Stakes day at the Mountain

[tanner12oz]

Rose Mary Williams is director of racing at mnr...give her a call and complain

[BMustang]

That was bad!!!!

Horses in the gate and running at exactly the same time.

I like Mountaineer and spend many Monday and Tuesday evenings playing their card. Don't mind the daytime set, but A) their card is not in the form, and B) too much other top shelf competition on a Saturday afternoon. I think Sunday would be a great day where they would draw much more attention and not be competing with the Whitney Day card at Saratoga.

[Tom]

What they call the Big Race, other tracks call the "8th" race.
DRF didn't think enough of it to even put in the one race, huh?
Maybe the PPs were in the local paper.

[tanner12oz]

Originally Posted by BMustang

That was bad!!!!

Horses in the gate and running at exactly the same time.

I like Mountaineer and spend many Monday and Tuesday evenings playing their card. Don't mind the daytime set, but A) their card is not in the form, and B) too much other top shelf competition on a Saturday afternoon. I think Sunday would be a great day where they would draw much more attention and not be competing with the Whitney Day card at Saratoga.

anyone have the handle numbers on the Sunday years vs the recent Saturday years?

[Stillriledup]

Originally Posted by tanner12oz

Rose Mary Williams is director of racing at mnr...give her a call and complain

Yeah, they'll get right on it.

[wiffleball whizz]

Originally Posted by tanner12oz

If the races go off at the same time then the mnr patrons can get to playing slots without having to waste 1:48 watching the Whitney...seriously I would believe anything at this point.

I know we have mnr folks on this board and everyone us mum on this year in year out

They are stupid......like most said here it was a moronic decision to have this card on Saturday....totally put on the back burner with 60 other tracks racing....

Sunday would have been better or even Friday night......just a moronic decision

[mountainman]

Originally Posted by VeryOldMan

Good pick by mountainman and Nancy, and nice call by Peter Berry. Good job, fellow board members.

Tx, dude..enjoyed it a lot. Owe much to the wv derby, and always give my utmost for the facility-not for the company or whomever happens to own it at the moment, but for the players, for my self-respect, and for the racetrack I've long been honored to serve.

Incidentally, isn't it ironic that Nakatani dictated so masterfully to Napravnik, yet she gets the glory? I would rate HIS ride as the best I've seen in a wv derby.

[Mineshaft]

Wow what a tough crowd. Heres my take on tracks running on top of each other.


When you have at least 14 tracks running in the daytime and i might of missed some yesterday your going to have some tracks running races at the same time. Theres no way around it. It just happens. Its horse racing. What do you want the 14 tracks to do? Get together and make sure no races are starting to run at the same time? Not going to happen. So quit the belly aching and put your big boy panties on and deal with it. Personally i dont have a problem with it at all.

[Valuist]

Originally Posted by Mineshaft

Wow what a tough crowd. Heres my take on tracks running on top of each other.


When you have at least 14 tracks running in the daytime and i might of missed some yesterday your going to have some tracks running races at the same time. Theres no way around it. It just happens. Its horse racing. What do you want the 14 tracks to do? Get together and make sure no races are starting to run at the same time? Not going to happen. So quit the belly aching and put your big boy panties on and deal with it. Personally i dont have a problem with it at all.

There's some tracks and there's Saratoga. Nobody cares if the WV Derby overruns the feature at Belterra/River, but you'd think they'd make it a point not to run while the Whitney is going on. Mnr's signature race, and pretty much everyone had to watch it after the fact.

[Stillriledup]

Originally Posted by Mineshaft

Wow what a tough crowd. Heres my take on tracks running on top of each other.


When you have at least 14 tracks running in the daytime and i might of missed some yesterday your going to have some tracks running races at the same time. Theres no way around it. It just happens. Its horse racing. What do you want the 14 tracks to do? Get together and make sure no races are starting to run at the same time? Not going to happen. So quit the belly aching and put your big boy panties on and deal with it. Personally i dont have a problem with it at all.

