Suffolk Downs cuts purses

[bdw0617]

I WILL JUST SAY THIS....I'M NOT WITH RUFFLED FEATHERS, I JUST DON'T AGREE.

THE ARGUMENT OF THE NUMBER OF RACES, AND DAYS TO ME IS NONSENSE. NO DISRESPECT INTENDED. THIS SOUNDS LIKE A STATMENT RIGHT OUT OF THE ANDREA YOUNG (SHRP) PLAYBOOK.

NOW, ON THE ISSUE OF TRACK MANAGEMENT...YOU HAVE MY EAR! I AGREE, AND TEXAS IS A GREAT EXAMPLE. FOLKS HERE HAVE SOLD OUT THE HORSERACING INDUSTRY IN DREAMS OF A SLOT MACHINE. I TOO AGREE ON YOUR POINT WITH REGARDS TO MANAGERS FROM BUSINESS SCHOOL WHO WOULDN'T KNOW HOW TO DIFFER A COLT FROM A FILLY. THEY ARE SMART PEOPLE, JUST NOT SMART HORSE PEOPLE.

HAVE A GOOD NIGHT MY FRIEND.
THEO

A track should run as many races as they can afford to run, from the money it makes off wagers from it's patrons. No more, no less.

If that number is 10 a day, 7 days a week, great. but right now it's not.

I am not coming at you saying less is more (although I think it is, lone star just isn't say for instance, del mar, i get that). But you just can't write races for the sake of writing them and then figure otu how to fund them lol, that's pretty backwards. in every other business, you figure out how much of something your clientw ants, then you give them thatr amount.

right now, the patrons are telling you that they don't want the amount of races that you are carding, because they aren't betting them.

Simucast has done alot of hurt too. some good, but the mindset of people is that, hey, if we just write races people will gamble. horse players aren't never ending gobstopers lol, we just don't give for the sake of giving.


jrgators, i'm coming at you as a guy who honestly, derives his living off gambling at the races, BS aside. This is what I do, and i'm telling you, there is too much racing.

you know when my profits really soared?

when i cut off hrtv and tvg. there is way, way, way, way too much racing.

And it's not even so much, that there is too much of it, but it's all clustered together which makes it worse. figuring out who to wager and make money honestly wasn't as hard as figuring out that the system is setup for you to fail as a horse player and working around it. with hrtv coming at you with 150 races a day, let that number sink in. A thursday in feburary hrtv will cover oaklawn, pimlico, gulfstream, aqueduct, santa anita, golden gate, fair grounds, delta downs, remington park,tampa bay downs x 10 races per track that's 90 races and that is just thoroughbreds, not harness racing. that is ALOT of stuff to dijest. Even ify ou aren't betting them all, you are watching them, and people aren't supposed to have that much thrown at them at once, especially while doing something complex as handicapping. The system, is setup for horse players to fail. Why I don't know, well yes I do, clueless ass people at the helms, but it is setup for us to fail. No one knows how to present horse racing (at least in america, in britian they do it right, focus on 2 tracks a day, screw everyone else), don't give a shit what the bettors want or what makes them tick.

Really HRTV should take 2 tracks, or take certain races from each track, spend 10-15 minutes diving into each race, and if your race isn't shown you are just SOL.

never in my 3 years, not once, in 3 years have i watched HRTV or TVG, and been SOLD on a reason to wager on a race. They show too much racing to sit down and sell me on why I should wager on a race. Granted, this is what I do for a living, i'm quite sure I know what im' doing but you get the point.

instead of 'fast track" when you try to scrumb 20 races in a 60 minute time frame, what if saturday, tehy took 15 mintues to sit down and break down the alabama and said "hey look, here is some information for you guys, the 3/5 fav right now, devil may care, is by a sire that is a sprinting sire and she is a half brother to a h orse that failed miserably going 10F,t here is a very good hcance DMC does not want to go 10F.

What if they would have said hey, blind luck's trainer has not shipped a horse into saratoga since 1991. What if they went in debpth about the speed bias, what if they went and got quotes from trainers in real time, what if they spendt real time going in the post parade and letting us see what we are wagering on...

what i am getting at is, what if they, not so much told you what to bet, but for 15 minutes, gave you a reason to wager, instead of skimming over the track 3 mintu es to post just so you can show a live race.

And you can only do this, when you have less racing.

