Quote:
Originally Posted by dilanesp
The cure of allowing "unscratches" is far worse than the disease. That's just inviting pool manipulation, and would itself leave a bunch of pissed off bettors.
Remember as well, in some parts of Del Mar, there were betting window lines yesterday. You guys are mostly off track and in a position to quickly make new bets, but "unscratching" could screw over people on track.
No way should that CHRB rule prohibiting unscratches ever be changed. Put in a rule that allows them to declare a race an "ALL". And if they want to improve their steward/vet communication, that's great. But no unscratches- that's pure result-oriented thinking based on one weird incident.
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As a bettor I strongly disagree with the above post.
Think about what happened in the last race on Friday.
Stewards are human. And as we've seen more times than I care to count they are subject to human error.
But once human error allowed them to mistakenly scratch a LIVE horse in the last race on Friday:
There was NOTHING in the rules allowing them to correct such an egregious mistake.
The result?
Bettors who individually wagered hundreds, thousands, and some of them tens of thousands in multi-race exotics who had #1 Modern Games on their tickets were given a huge middle finger by the CHRB.
When was the last time you heard on track bettors actually booing the last race of the day at the Breeders Cup?
How do you prevent that from ever happening again?
You PROTECT THE BETTORS by changing the rules and you create tote functionality to restore horses mistakenly scratched by the stewards back into the tote.
The unscratch rule I am proposing:
1. Can only be used to correct horses mistakenly scratched by the stewards.
2. Requires a vote by the stewards to correct a mistake made by the stewards.
That's it.
If you are worried about pool manipulation by the stewards you already have a problem. A steward who is dishonest already has the ability to disqualify any horse in any race from its actual finish position and have it officially placed anywhere he or she wants. (Not allowing them to correct a mistakenly scratched horse isn't going to change that.)
Imo, there ARE a few ways to do this intelligently with on track bettors in mind.
When scratches (and potential unscratches) occur on days when a track has an unusually large crowd:
Track management can easily tell the gate crew to wait a few minutes to give on track betters the chance to make additional wagers just like they sometimes do for regular scratches.
The incident that happened in the last race on Fri took place as the sun was sinking over the horizon. Del Mar doesn't have lights. There was a 15 to 20 minute delay. At one point I was wondering if they would have to cancel the race due to darkness.
But 99 days out of 100 at California tracks on track attendance isn't so big that track management can't tell the gate crew to wait a minutes until the lines at the windows empty out.
Also:
On track players do have the option to use a track issued handheld wifi device to wager.
Many on track players also have smart phones and ADW accounts. Guarantee you they are using them now for additional late wagers when regular scratches occur.
Making a race an ALL:
Making races where the stewards have mistakenly scratched a horse an ALL also screws bettors who have correctly selected the mistakenly scratched horse in their multi-race exotics because they collect pennies on the dollar for the ALL absent the stewards' boneheaded mistake compared to what they know they will collect when the mistakenly scratched horse running for purse money only wins.
As a bettor:
I'd much rather give the stewards the ability to correct a mistake before the race goes off.
I'm guessing I'm not the only bettor who sees it this way.
-jp
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I don't