What do "14 tracks" have to do with a 1.5 million dollar grade 1 race at Saratoga?

There's 0 percent chance that anyone would have come on here and said "i can't believe the WV Derby was run on top of the 6th at Belterra, shame on them".

[Tom]

I would have.

[Mineshaft]

Originally Posted by Stillriledup

What do "14 tracks" have to do with a 1.5 million dollar grade 1 race at Saratoga?

There's 0 percent chance that anyone would have come on here and said "i can't believe the WV Derby was run on top of the 6th at Belterra, shame on them".

All 14 tracks are running in the afternoon theres going to be races running on top of each other. Just the way it is. Mountaineer had 9 stakes races yesterday they have to worry about there card and nobody elses card. It is there biggest day of racing. I cant blame them for running the same time as the Whitney.

[Stillriledup]

Originally Posted by Mineshaft

All 14 tracks are running in the afternoon theres going to be races running on top of each other. Just the way it is. Mountaineer had 9 stakes races yesterday they have to worry about there card and nobody elses card. It is there biggest day of racing. I cant blame them for running the same time as the Whitney.

But that's selfish, don't the horseplayers, fans and the industry come first?

[Tom]

Originally Posted by Mineshaft

All 14 tracks are running in the afternoon theres going to be races running on top of each other. Just the way it is. Mountaineer had 9 stakes races yesterday they have to worry about there card and nobody elses card. It is there biggest day of racing. I cant blame them for running the same time as the Whitney.

Yes, going off at the same time as the Gr1 Whitney as Saratoga was looking out for their handle and exposure.

[Jeff P]

Originally Posted by Mineshaft

Wow what a tough crowd. Heres my take on tracks running on top of each other.


When you have at least 14 tracks running in the daytime and i might of missed some yesterday your going to have some tracks running races at the same time. Theres no way around it. It just happens. Its horse racing. What do you want the 14 tracks to do? Get together and make sure no races are starting to run at the same time? Not going to happen. So quit the belly aching and put your big boy panties on and deal with it. Personally i dont have a problem with it at all.

FYI, Prior to the 2011 Round Table, The Jockey Club hired McKinsey & Company to do an economic analysis of (among other things) lost revenue as a result of tracks purposely running their races on top of each other.

One of the "do-able" (or so it was thought) recommendations by McKinsey & Company was introduced by The Jockey Club the following year at the 2012 Round Table: A Race Scheduling Tool that had been built into The InCompass System:
http://www.jockeyclub.com/default.as...ar=2012&area=2

First, the Race Scheduling Tool. It was designed by the McKinsey quantitative analysts who used a database of hundreds of thousands of past races, attempting to help racetrack managers to develop the optimum order in which to card races and schedule races to avoid overlaps. We'll offer this software free of charge to all racetracks.

In theory, a designated person at each track was given the ability to bring up the Race Scheduling Tool, and then LOOK at their key races/post times, etc. vs. those of other tracks already in the system the same day.

From there (had the tool been used yesterday) it would have been ridiculously easy for say Mountaineer to see that their feature race was slated to go off at the same time as Saratoga's feature race - and adjust accordingly.

Note that I used the words: in theory.

I did so because even though the system has been created and made available to the tracks free of charge...

Track participation to date has been minimal.

Being naive I asked The Jockey Club "Why aren't more tracks using it?"

The answer that came back didn't surprise me. It seems non participation at the track level is ego driven...

As in:

"OUR race is going off at 4:30. If they don't like it THEY can reset THEIR post time."

Given what I discovered when I went looking for answers to the "Why do they keep running their races on top of each other?" question I'm not the least bit surprised that it happened again - and that Mountaineer is being called out on it by players.

Earth to Track Management and Horsemen: Your customers have been trying to tell you something on an ongoing basis for years.

Had you been listening you would have had more handle yesterday than you did.

Maybe that matters to you. If so, maybe it's time to ...ahem wake up.


-jp

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