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Dear Turf Paradise Management,
Since I moved to AZ a few years ago, I came to accept that you became my new home track. Coming from England, it wasn’t affordable to go see live racing (professional or amateur) as the average cost of attendance ranged from $20-45 for a NORMAL race day which is usually 6-7 races.
Moving here, I was optimistic to see live racing again! Then I realized the drive from Surprise to Turf Paradise was long and sometimes unbearable. Then upon arriving at the track, the scene wasn’t anything to write home about:
- broken seats in the General Admission area
- no real Club Seating without sitting at the restaurant but at least it has AC.
- trackside, you only get a few yards of optimal viewing from the grandstands since the Tiki bars are covering the stretch run.
- you have an excellent track announcer! But I can’t hear him during the race due to the poor piblic address system.
- you can hear the great race calls on TV but you lose a lot of quality as the cameras don’t seem they’ve been updated in a long while which can confuse viewers at times.
- you’re named Turf Paradise..yet the turf course seems to be an inner dirt track at times with dead grass covering the majority of the track.
Yet despite all of this...I still supported you and made the dreaded drive almost every weekend. Until I discovered the nearby OTBs. The thought of going nearby to place my bets seemed like a blessing. OTBs/bookies are common in England and Europe and I had pretty high expectations. All that was shattered when I went to the first OTB:
- patrons were EXPECTED to buy food or drinks at least $5.00. $10 on big sport days. Which meant less money to wager with. And lets not forget the constant harrassment by the servers if you don’t have any food or drink in front of you
- often 1 window teller and the rest were self serve machines (some didnt work).
- wagering couldn’t start until 11am...which meant you sometimes missed the opening races on the East Coast or the Dubai World Cup.
- although it said wagering closes at 7pm, the teller(s) were ready to shut down after the last Golden Gate race.
- and if you can bet the race, hopefully they showed it on one of the few TVs. Otherwise, you have to wait to see if your ticket is a winner or not by sticking it in one of the wagering machine.
And this was at just ONE location. There are/were worst OTBs throughout the area.
There is one OTB that doesn’t sell food but highly encourages the patrons to buy drinks because thats their only livelihood to stay open.
I’m not even gonna mention the OTB that was operational on Saturday and then permanently closed by Turf Paradise management on Sunday in Downtown Phoenix.
Accounting wagering was another blessing! Now the money that was going to be spent on gas getting to the track or on food/drinks at the OTB can go straight to wagering. But then it was another heartening blow...phone wagering only!!! Have you tried to put a wager on Xpressbet? You either punch in a bunch of numbers just to put in an exacta, or hope that the voice recognization understands your bet. Worst case, you talk to a live teller and pay 25 cents a bet!!! Still, it meant I spent less time elsewhere or at the track and more time with my growing family.
Now that you are taking away phone wagering, it seems like the last nail in the coffin for me. I tried to accept your flaws and your disappointments (such as half a card of quarter horse racing or no racing when it rains), but now its become too much to bear. It seems you’ve taken my passion away from horse racing where I can’t comfortably go make a bet. And thats a shame because I love not only betting on Turf Paradise, but Santa Anita, Golden Gate, Los Alamitos, Sunland, and Remington Park as well. But I am no longer going out of my way to make a bet with you. Its been real, its been fun, but it hasn’t been real fun! Hopefully you can sort this out and get things squared away where I can make a bet online.
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