Think about it!

[Franco Santiago]

Imagine that you are brand new to horse racing and that a few days ago you were invited to the track with a friend, you got a little lucky and won some money, and you are thinking that the game might actually be not only fun, but worth pursuing from a betting/monetary standpoint.

So you go home and decide to do a little research. Low and behold, you surf the web and stumble upon this very website...and you read some of the threads.

Do you think, after reviewing the threads, both good and bad, that you would even CONSIDER horse racing as a potential money-making hobby? I'll bet not.

There are threads on corruption and cheating (see Jorge Navarro thread among many others), boycotting tracks due to takeout hikes, terribly poor customer service (see the recent TVG thread), doping and drugs, poor television coverage (known mostly as TVG "talking heads"), jockeys stiffing horses, short fields, people stealing money, the inaccurate timing of races, and many other things that put racing in a negative light. There are actually very few instructional or "how should I have done this other than the way I did it" threads. And I haven't even mentioned the bickering and fighting among the fragile egos that are so easily bent out of shape.

We continually lament the current state of the game and we yak incessantly about who is to blame. We even blame - on some level - HANA for some of the things.

How nuts would a beginner have to be to actually commit even a LITTLE bit of time to the game after reading all of these horrible things? Would horse racing seem fun and/or rewarding to you if YOU were a beginner? And perhaps even worse, how nuts are WE to continue to pay attention to the game after all of these horrible discussions? Honestly, WHAT IS GOOD ABOUT HORSE RACING? Why even bother?

Think about it!

[GMB@BP]

If I knew then what I know now..........

yea, this is not the best place to gamble. I like as a sport, that I can gamble on so there is that.

[Jeff P]

The best form of advertising?

Word of mouth.

Why?

Because your customers do your advertising for you.

I submit to you the idea that a good 75% of the so called negative threads here are the result of racing (and by that I mean track management, horsemen, state regulators, and politicians) failing when it comes to satisfying customer needs and wants.

If racing wants better word of mouth:

Maybe it's time for, well, actually listening to what your customers are saying.

Think about it.


-jp

.

[RunForTheRoses]

I think there is some negativity but I also think there is much joie de vivre expressed regarding horse racing. Look at the threads regarding tracks visited. There are also threads regarding big scores and BrentT hooked us up with a winner the other day- was great for me as I had a big winning day Sunday, I probably wouldn't have played if I hadn't won Saturday night.

You can always start your own positive threads.

Also, there is much, much educational stuff on here going back years.

[CincyHorseplayer]

I got into racing influenced only by Hemingway, Bukowski, and a cousin who took me to the track. Fell in love with it all on my own afterwards, listened to nobody, and still don't for the most part and love this game 21 years later. If you are weak enough to use somebody besides yourself as a gauge of reality, you have already lost in life and at this game. Think about it!:cool:

[Franco Santiago]

I got into racing influenced only by Hemingway, Bukowski, and a cousin who took me to the track. Fell in love with it all on my own afterwards, listened to nobody, and still don't for the most part and love this game 21 years later. If you are weak enough to use somebody besides yourself as a gauge of reality, you have already lost in life and at this game. Think about it!:cool:

I agree with you. I am thinking about what you said, I assure you.

My concern is not with regular readers of this board. We are sold on the greatness of horse racing. I probably should not have even mentioned "us". I should have stuck with what I wrote about initially...what is there to convince a person that is new to horse racing to pursue it further? It seems that there is so much wrong with the game (and I KNOW it is not "our" fault, as a previous poster points out), that I don't know how the game gets ANY new, regular customers that would consider pursuing the game seriously.

I probably said it poorly...didn't need the "think about it" at the end, that's for sure. My apologies.

[dilanesp]

I have said this before, but I don't think gambling businesses are easy to sustain over time. The basic reason is because most people will lose, some will lose a lot, and a lot of people get tired of losing. Some don't, but those include a lot of compulsive gamblers and it's kind of icky to base your business model on them.

I realize that a lot of people who play the races feel otherwise, and I realize that some gambling businesses do sustain themselves (such as slot machine operators), but it's difficult sledding. You have to sell the sport as a sport / entertainment if you want to gain long term fans. The vast majority of people who follow this sport over 10 or 20 or 30 years are not solely mindless handicappers (although they might very well be handicappers) but can tell you their favorite horses, jockeys, and moments in the sport. How many people became fans of this sport, for instance, because of Secretariat and the publicity he got. Probably tens of thousands.

