Mike Maloney's presentation/speech. Nice job Mike. Well done.
Professional horseplayer Mike Maloney was introduced and began his presentation by urging commissioners to become familiar with a new organization, Horseplayers Association of North American (HANA), and he presented four things HANA would like to see achieved. all track signals available to accredited tracks, lower takeout, strict uniform medication and improved wagering security. Easy to state, hard to achieve, Maloney said. He talked about the confusion horseplayers have about wagering formats from track to track, especially on which races have trifectas or superfectas due to the different state rules that apply to field size of those races.
Maloney urged states to allow trifectas in small fields, something Kentucky has done. He said the handle increases when tracks do that. He then went on to talk about past-post wagering, late odds changes and wagering pool manipulation. Maloney called for wagering pools to close at one minute to post time. "That a bitter pill to swallow that we would ever have to do that," he said, "but it would solve these problems." He acknowledged that it would cause a reduction in handle. "But if that’s what we need to do, if a y ear or two from now if we are still sitting here and don’t have a solution, then I think we seriously need to consider closing the windows early enough so that the odds are final before the gates are open. That would bring back a lot of confidence in that game."
