Quote:
Originally Posted by thespaah
When will this industry, wagering on horse racing. wise up. A few years ago when the horsemen refused to deal with Colonial Downs in good faith, they were successful in shutting down horse racing in the entire state. Included were all ADW accounts and all of the Virginia OTB sites.
And why did they do this? One reason I read was the horsemen from Maryland were upset there was a gap created in the Maryland schedule to accommodate the Colonial meeting. The other was the horsemen wanted bigger purses. The money was not there. So instead of 3/4's a loaf, they got no loaf.
So they walked. Screwed the fans and the track's operators. Plus there was some development slated for the area surrounding the track property.
Horsemen have far too much clout. Ideally, there should be a balance of interest between the track management, horsemen and of course US
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That's one opinion.
From what I remember, Colonial wanted to replace their normal meet with a boutique meet, concentrating the purse money in stakes races, which would have ended up largely in the hands of national horsemen at the expense of the locals. Colonial is an island unto itself, you stable there and pretty much that is where you have to race. So horsemen probably felt why go through the trouble of relocating for a meet that would largely be aimed at others.
