Quote:
Originally Posted by classhandicapper
I find it amazing that some people still don't seem to understand that "brand" and "quality" are strongly related.
Saratoga is Coke or Pepsi and AQU is Publix Brand Cola.
The thing is, if you put the higher quality product into the generic package and vice versa, people will quickly figure out the quality has changed and change their behavior.
Run great race cards at AQU or BEL and they will do way better.
Run garbage race cards at SAR and it will do way worse.
Any comparison must include that assumption, but without data we can't know the "exact" impact of running races/cards like the Travers, Woodward, CCAO, Whitney, Test, Ballerina, Alabama, Forgeo, Sword Dancer, Diana (and on and on) at Belmont the way we can with a few things O'Crunk helped determine with data. We can just assume Belmont would have done better (probably a lot) than it did in the spring where it was up 42% going into Saratoga.
O'Crunk did a very good job on handle issues during this period. I'm sure tracks could learn a few things from it. Someone should give him a job doing this kind of work.
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It takes years if not decades for that to happen. Saratoga had some of the worst cards I’ve ever seen from a major track , including a calendar week of 5 days and more than 50 races with just one 10 horse field yet people still bet enthusiastically because the brand is so strong and we love nostalgia. Those feelings are so strong that subconsciously one poster actually thought that the fields were large this year. A steady diet of 5 horse fields at Saratoga will out handle 8 horse fields at Belmont, even if it’s the same pool of horses. Belmont after the quarantine was exceptional and much better than Saratoga this year.
