Mountaineer is unplayable
 

I know I'm probably late to the game here; should have realized it a long time ago. Where to start? How about tonight (5/15): the obvious foul in the second race that kept up a 44-1 shot even after it severely impeded the horse that finished third (pushing the horse out on two different occasions in the stretch). And there wasn't even an inquiry; it took an objection from the jock for the stewards to even look at it. Mountaineer goes official faster than any track of any breed I have ever seen. Take a look at the head on; Maximum Security did less!

Then, in a mile race in the fourth, the favorite takes an easy galloping (if you can call it that) lead to the quarter in 26 seconds and a half mile in 51 and change to inexplicably and completely fade out of the money down the stretch.

Sorry for the ranting - it's just a track geographically near to me that I had enjoyed visiting in the past, before 1) tainted drinking water on the grandstand side was found to have legionella, causing the track to cancel for a few weeks and 2) the track announcer blocking me from twitter after a polite comment disagreeing with his opinion on a harness horse. I know Mark is on this forum and there are still some good horsemen and women at the track, so no offense to anyone personally involved in the racing there is intended.

Racing at Mountaineer in 2019 just seems so far removed from my understanding of legitimate horse racing that it shouldn't be taking place anymore. And I do follow low-tier tracks also close to Pittsburgh like Presque Isle, Thistledown, Charles Town and Mahoning Valley. The racing at these tracks kind of makes sense and resembles the NYRA, Kentucky and California circuit racing we are all used to. At Mountaineer you might as well be playing roulette or "virtual racing" or hoping the fix is in on your picks. It's more and more like dog racing every day.

basically speaking, both this foul and MAXIMUM SECURITY were quite similar. i agree that MAX did less, but because of the domino effect, it looked pretty flagrant. the stewards in Kentucky thought the foul caused another horse not to run higher placed. tonight the stewards believed that the horse fouled would not have won.

it all comes down to human opinion. the stewards have theirs, and we have ours.

as far as giving up the mountain, it is the only track i am playing these days because its at night and i don't bet that much money on it because the pools there can only handle so much.

Better add 15 more days to Saez!

I too bet Mountaineer...but I confess to having an ulterior motive. In case I am ever caught committing a serious crime...I intend to present my Mountaineer betting records at my trial...in the hope that this will bolster my insanity defense.

I can only recommend that you revisit what your understanding of racing is. For anyone to compare the minor brushing between two horses each drifting in the stretch to what happened in the Derby is laughable. The jockey on the third horse should be fined for making an objection and wasting everyone's time.

We all have our opinions, and I appreciate yours. I saw it as more than "minor brushing" and closer to impeding the path (twice), but thank you for offering another viewpoint.

Now that's funny!

Should brush up on your ability to spot bias in the track. More than one night in the last couple of weeks you could play running styles only and could have done well.

One night in a couple of weeks? What if we decide to take that night off?

Another way to bolster your defense. Good luck at trial.

and why not?

Just running styles here.

You can never take a night off. You never know when the bridgejumper has put $10K+ to show on the 4th most likely horse.

I think I might have mentioned this before. There was one night and MTR that you could have bet every horse in every race to win, every exacta, tri and super combo in all the races and you still would have won $15,000. Tracks like Mountaineer have nights when it is short prices and nights when the favorites find a way to lose. It's a pretty good puzzle to solve.

A couple of decades back, there was a fall HOL meet when you could have bet every horse in every race and been flat bet profitable.

The winner of the 2nd race didn't come out until right at the wire. It really didn't effect the outcome, feel like that's why they left it up. Didn't see any serious bumping from the top of the lane until the slight drift/bump at the wire.

Like others have said this incident is not in the same ballpark as what Saez and Maximum Security were responsible for in the Derby.