Bettors Deserve Better

[pandy]

http://www.drf.com/news/bob-pandolfo...re-information

[mrroyboy]

Excellent article Pandy. Some tracks are doing some of those things. Maybe more will soon.

[Sea Biscuit]

Originally Posted by pandy

http://www.drf.com/news/bob-pandolfo...re-information

Good article Pandy.

Wind Direction: This winter the winds played havoc with the outcome of races creating unbelievable track biases at Woodbine. There were days when 9 races of 10 or 11 went to the off the pace types mostly due to wind currents on a fast track.How difficult would it be for them to put a wind meter with arrows pointing towards the direction its flowing in the video replays itself before each race. I would like to know if in the first 4 or fives races the wind was say 30kmp and in the later stages the wind currents had reached 50kmp which would explain the slower miles for the last 2 or 3 races.

Scratches: Is a vet scratch shown in the program enough information? Absolutely not. I would like to know which horses showed up lame after a race, which had fevers, which showed mucus or traces of blood in the trachea, which ones had fractured bones, which ones had suspensory injuries and more if possible just like they do for Hong Kong races.

http://businessofracing.blogspot.com...orse-care.html

As regards handle, track maintenance, start of the races I am satisfied with what Woodbine (my home track) currently provides.

Thanks again for the nice article.

[JustRalph]

Nice, simple piece. Short and sweet, to the point. We need more of this attitude that invokes customer service type of values.

I had not heard of this:

"The Meadowlands has implemented changes that promote honesty and integrity. For instance, they hired a private investigator. Recently he saw three horsemen pull their van into a N.J. turnpike rest stop and throw a bag away. He confiscated the bag and found several used syringes. The Meadowlands took immediate action. The two horses were scratched and the men were banned from the track. And this week the New Jersey Racing Commission announced five year suspensions for two of the men, and one year for a groom."

That's awesome.........

[Stillriledup]

Good stuff Pandy, well done, hard to disagree with any of what you wrote.

The only thing i would caution is the idea that we can request "sweeping changes" all at once. You have a lot of great ideas, but we're dealing with the racing industry, they had a similar sheet of suggestions from Barry Meadow and a few other well respected voices in the game about 10 years ago and they largely ignored anything that was said, probably costing themselves and the industry untold millions.

The toughest question to answer is this. Why are racetracks constantly shunning change into advancement into 2014? its no longer 1970 where you can treat players like crap and have the 'take it or leave it' attitude, you have to keep up with changing times....or, as Gordon Gekko might say, "you get eliminated".

"Racing" is leaving untold millions on the table and all they need is a few simple changes that they refuse to embrace. I don't know, maybe they don't want to embrace suggestions from horseplayers?

I'm hopeful that in 2014, tracks will start making changes and you're right about the Japan Racing, we have horsemen in America who are still trying to hide their horses in the morning so "prying eyes" can't see them work out. This isnt 1960 anymore, players should be encouraged to show up at the morning works and tracks should be incredibly aggressive at policing the morning training sessions...no horse should be training without being able to be identified by anyone who wants to know "who's that big chestnut that just worked out".

[pandy]

Thanks for all the comments. I wasn't aware of the wind related closer bias at Woodbine, a track that I don't follow, but it's good to know for when shippers come down to race here.

[Tall One]

Excellent read, pandy. I think that pretty much nailed it.

Really enjoyed the past few Saturdays playing the Big M card. I like watching via the ontrack feed on xpressbet, to hear any on track info available. They're doing a good job up there. Good to read about their security crackdowns too. Kudos

[Sea Biscuit]

Originally Posted by pandy

Thanks for all the comments. I wasn't aware of the wind related closer bias at Woodbine, a track that I don't follow, but it's good to know for when shippers come down to race here.

Just about the worst and erroneous piece of info contained in a Woodbine program is the track variant the judges give out just by looking at the final times without doing any calculations. For example they gave out the track variant as -1 for Mar 28 whereas my calculated variant was 0 for that day.