I don't think that what people read on this site is any different than when poker players write about online poker sites that allowed fraud or collusion, or sites that discuss how much money slot machines or the lottery take out, or things you can read about many other forms of gambling. The awful truth is that for the vast, vast majority of people, gambling anything other than moderate amounts of money as a form of entertainment is a very bad idea. And people on the Internet are going to point that out. That's not the reason horse racing is in so much trouble.

[happy camper]

Imagine that you are brand new to horse racing and that a few days ago you were invited to the track with a friend, you got a little lucky and won some money, and you are thinking that the game might actually be not only fun, but worth pursuing from a betting/monetary standpoint.

So you go home and decide to do a little research. Low and behold, you surf the web and stumble upon this very website...and you read some of the threads.

Do you think, after reviewing the threads, both good and bad, that you would even CONSIDER horse racing as a potential money-making hobby? I'll bet not.

There are threads on corruption and cheating (see Jorge Navarro thread among many others), boycotting tracks due to takeout hikes, terribly poor customer service (see the recent TVG thread), doping and drugs, poor television coverage (known mostly as TVG "talking heads"), jockeys stiffing horses, short fields, people stealing money, the inaccurate timing of races, and many other things that put racing in a negative light. There are actually very few instructional or "how should I have done this other than the way I did it" threads. And I haven't even mentioned the bickering and fighting among the fragile egos that are so easily bent out of shape.

We continually lament the current state of the game and we yak incessantly about who is to blame. We even blame - on some level - HANA for some of the things.

How nuts would a beginner have to be to actually commit even a LITTLE bit of time to the game after reading all of these horrible things? Would horse racing seem fun and/or rewarding to you if YOU were a beginner? And perhaps even worse, how nuts are WE to continue to pay attention to the game after all of these horrible discussions? Honestly, WHAT IS GOOD ABOUT HORSE RACING? Why even bother?

Think about it!



great question! Real world, I would track you down, using your isp address, come to your house, ring your door bell, and knock you out with a crescent wrench.

Hopefully that lesson will be a stark reminder of what your life has in store when dealing with this game.

If my offspring have the same interest, you'd reciprocate, God willing, when I'm long done.

[lamboguy]

why don't we leave it this way-- people love horseracing, they love betting on horses and they hate the game for what it became.

[Franco Santiago]

great question! Real world, I would track you down, using your isp address, come to your house, ring your door bell, and knock you out with a crescent wrench.

Hopefully that lesson will be a stark reminder of what your life has in store when dealing with this game.

If my offspring have the same interest, you'd reciprocate, God willing, when I'm long done.

HC:

That's why they make proxy servers!

[thaskalos]

IMO...we would be committing a grave injustice if we didn't inform the newcomers to this game of the "negatives" that are hidden within it. The racing industry does a good job of brushing these things "under-the-rug", so...there is a need for a place such as this, where the "truth" is shouted from the rooftops.

I, myself, sometimes get accused of showing "extreme negativity" towards the game by some of our members here...and the truth is that I might be as critical of this game as anyone else here is. But I have also supported this game at the windows -- where it counts -- as much as anyone else here has. And, when I am about to post my "criticisms" of this game...I never worry about whether or not I am hurting the game's "reputation"...or whether my posts might end up costing the game some "future business", down the line. I only ask myself if what I am about to post here is the sort of "information" that I myself would have found useful, had it been disclosed to me back when I started playing this game. My loyalty isn't to the game...but to the newcoming player. That's why I post here.

[Redboard]

The combination of the sport not being perfect and the nature of a public internet message board. Negativity is just more interesting that positivity, it gets higher ratings. if you want to learn about the game, get a good book out on the subject.

[rastajenk]

if you want to learn about the game, get a good book out on the subject.Then if you really want to learn more about the game, go to the track: don't plan on figuring out much sitting on the couch.

[Tom]

The most important thing I learned at the track was to stay home on the couch.

[JustRalph]

The combination of the sport not being perfect and the nature of a public internet message board. Negativity is just more interesting that positivity, it gets higher ratings. if you want to learn about the game, get a good book out on the subject.

The best handicapping books are not germane to the game anymore.

The game today is nothing like what those books were written about