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[Watcher]

Originally Posted by BombsAway Bob

Suffolk does a very good job getting "new" fans to the track via "The Hot Dog Safari" & The MassCap every year. I've been trying for a few years to convince Suffolk to have a few "Micro-Brew" Festivals with live music, connecting them with events that cater to the +21 crowd that isn't looking for $1 draft beers.
Another missed opportunity for Suffolk..the Mass. betting Age is 18; with all the Colleges in the area, Suffolk should aggressively be making the track a place for that "tweener crowd" between 18 & 21; adults legally unable to go to bars, hang out & see bands... With Subway service to the track, cheap admission, etc.. Suffolk could be a place to develop a younger fan base.

We sent over a rather detailed e-mail to Hollywood Park regarding something similar. Many promotions that would appeal to college kids are not advertised to college kids.

[Watcher]

Originally Posted by DeanT

It is the greatest game Grits, but we have to remember new markets and what they want, not what we want - we are satisfied.

If Ebay asked existing flea market or garage sale people if they want to do it on the web the answer is "no, I like to touch what I am buying"

If Amazon asked what existing book buyers want, they would hear "I love to browse and have fun at the bookstore"

These businesses would have never been started if they listened only to existing customers.

The new market does not want to travel to a track, study a racing form for six hours, sit for 5 hours and then go home. You and I do that and we should always be looked after and respected (something that the business has done a poor job at), but to get new markets we must think new, and fresh. We can not make people be horse fans and bettors, they need to be targeted and the game needs to change to fit their needs, not the other way around (imo).

I used two slides at a presentation recently on changing demo's

This was the first one:

http://www.murraytuckerwriter.com/da...andicapper.jpg

The second one was this:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/127/3...e47aff.jpg?v=0

He is a 20 year old kid that grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons, is extremely smart and now plays poker. He is tailor-made for games, and gambling. He has $1.3M in earnings. He would be perfect for the mind game of horse racing, with stats, probabilities and so on (he says that is what interested him to poker). However, we have not brought that to him. He bought a poker book and started playing. In racing he would have to buy data, study with a pencil and paper, test, and if he lived in a state without ADW coverage like so many, he could not even play online - and even if he survived all that, then we would proceed to kick his ass with 22% takeouts. This is a huge problem, and a completely underserved market that we are losing. We have to start building plans to get at them and serve them if we want a shot to grow the game (imo).

As someone who's young, mid-20s, and comes from a poker background, you're spot on with this.

The complexities of the games aren't dissimilar. Poker is extremely hard to master, takes time and studying, similar to horse racing. What poker did successfully is harness the power of traditional and non-traditional media.

If, for example, poker rooms were placing advertisements on the radio and in newspapers, saying "Come play with us, we'll give you $1 beers", it would have likely not attracted large amounts of new players that it did.

However, with the help of ESPN and WPT, poker was suddenly on television. All over television. Kids were watching it, seeing the potential for earning money, and starting to pick up books / play $5 buy-in games with their friends. The players communicated with each other online, talking strategies, hand histories, learning from their and their peers mistakes.

That progressed into a craze, with millions of poker players jumping online. Kids that were playing $5 buy-in games in 2004 were playing $5,000 buy-in games only years later... if not sooner.

My generation is attracted to risk and making money, whether it's gambling on poker or sports, or trying to build a company, sell it, and build another. If racing can tap into this ideal, they will see an increase in handle from a younger demographic via online avenues. And from there, will begin seeing an increase in younger demographics live at the tracks.

[chickenhead]

racing needs to cordon off a few of the marquee tracks -- and have those be the sporting side of things. Have all the graded races at those tracks, concentrating all the better horses, package it up into something that can be televised, that has some semblance of a season to it. That is where they should focus their efforts to get attention, and people on track -- at the nice tracks, and the nice races.

There is almost nothing on at most tracks that makes for a fun day at the track, or something compelling to watch on TV, or to pay attention to in any way shape or form -- unless you are betting, and very interested in betting.

They should market and package things to who they fit to -- but to me it makes little sense to try and market a tier 3 track as a sight where compelling sports activity occurs. They need to be marketed to gamblers.

[chickenhead]

SuffolkDownsFan, horseracing, still today, is inexpensive, when compared to all major sports. And this is whether one is a spectator of football, baseball, basketball, hockey, NASCAR etc, etc, or a participant in tennis, golf, boating, etc. Club memberships included. Again, free is of no value. These sports are not, why should horseracing be?

As a sporting event, the average day of racing stacks up very, very, very poorly against an average professional sporting event. Let's take baseball.

