killing horse racing

[jasperson]

By giving the bettors the type races that they want is that helping to kill horse racing? I mean the bettors want larger fields and more turf racing which lead to higher pay offs,but is that what the casual fan wants? I don't think so. I think they want to come out, bet a few favorites get a couple of winner and get to cheer their horse instead of seeing their favorites lose and walk out of the track saying it all crooked because they didn't have favorite win. We bettors will always come to the track as long as there is a track to bet on. The industry is shrinking and we need to attrack new fans. I made the comment to one of the track tellers when she told me that the handle was down 4%. I told her 4% of us old geezers must have died since last year.

[Stillriledup]

The 'fans' are always going to want what they can't have. Also, many of these so called fans are just delusional to think that if they lose its because the 'fix' was in, if they lose its just due to being out handicapped and out bet by smarter people.

'Racing' is an inflexible dinosaur that refuses to enact serious change, I'm pretty sure the reason no real change happens in horse racing is because the movers and shakers in the sport don't know what they're doing.

[NorCalGreg]

Originally Posted by jasperson

By giving the bettors the type races that they want is that helping to kill horse racing? I mean the bettors want larger fields and more turf racing which lead to higher pay offs,but is that what the casual fan wants? I don't think so. I think they want to come out, bet a few favorites get a couple of winner and get to cheer their horse instead of seeing their favorites lose and walk out of the track saying it all crooked because they didn't have favorite win. We bettors will always come to the track as long as there is a track to bet on. The industry is shrinking and we need to attrack new fans. I made the comment to one of the track tellers when she told me that the handle was down 4%. I told her 4% of us old geezers must have died since last year.

There's a pretty good article in current Horseplayer Monthly about this very subject--the author's conclusion? --Not at all. I wont reprise the story here, it's free, go ahead and read it. Also, was reading elsewhere Canterbury of all places, is drawing huge numbers. They seem to know what activities young people like at the track, and they're getting them. 40,000 one Sat. They're partying, wagering, and not trashing the park at all.
Meanwhile GGF still sits in the vortex of the apex of the worst traffic in the SF Bay Area. Don't know a single person who actually visits GGF in person. Cab drivers and Uber cars try to avoid it.
Matter of fact, here's an angle just for Thur & Fri nights @ GGF. The last race is ALWAYS the worst race on the card. Russell Baze has some kind of agreement with Dorf, Martin, Morey. If those guys want him to ride a nag in the last race, he's got to. Russell lives about 20 miles down the freeway and would love to cut out a little early, and beat some of the traffic on Thur or Fri evening--what working man wouldn't? So if you ever see Baze on a mount in the nitecap trained by Holley Evans, Thomas Jamey, Greg James, etc--you know that mount is live.
One last thing about trainer Greg James--He was fined for "changing the sex of a horse" I read that and said "WHAAAAAA"?. It turned out to be not what it sounded like.. He gelded an animal and didn't report it. Anyhoo--Good luck all.
-NCG

[Lemon Drop Husker]

Originally Posted by Stillriledup

The 'fans' are always going to want what they can't have. Also, many of these so called fans are just delusional to think that if they lose its because the 'fix' was in, if they lose its just due to being out handicapped and out bet by smarter people.

Did somebody hack SRU's account?

[Stillriledup]

Originally Posted by Lemon Drop Husker

Did somebody hack SRU's account?

I have nothing to worry about the hackers are hard at work sneaking money out of the blind pools at tracks near you right under the unsuspecting noses of the gatekeepers of our game.

I'm safe.

[andtheyreoff]

Originally Posted by Lemon Drop Husker

Did somebody hack SRU's account?

I think it's just more of his biting sarcasm.

[Tom]

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-raci...ust?source=rss

[Redboard]

Originally Posted by jasperson

By giving the bettors the type races that they want is that helping to kill horse racing? I mean the bettors want larger fields and more turf racing which lead to higher pay offs,but is that what the casual fan wants? I don't think so. I think they want to come out, bet a few favorites get a couple of winner and get to cheer their horse instead of seeing their favorites lose and walk out of the track saying it all crooked because they didn't have favorite win. We bettors will always come to the track as long as there is a track to bet on. The industry is shrinking and we need to attrack new fans. I made the comment to one of the track tellers when she told me that the handle was down 4%. I told her 4% of us old geezers must have died since last year.

I believe the stats on these things is that, on average, one of the first two betting favorites wins the race 45% of the time, more or less.

What percentage do you want it to be? 75% ?

That would suck. There's already too many favorites winning.

[thespaah]

Originally Posted by Stillriledup

The 'fans' are always going to want what they can't have. Also, many of these so called fans are just delusional to think that if they lose its because the 'fix' was in, if they lose its just due to being out handicapped and out bet by smarter people.

'Racing' is an inflexible dinosaur that refuses to enact serious change, I'm pretty sure the reason no real change happens in horse racing is because the movers and shakers in the sport don't know what they're doing.

