Quote:
Originally Posted by Parkview_Pirate
Last Saturday there were something like 30 or so thoroughbred tracks running in the U.S. and Canada, with a few quarter horse meets and about a dozen harness tracks running. There's over a 100 tracks in the U.S., though of course they don't all run at the same time. Out on the Aussie TAB sites, I've never seen more than about 10-15 running on any one day, so I'd guess there were about 60-70 or so total in the country.
The fact that many of the races go off "on time" is partly due the TV coverage schedule - the live coverage is pretty good down under (Sky TV), and when you've cover 3 or 4 tracks, you don't have much wiggle room.
http://www.skyracingworld.com/horse-racing-calendar
Steve, you are correct in that the Aussie races we get here in the states rarely carry the Western tracks, though I did see Pinjarra on Sky's schedule a couple of times this month. The time difference is already pretty drastic, and the Western tracks would be just that much later in the night for the U.S. and Canada.
You'd have to define "better" when it comes to whether Aussie racing vs American racing is the better product. I'd say the horses are more formful, but the info available and the difference in surfaces is tougher than trying to figure things in the U.S. The small pools via Woodbine are a problem for some, but I gotta say that Friday night racing from Australia (Sat PM down under) is very good, and most days throughout the year better than the top 3 or 4 tracks running in the U.S. The rest of the week, not so much. |
i might have overestimated how many meetings on any day, although saturday would get the most and probably 20 or so.
melbourne cup day would probably have 50 or more meetings on that day.
i don't follow racing here now, but western australia was my chosen poison mostly because it was so remote, so that it is basically a closed circuit, which makes it far easier for somebody like me.
and they NEVER used to get the races away on time.
i don't have any idea if american racing is better or not, i just know that australian racing is as corrupt as(in my opinion), but i refer specifically to victoria, so maybe the other jurisdictions not so bad(don't know).
i have seen mentioned here some of the tracks that are being shown in america, and a lot of them are VERY minor tracks. McKay QLD for instance is probably a level 4 track in QLD, and probably weaker still if whole country inclusive.
looking at that link you posted above, then there is a big mix of major, minor, minnow tracks there.
i myself would have no hope, unless i just picked venues that were in the same region, but they're all over the country.