I can get tickets to a baseball game for just about the same cost as a going to the track. Not good seats, but I can go to the ballpark for the same price. I can buy those tickets, and plan my trip, months in advance, to see whatever team I want to see. I know what I'm going to get. I can invite friends, plan a day around it. While I'm there, I know I am going to watch several hours of professional level competition.

If the average day of baseball operated as the average day of horseracing does, here is what I would get instead:

I would have no idea who was playing until a day or two ahead of time. It wouldn't really matter, as I'd have no idea who most of the players were anyway. If I wanted to find out anything about them, I'd have to pay extra.

I decide to go anyway.

I sit down, and they bring a bunch of toddlers out to play tee ball. Most of these toddlers have never played tee ball before, and the ones that have, have absolutely no skill at it. They appear to be the worst group of tee ballers they could find.

They play for around 2 minutes, and then they go back into the dugout.

The field is empty for 30 minutes. We sit there.

Then, they bring out another group of tee ballers, these ones are little girls. They play tee ball for 2 minutes. They are worse than the previous group. Then they go back into the dugout.

The field is empty for 30 minutes. We sit there.

A bunch of old men come onto the field, and play slow pitch softball for 2 minutes. One of them falls and breaks his hip -- he rolls around near home plate in pain, and then they cart him off in an ambulance.

The field is empty for 30 minutes. We sit there.

The "Feature" finally comes around, after several hours of this. It seems like it took an agonizingly long time to get here.

A bunch of Babe Ruth league teenager boys come onto the field. They are ok, but not great. They play for 2 minutes, then they go back into the dugout.

Then we all go home. The End

[Grits]

CH, friends bought seats for the Mets at their new home--Citifield, at a package price. I can watch a whole lot of racing for what was paid for these seats.

I can also watch a lot of racing for what it cost to play golf at Pinehurst, or any other fine golf and country club for a 3 day weekend a couple of times a year.

As far as boats go, the maintenance, the fuel, the marina cost per foot of mooring them is staggering. Comparatively, I could go to the races for a good number of years on what this particular toy/entertainment cost.

I find all the complaints about the cost of a day at the races foolish. I honestly do. And I'm of the belief that if it is all that costly, all that poorly presented--by all means, find other interests.

You guys carry on. I'm sorry I typed a word to this thread. I really am.

[chickenhead]

Originally Posted by Grits

CH, friends bought seats for the Mets at their new home--Citifield, at a package price. I can watch a whole lot of racing for what was paid for these seats.

I can also watch a lot of racing for what it cost to play golf at Pinehurst, or any other fine golf and country club for a 3 day weekend a couple of times a year.

As far as boats go, the maintenance, the fuel, the marina cost per foot of mooring them is staggering. Comparatively, I could go to the races for a good number of years on what this particular toy/entertainment cost.

I find all the complaints about the cost of a day at the races foolish. I honestly do. And I'm of the belief that if it is all that costly, all that poorly presented--by all means, find other interests.

You guys carry on. I'm sorry I typed a word to this thread. I really am.

I don't understand your response, but ok. Of course owning a nice package of season tickets, or a boat, or joining a country club is more expensive than the admission for a day at Charles Town or Golden Gate Fields.

Racing doesn't compete primarily with professional sporting events, because 99.9% of the races run in North America aren't compelling as sporting events. If they were, people would go to the track to watch them.

Racings competition, for 99.9% of it's product, is other forms of gambling, not other professional sports. This is just my opinion of course, I'm not sure why that would offend you.

[Grits]

I'm not offended. All of this involves interests that we may, or may not choose. In other words, how we spend our recreational time and our recreational funds is of our own choosing. And there's myriad ways of doing so.

I tire of the complaining about the cost of running the game of horseracing, regardless, whether one believes it to be a sporting event, or a gambling opportunity.

I'm sure, though, I've not ever heard a day of horseracing likened to little league, or t-ball.

Again, you guys carry on; obviously, I'm out of touch--somewhere.

[chickenhead]

I'm sure, though, I've not ever heard a day of horseracing likened to little league, or t-ball.

Do you think it's a poor analogy for a maiden claimer?

[DeanT]

Originally Posted by Watcher

As someone who's young, mid-20s, and comes from a poker background, you're spot on with this.

The complexities of the games aren't dissimilar. Poker is extremely hard to master, takes time and studying, similar to horse racing. What poker did successfully is harness the power of traditional and non-traditional media.

If, for example, poker rooms were placing advertisements on the radio and in newspapers, saying "Come play with us, we'll give you $1 beers", it would have likely not attracted large amounts of new players that it did.

