Post Times
 

Is it a regular occurrence at Laurel to completely get off schedule with their post times? For a change of pace, I thought I'd throw a couple new tracks into the mix. Yesterday I log into TVG to play one of Laurel's mid card races, and at what should have been about 20MTP, they're posting the results already. I thought, something's up and they're moving along today, maybe trying to avoid weather or something. I log in just a little bit ago to play the 5th at what should be about 15MTP, and they're running down the backstretch already. Now I'm looking at Tampa, and they're about 10 minutes ahead of the listed post time for race 5. What's the deal? They all just want to get it over with? It really rubbed me wrong today as I sat and watched a $12.80 horse win for fun when he shouldn't have even been out of the paddock yet.

Sorry for the rant. Anyway, is this business as usual at these two tracks?

I'm glad you posted about this. (I was about to.)

It's recent.

And yeah, it's frustrating.

Right now as I (start) typing this it's 2:45 pm eastern time and the horses at Tampa Bay Downs are loading for R5 - about 10 minutes early going by the post time of 14:55 hrs eastern listed in the Equibase data.

The frustrating part is that the tracks are giving Equibase their scheduled post times so that Equibase can make post time data available in track programs, and past performances, etc.

The (implied) objective being horseplayers everywhere can know ahead of time when the races are supposed to go off.

I don't mind if a track gets a few minutes behind schedule.

But when a track gets double digit minutes ahead of schedule THAT's a problem:

1. Players get caught unaware and get shut out as a result.

2. Tracks get lower handle as a result.

3. Horsemen get lower purse money as a result.

My suggestion would be to have someone in upper management at Equibase reach out to track management and tell them "Hey, if you're going to change your post times let us know beforehand so we can get the correct post times into your track programs and past performances." (It's possible track management may not even be aware of the problem.)

If reaching out to track management doesn't work - one possible workaround might be for Equibase to report revised post times in their Scratches and Changes XML.

Just so you know, the revised post times are being reported accurately in the tote data.

So there is a reliable data source if Equibase wanted to parse post times from the tote and propagate to the xml.


-jp

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Just checked it and Tampa is ahead. Usually they are running late.
Weird.

It's happened before and has been particularly bad yesterday and today. I wonder if Aqueduct being postponed has caused a deliberate last minute shift in the schedule to make the most of the live racing programme? That certainly would occasionally occur in the UK, where they would delay off times to spread out the races more evenly, although they would never ever bring a race forward ahead of scheduled post time.

Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Post time........

I remember years ago tracks would sometimes be ahead of post times. Not sure the reason for all of them but in bad weather, they possibly want to get things going quickly.