Definitely a good idea for the Monday night stay and Tuesday day at the track. Driving over 3 hours is a drain and you can handicap better when you are fresh.
As for the condition of the Grandstand, it is poor. They have basically painted over old broken cement and run down walls. Their is usually a trailer outside that they use for extra bathrooms.
The inside bathrooms are totally run down. Sinks do not work, urinals do not work, etc. They usually have a 40 year old fan blowing in the bathroom that makes a ton of noise and does not even move the air.
They have to supply water to the patrons with a cooler because their fountains stopped working 15 years ago.
All of the track maintenance tools for the main track were sold off when they first "closed". They cannot even get the main track in race condition if there is a monsoon. This is the one track in the world where the races will never come off the turf.
The guy who maintains the turf course does a great job with very little help. It isn't as easy as mowing the lawn and any empty patches need to be addressed quickly. He constantly walks the track looking for and fixing problems.
The reports of 10,000 people being there are vastly exaggerated. Back when they were really open, those who were there for big days saw what 15,000 people were like. Back then they had the clubhouse open and the upper 2 floors of the Grandstand. You could barely move.
Now they have just the first floor Grandstand open. If they even had 5,000 people there, you could not move. On the days they "estimate" 10,000 there is plenty of room to move and the betting lines are not even 10 deep.
But it makes for nice press, so they continue to "estimate" big crowds. In reality there is about 3,000 on weekdays and about 5,000 on their busiest day if they count everyone who comes in for simulcasting and those with a few kids who come in for pony rides and then leave.
It is free admission, so there are many curiosity seekers coming to see if the track is really open. One day last year if you divided the on track attendance by the on track handle, it worked out to something like $14 per person. LOL!
To get to the Announcers booth you need to take the old elevator from the clubhouse dining room and go up the back cat walk. If you can sneak into that area you can have a great view on the side of the Announcers booth. The stewards are also on that level and there usually is at least one betting machine up there.
Well worth going for the full fields and great turf racing. Try to avoid the cracks in the cement and watch out for the young kids picking up little cement pieces and tossing them around.
