Good idea and there might be some initial enthusiasm for it. However, I think the idea would find few takers after they began to realize that the value of a winning ticket was closely tied to the win odds of the horses who are live on that ticket. Naturally, you would normally calculate the cash value of the selling ticket as more or less the parlay price of the first two winners, but if the final cash probables are already posted, this would be meaningless.
So the bidding becomes mostly a straight assessment of the probable closing win odds. Since I don't have to tell you how impossible this is under any conditions these days, with big odds' bumps happening after the race is off, there will be a large group of embarrassed buyers who will buy the live ticket, have their horse win, and then realize that the same investment to win would have brought them back more money. On the other hand, there might be a small niche of unusual circumstances where a bettor wished he had the ability to put a large wager on a horse without dropping the price due to scanty pools. But I don't see this as a general case.
We also, of course, run into multiple original ticket punches, where any prospective seller would need one and only one horse in the final leg, since tickets with more than one live horse would be difficult to price.
Here's a gimmick that I thought might have some merit to get new people involved in the sport: A free horse give-a-way night. Here's how it would work. The track designates a certain bottom-rung claiming event as the horse give-a-way race. The race is offered at a slightly higher purse value than usual and the horsemen know that the winning animal will be "claimed" by the track management. (You might want to add 20% bonus over the normal claiming price to attract entrants).
A lucky patron has a number drawn out of a barrell and that person wins the horse, subject to licensing eligibility (no criminal record, etc.) and if the person has never been licensed before (we don't want previous or current owners winning the prize).
Available to the winner are trainers who would like to train the horse for them on either a lease or standard basis. The lease option would no doubt be taken by many new owners who might not have out-of-pocket capital to foot training bills. But that's fine because they are now participating in the sport with a rooting interest in their horse. Trainers could produce a written proposal of a few pages describing all fees and charges for normal ownership and/or rules and responsibilities for a lease agreement. These proposals could be given to the new owner. Before the new owner makes an arrangement with a trainer, the track employs the former trainer to continue training the animal until new trainer is selected. A period of something like two weeks might be reasonable for the new owner to make up his or her mind.
IMO, this type of promotion would pay massive dividends over time as new owners bring friends, family, and co-workers to the track to see their horse race, and hopefully to make some wagers in the process. It would undoubtedly spur enough interest to create further ownership investment from new owners, since a working arrangement with a trainer is already underway. The costs to the track are managable and under agreement with horsemen could be partially funded by the purse account.
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