To make matters worst, Woodbine handicappers like Mike Hamilton, Greg Gangle, Jeff Bratt and Ken Middleton often quote those variants in their pre race show and make selections based on those variants.

[Just a Fan]

Just to play devil's advocate... for any piece of additional information that you might want to see in the program, there is some guy out there doing his homework, already keeping track of it, and now he loses his edge when everyone has this info. Betting horses (or gambling in general) is about having some sort of an edge... when DRF started publishing Beyer figs and (later on) category-specific trainer stats, I'm sure it really hurt some people that were calculating this info themselves, and in a sense it doesn't really help anybody if everyone has access to this info. I kind of like the idea of seeing some horseplayers have success because they work at it to give themselves an edge. Pandy, I'm sure you have made some nice scores in your career on horses that had a hidden edge that you snuffed out... I wonder if giving the public TOO much info might be a bad thing.

Totally agree on tracks publishing their handle figures. Pool sizes should also appear on the simulcast presentation from each track.

Seabiscuit, if you think your track variants are more accurate than the one maintained by the Woodbine handicappers (and if you work on it, they probably are), then it might drive you nuts to see the guys who are paid to be experts be wrong about something like this, but you should LOVE it from a gambling perspective if those guys are talking up an inaccurate variant.


Ralph - they didn't catch a real big fish, but its nice to see some effort to clean up the game...

http://www.harnessracing.com/news/nj...spensions.html

[Stillriledup]

Originally Posted by Just a Fan

Just to play devil's advocate... for any piece of additional information that you might want to see in the program, there is some guy out there doing his homework, already keeping track of it, and now he loses his edge when everyone has this info. Betting horses (or gambling in general) is about having some sort of an edge... when DRF started publishing Beyer figs and (later on) category-specific trainer stats, I'm sure it really hurt some people that were calculating this info themselves, and in a sense it doesn't really help anybody if everyone has access to this info. I kind of like the idea of seeing some horseplayers have success because they work at it to give themselves an edge. Pandy, I'm sure you have made some nice scores in your career on horses that had a hidden edge that you snuffed out... I wonder if giving the public TOO much info might be a bad thing.

Totally agree on tracks publishing their handle figures. Pool sizes should also appear on the simulcast presentation from each track.

Seabiscuit, if you think your track variants are more accurate than the one maintained by the Woodbine handicappers (and if you work on it, they probably are), then it might drive you nuts to see the guys who are paid to be experts be wrong about something like this, but you should LOVE it from a gambling perspective if those guys are talking up an inaccurate variant.


Ralph - they didn't catch a real big fish, but its nice to see some effort to clean up the game...

http://www.harnessracing.com/news/nj...spensions.html

Interesting post and take. You're right that as much as we want to play "good cop" this game shouldnt start turning into a 'think tank' with all the greatest minds sharing all their info with everyone else. We need edges to have any chance and the more that information gets out, it makes races 'easier' and if races are easier, its harder to win.

[Sea Biscuit]

Originally Posted by Just a Fan

Seabiscuit, if you think your track variants are more accurate than the one maintained by the Woodbine handicappers (and if you work on it, they probably are), then it might drive you nuts to see the guys who are paid to be experts be wrong about something like this, but you should LOVE it from a gambling perspective if those guys are talking up an inaccurate variant.

The need for a wind meter at Woodbine could not be felt more than on April 10th. The day started with gusty winds blowing across the track at 50mph. The pre game show handicappers mentioned that. Without doing any calculations I saw that the track was off by more than 2 seconds. The judges listed the track as (Temperature: 10, Condition: FT, Variant: 1). Before the 4th race Mike Hamilton casually mentioned that the winds have died down considerably. If I hadn't been paying attention, I would never have known that. After the 4th race to the 10th race no less than 6 horses took lifetime marks but the judges never bothered to change their initial track variant.

As regards your comment about liking from the gambling perspective, I can only say that I would like to see as much accurate information in the program as possible.

[pandy]

Probably the most egregious of all the points I made in my column is the handle. If a racetrack wants people to bet, they have to show how much money is in the pools.