortunately DRF adopted all of its innovations. I haven't seen VRA, but I hope it can survive.

[Figman]

I was originally a "Morning Telegraph" guy. It was 35 cents a pop!
Then the Racing Form which played second fiddle to the Tellie in the East took over countrywide. I purchased it everyday.

I haven't bought or used the Form in over a decade. I am totally pleased with my free PP Generators and the dollar or fifty cent electronic PP files.

[JackS]

Back in the day when Racing Times was in print, I would buy it probably once a week. I did have the feeling that the Times was a better publication than DRF however, many , including me, appreciated the old familiar and inferior DRF soley because it was such a mainstay of racing. Racing Times and any other publication competing, will have to stay in print long enough to garner a loyal following. From this "following" word of mouth should/would eventually allow such a paper to become profitable.

[JackS]

I just want to add that I had the feeling that an eventual migration from DRF to RT was inevitable, I just needed some time to get acclimated.

[freeneasy]

Originally posted by Tom
Just bought a Daily Advance tonight for $3.
I like it better than the Form. Much better.

how many tracks did they put out for the edition that you bought tom? what did you like about it? have they included the ML with the off odds yet? how about did they put their own TV next to their speed ratings yet?

[Tom]

The "tellie?"
Gosh, that brings back memoires. Morning Telegraph was what we had here in Western NY. I remeber howling when it went from $.35 to $.50!

Daily Racing Advance.....
Large print, easy to read, generally about 8-9 tracks in each issue.
They have thge SR+TV numbers, plus the Equibase SR. the cahrts are nice, give you each horses actual time for each fraction.
But I use the basic PPs and that is it-I don't need the peripherals-I use HTR, so I just like the old familair PP look to go with my advanced stuff.

[KingChas]

Its gone on the East coast too.The speed figs were more consistant than the BSFs now its gone.I can get a form(8-10) every day exept when a big race is running then they (1-2) cut the supply.Is this backwords?Capitalism?Pompous?MONOLOPY-OK.l

[KingChas]

MONOPOLY,Backwards,Spelled wrong(DUH)- sorry.I guess they got Soprano'd out.{LOL}

[Tom]

I have one for today-Saturday. Green ink on the front page. Used to always be red. Is this a good sign?

[superfecta]

Originally posted by levinmpa
The publishers will need deep pockets to go against DRF. I'm sure many of you remember "The Figs Form" and "The Racing Times" that went against DRF in the late 80's, early 90's. The Times was a terrific publication that featured the Beyer figs before DRF. Ironically Steven Crist was the Editor. It had many features that DRF didn't have at the time like records at today's distance and track, fractions broken down to 1/100 instead of 1/5, more than 4 workouts, expanded breeding, etc. These are things we take for granted now, but at the time they weren't available in DRF. I really liked the Times and was sad to see it die. Unfortunately many of the "old timers" just didn't want to give up their Form for something else, even if it had better information. Fortunately DRF adopted all of its innovations. I haven't seen VRA, but I hope it can survive. I don't think they need deep pockets as much as a good product that is aggressively promoted.Oh and have a publisher that doesn't go out on his boat alone and decide to take off all his clothes and drown in the ocean.

[freeneasy]

you da freaken man:D