The so called movers and shakers don't care...
Those are the horsemen....As long their purses are subsidized by slots or taxpayers, they could not give too shits about the bettors.....
The fewer people in the stands yelling at them or the riders, the better.
Yeah, that's a rather cynical viewpoint. and it may be inaccurate. Of course in public, and on a forum such as this, we would never see commentary in agreement. We'd get the pat responses. "of course we want to make our sport more attractive to the fans and attract new ones".
Oh yeah? Prove it.....Give me the news. Not the weather.
The reason I hold this view is because virtually every dispute the horsemen have with the tracks winds up having an adverse effect on the betting public.
Not once have I ever heard or read a comment from a trainer or owner that said, "hold on. We can't do this. We want to do something for the fans/bettors.....NEVER

[Stillriledup]

Originally Posted by thespaah

The so called movers and shakers don't care...
Those are the horsemen....As long their purses are subsidized by slots or taxpayers, they could not give too shits about the bettors.....
The fewer people in the stands yelling at them or the riders, the better.
Yeah, that's a rather cynical viewpoint. and it may be inaccurate. Of course in public, and on a forum such as this, we would never see commentary in agreement. We'd get the pat responses. "of course we want to make our sport more attractive to the fans and attract new ones".
Oh yeah? Prove it.....Give me the news. Not the weather.
The reason I hold this view is because virtually every dispute the horsemen have with the tracks winds up having an adverse effect on the betting public.
Not once have I ever heard or read a comment from a trainer or owner that said, "hold on. We can't do this. We want to do something for the fans/bettors.....NEVER

Horsemen view bettors as their arch enemy, just listen to the clip (or find the transcript) of Madeline Auerbach talking to Andy Asaro and that's all you need to know right there.

[grandstander21]

Originally Posted by jasperson

By giving the bettors the type races that they want is that helping to kill horse racing? I mean the bettors want larger fields and more turf racing which lead to higher pay offs,but is that what the casual fan wants? I don't think so.

You know, personally I don't like large fields too much. It's a lot of handicapping to do and it causes me to end up picking a lot of horses in a race, and the maximum horses I pick per race is 5 (with the exception of the Kentucky Derby). You're right about the big payouts thing. At a betting perspective, bigger fields can sometimes mean more upsets. As much as I like turf racing, too much of it is a bad thing.

[castaway01]

Does anyone watching horse racing really think field sizes are way up nationwide or something? Where do you guys get this stuff?

[pandy]

Originally Posted by jasperson

By giving the bettors the type races that they want is that helping to kill horse racing? I mean the bettors want larger fields and more turf racing which lead to higher pay offs,but is that what the casual fan wants? I don't think so. I think they want to come out, bet a few favorites get a couple of winner and get to cheer their horse instead of seeing their favorites lose and walk out of the track saying it all crooked because they didn't have favorite win. We bettors will always come to the track as long as there is a track to bet on. The industry is shrinking and we need to attrack new fans. I made the comment to one of the track tellers when she told me that the handle was down 4%. I told her 4% of us old geezers must have died since last year.

Well, I'll address a couple of your points. Does the casual fan want bigger fields and big payoffs? It depends on the person but tracks that have good size fields and a lot of big payoffs generally produce a higher handle than tracks with a high percentage of winning favorites and small fields. Let's put it this way, there's no question that small fields, especially less than 8 horses per race are bad for handle. There has never been a single racetrack that was very successful that had a high percentage of low payoffs.

As for your point about favorites, harness racing has declined much more than thoroughbred racing and the main reason is that the favorites win too much. When harness racing was a big sport in NY, with big handle, the favorites won 34% of the time. Now many tracks are well over 40% and some as high as 44% winning favorites. These tracks are not doing well. In fact, most of the harness tracks with the lower rate of winning favorites have the highest handle. There's really only one racetrack in the country that has a high % of winning favorites that has good handle, Northfield Park harness. I'm not really sure why, but I do know that it's an aberration. The surest way for a racetrack to go out of business is to have a lot of winning favorites.

Whether people like cashing tickets on favorites or not is not the point. If a lot of favorites win, more people lose because favorites are the worst bets in racing. Most favorites are sucker bets, they look good on paper but they are underlays because the average racing fan doesn't realize that horses are made of flesh and blood, they are not machines. When you have good payoffs, the average racing fan will box some exactas or trifectas and hit a nice one occasionally, and that makes up for a lot of his losses, which brings him back to the track over and over again hoping for another big score. When the favorites are winning, there is no way to recoup your losses and after a while most bettors will lose interest.

[MJC922]

I think people like the racing itself and they like the idea of wagering on it, what needs to happen is a greater number of bet types brought to the fore, prop, exchange type bets, maybe more contest-style bets where if you finish in the top third or whatever you'll get most of your money back at the end of the day, that way the track can start getting people back the next day. In short, there should be more high-percentage bets made available.

What do you do if you don't like the favorite today? Find the biggest low-percentage overlay and watch it lose 9 out of 10? Or you construct some complex exotic hedge bet where you probably spend way more than you should just to execute it properly and then might be forced to even save with the favorite you hate in order to mitigate the potential for loss. Or Dutch the rest of the field without knowing what odds the favorite will even go off at? By the time the race is over the horse is an overlay. As for what it offers as a betting game, it's unappetizing in a lot of ways.

[Robert Goren]

Originally Posted by Stillriledup

Horsemen view bettors as their arch enemy, just listen to the clip (or find the transcript) of Madeline Auerbach talking to Andy Asaro and that's all you need to know right there.

That is not true. At best horsemen view bettors as a necessary evil, at worst as low life degenerates roughly equivalent to statutory rapists. A problem in racing has arisen in last 25 years thanks to the introduction of outside money to fund a large portion of the purse of a race. So much of the purse is made up of this outside money that the horsemen no longer care much about the part funded by the betting on the race. As a result, the limited number of horsemen who have enough horses to pressure the track into writing races for designed especially for their horses are doing so. Most horsemen are in the same boat as the bettors. Like the bettors who are forced to bet on races they do like or not bet at all, many horsemen are forced to run in races they do not want to run in or not run at all. One of many mistakes race tracks made starting about 50 years ago was no longer limiting the number of horses a trainer and/or an owner could have on site at one time.