However, with the help of ESPN and WPT, poker was suddenly on television. All over television. Kids were watching it, seeing the potential for earning money, and starting to pick up books / play $5 buy-in games with their friends. The players communicated with each other online, talking strategies, hand histories, learning from their and their peers mistakes.

That progressed into a craze, with millions of poker players jumping online. Kids that were playing $5 buy-in games in 2004 were playing $5,000 buy-in games only years later... if not sooner.

My generation is attracted to risk and making money, whether it's gambling on poker or sports, or trying to build a company, sell it, and build another. If racing can tap into this ideal, they will see an increase in handle from a younger demographic via online avenues. And from there, will begin seeing an increase in younger demographics live at the tracks.

Fantastic work with your poker site and group, so I take it you know what you are talkin about!

Chick,

I must say, I had a chuckle!!! Thanks for that post.

[Warren Henry]

I don't know about anyone else, but what first attracted me to horse racing was the possibility that I could turn a small wager into a big score.

When I was a young Marine stationed in Arlington, VA, a civilian worker in our office came in early, read the FORM for a while and sent a bet out to Charlestown. I was curious, so he showed me what he was doing. There was some kind of gimmick wager (maybe a twin quinella) involving two races. If one could hit it, he could win a nice sum for a small bet. He taught me to read the FORM, and let me participate in the bet. We came close often, but never hit it before I got transferred to another place. But I was hooked.

I didn't really learn to enjoy the pagentry, tradition, excitement of the race itself, local characters, etc. until later when I was forced to go to the track if I wanted to bet. In those days, I didn't notice that I was a second class citizen. I just wanted to play the game, and the track was where the game was played.

Later, I drifted into the handicapping software business. I became a more successful player and was able to bet much more money. I also began to spend significant sums advertising in the FORM and began to have business dealings with others in the horse industry. During this period, I realized that amost everyone in the industry was in denial about the kind of business they were in. The folks at the FORM charged me more to advertise than they did "legitimate businesses". They also refused to allow any form of the word gambling in my ads. The name of my company had "Gambler's" as part of the name, and for the first year, they wouldn't even allow that.

"Improvement of the breed" my butt. Horse racing would die in an instant if there were no way to gamble on it.

Perhaps the disrespect that is shown the players is an outgrowth of the stigma that may be attached to gambling. The track owners, breeders, horse owners, trainers, publishers, etc still think that they are not in the gambling business, therefore, they are more pure than those of us who bet.

We will not see any significant growth of the industry until all of the participants acknowledge that they are in the gambling business. People who are in the industry and the current players must teach the prospective players how to play the game. Show them what is possible and provide them with the tools to do their own analysis. Develop tools that are consistent with new technology. If a palm sized device can hold a bazillion songs, why couldn't it hold a large database of past performance data. However, the data must be reasonably priced.

It is my personal opinion that the steep price of historical racing data is one of the bottlenecks to expansion of interest in the game.

Sorry, I seem to have gone on a disjointed rant.

[chickenhead]

not disjointed at all, an excellent post

[Cubbymac26]

Suffolk fan I'm new to the area I'm 28 and love horse racing but sinse I moved to ct from nj there's no live racing anywhere so your going to have to tell me a good spot at suf to to catch simulcast and see the race when it goes off


As for horse racing treating there fans as second class citizens I couldn't agree more they have no consideration for the bettors make no attempt to improve anything and with slots and vlt's they could care less about the racing everytrack is dead now with nobody there all it is now is otb and online going to the races isn't what it used to be and young kids like myself will never get into racing I go to foxwoods play poker bet some pik 3s these kids ask me what I'm betting they look at me like I'm a old degenerate it's to bad but the only way for racing to survive is to cater to the bettors they have now cuz there's no way for any new people to come on board good ideas include .10 cent supers 50 cent tri pk 3 and 4s a good start

[miesque]

Originally Posted by chickenhead

I don't understand your response, but ok. Of course owning a nice package of season tickets, or a boat, or joining a country club is more expensive than the admission for a day at Charles Town or Golden Gate Fields.

Racing doesn't compete primarily with professional sporting events, because 99.9% of the races run in North America aren't compelling as sporting events. If they were, people would go to the track to watch them.

Racings competition, for 99.9% of it's product, is other forms of gambling, not other professional sports. This is just my opinion of course, I'm not sure why that would offend you.

Chick - you have raised some really good points on this thread. The way I break down the sports analogy is that at the very, very top of the sport, its what I consider to be Professional Sports worthy but that is only really a few days a year, the Triple Crown races and the Breeders Cup. The graded stakes leading up to those races is kinda a grey zone between Minor League and Major League depending on the race and when you think about it, that is how it is reflected on a National TV scale (aka ESPN and Network Coverage). Everything under that is in the range from low league minor league to amateur and there are plenty of people who show up to watch amateur sports. What is different in racing which Chick pointed out is on a given Saturday at a track, you can have a Grade I, but also Maiden Claiming on the same card which is pretty much the same as watching a major league followed by a local amateur team, so you have a very wide range at a single venue whereas in other sports you don't see amateurs playing at Camden Yard. Now there is nothing wrong with watching amateur sports, people do it all the time. People showed up at our Friday & Saturday night polo matches and happily paid admission and tailgated and I can guarantee you that I was not going to be mistaken for a paid professional polo player. People showed up for a combination of ambience and entertainment and that element is what is getting sold for a typical day at a track that isn't a major league day and the price is pretty much the same now that I think of it (we charged $3-5 bucks per person). I don't think you will ever see all the "nice" races end up at just a few tracks because if anything you will probably see more of a dilution with "nice" races are popping up at the track with the "new" money (just take a look at that Million Dollar Stake at Charles Town and the Million Dollar Pennsylvania Derby, etc). Now the above conversation solely regards the "sport" aspect of horse racing. The other side is the business side which is fueled by handle and horseplayers which funds purses and that does not require a massive facility/grandstand, what it does require is competitive races with full fields and a good betting race can occur on any level of competition.

[miesque]

Originally Posted by Watcher

This is something I think about whenever I take friends to the track. Unless you're in a large group and they can entertain themselves, it's hard to handicap AND play entertainment host.

This is a very good point and its actually why I tend to not reach out and bring as many newbies/novices to the track with me as I should. It almost feels like you are a babysitter at times so as a result a lot of times I would rather go by myself and relax playing the card on my schedule and my terms.

[Grits]

CH, your analogy is an explanation of how you see a day at the races, this was no stretch for me to understand.

The reason I say its a poor one is because you are stating only the obvious--that which anyone who has ever picked up a set of pps knows. You're preaching to the choir, so to speak.

Still, in doing so, you and I, both, know everyday at the races will not ever look like Breeders Cup Day with all showcase events. Nor will it look like Kentucky Derby or Belmont Day with outstanding undercards. This will not happen because, again, you are dealing with animals and they all compete at different levels, dependent upon their ability. Maybe that's seen as a problem for the sport--but as humans, we do the same each day.

CH, in your analogy, you are looking more at a day at the track, I think I may be looking and thinking more about the entire industry that is providing your day at the track. An industry, much of which, some of these ideas could, readily, put out of a job . . . . but it happens. We know.

You guys, hopefully, can come up with something concrete on how we determine which particular tracks to shutter. Which ones have too many 6 year old maiden claimers, yet again, plodding towards the wire for win number 1. And equally important for my comfort--which ones have too many fools who're still smoking and too much low life for me to wade through.

Do away with the plants (now there's a word that dates a horseplayer) all together. Who needs a horseracing experience like Saratoga, DelMar, or Keeneland when you can gamble it on your Blackberry? Let each track provide their FREE pps to all online players, then DRF and BRIS go down the sewer. Get rid of any animal that can't get an 1/8th in .10 flat. That'll solve a lot of our problems right there won't it? Though the slaughterhouse thing could garner us some bad ink once again.

Again, this game cannot be well equated to poker. It takes a helluva lot more money to put on THIS gambling show, than it takes to put on THAT gambling show. And it always will. This will not change. Poker is cheap, friends. Dirt cheap. AND THIS IS THE REASON THAT IT THRIVES, along with slot machines, and lotto. A person buys in to play poker. Great, this works well. This person is not paying a day rate to a trainer, entry fees, vet bills, transport, etc, etc. This person is responsible only for--and to--him or her self. No other obligation. So, let's forget poker, and the comparison. TV picked up poker, too, because it didn't have the price tag horseracing has.

Virtual's the way of the future, indeed, I assure you I AM aware of this. But a bit, sadly, aware. Bring on all the upgrades, all the technology necessary. All the young with new and great ideas. In the meantime, though, take it all to the folks that work in the industry and most of all, to those who work with the horse, the foundation of it all. Sure, we fuel it, but so do they. You can't have Part A of this game without the daily work of Part B. We'd all go down the sewer guys, and in short order.

This sport may die due to expense, due to cost of providing the gambling product. Only in management, and in boardrooms and in our own questioning of policies and probabilities can it survive.

Warren Henry, I appreciate your thoughts, greatly. What a fine post you've written. Wisdom, good morning. I'd like you to meet Vision.

Originally Posted by chickenhead

Do you think it's a poor analogy for a maiden claimer?