Quite frankly anyone who is serious about horses and uses TVG or HRTV i can't take seriously, i catch so much stuff in the time they are so busy fast tracking it across the country on a track feed, i'm amazed.

I have never played a pick 6 ticket in my life. I came might close one day, it was a day that jon white, had like 30 minutes to kill before the races started and he had put together a pick 6 ticket on air, and it was so convincing I damn near pulled the trigger. funny enough he hit, 983 dollars.

in reality he sold me on that ticket. Frankly I did not have the money in my account at the time this was like 3 years ago. But had i had the money I would have wagered. He spent about 20 mintues going through each leg and explaining his thought process and why he picked what.





you go to the simulcast center and there are hundreds of races there, you can burn a player out, quickly. I've burned myself out, that's hard for me to do. when I learned to take a 2-3 day break, when I learned that no, i don't have to watch racing 24 x 7 to make money, in fact that was very detrimental, gamblers do better with a fresh mind.

When i cut off hrtv and tvg, and just cut on the track feed for cal racing, the game became alot easier, I never was burned out and i actually had fun.



For horse tracks to stick around, they need to do a better job of educating their gamblers. An educated gambler will win more, will come back more, and put more money in the pools therefore increasing your purses. What we do instead is make it harder and harder for them to have a good time and give them less of a reason to come back.


we need racing in texas, very bad, it's a huge state with alot of untappted potential.

I've done a little bit more research on your situation and it's screwy to say the least.

I don't think you guys write too many races as much as they are written ont he wrong days. I think you could increase handle by spreading the days out to less "conventional days" to take advantage of dark days and darkt imes. But your biggest problem are the ADWs's that just stupid.

the funny thing is, I can play lone star park, but you can't play it lol.

I am, because i am not tied down, able to take a very liberal view to the states I live in. states IMHo are like mini businesses who all compete for my business, which are my tax dollars for living there. some states offer great places to raise kids, some offer exciting night life, some offer the beach. in your case, texas isn't offering you antyhing condusive to showing they give a damn about racing in texas, i would move one state over to Louisiana where you would be welcomed with open arms.

[Shammy Davis]

bdw617: Less racing is not the answer. Fewer horses is not the answer either. The industry cannot continue with less racing and fewer horses.

In many respects the horseracing business is exactly like the revolving door at a Waffle House.

Racing Secretaries across NA require thousand upon thousands of horses to fill to capacity barn stalls because at the very minimum hundreds of horses are required to fill daily race cards. Not all horses complete a particular meet because of illness, injury, or poor racing and they have to be replaced. It is a revolving door at the track. As horses leave, they have to be replaced and if they are not replaced the race cards don't fill and the racing secretary has to write optional races for the fewer horses available. If optional races become the norm, the quality of racing is deminished and what fans racing still have lose interest. There are many smaller tracks that have failed as the public interest in the sport has lessened. Some are hanging on by a thread. Rockingham in NH, Emerald Downs in WA, and Fairmount in IL are a couple that come to mind. These tracks are near large metro areas. Now Suffolk is at issue. TX is suffering. CA is unraveling. If you look around to tracks that are succeeding, you find optional sources of revenue, gambling notably.

JMO, but the problem is greater than a few budgetary cuts.

The horseracing business is expensive for everyone involved in its production. Wilf has hit the nail on the head. If horsemen want a place to race they are going to have bare a greater burden and not expect other gambling venues to support a failed business plan while they stick to racing and breeding as usual.

Like I said previously, it is apparent that something is going on in CA. If you have kept up w/the TX thread, you'll see the same problems. Certainly, the national and world economies are not helping.

As a comparison, watch TVG or HRTV in the morning as they broadcast international racing. Recently, the UK races have been broadcast and the tracks are jammed w/fans. Good racing with pedigrees you know about too.

[mini's mom]

well here in new hampshire the excuse was that 'expanded gambling will degrade the quality of life"- so 1/2 of the legislature decided that we will all pay higher property taxes, contribute more to an illegally funded education system, work another one or two jobs to survive, pay more for electricity and telephone and on and on.

At least they gave a reason - it looks like the owners of suffolk downs spent the money to pay the right pols but someone just forgot to get the right governor. There needs to be a largeprotest rally at the state house in front of Patrick's office and get his attention.

I heard on the radio the other day that oneo fthe state legislators wants to purpose a bill to raise money to retrain all of the ousted workers at wonderland dog track. So why notkeep them working and keep them generating tax money, paying their own bills, mortgages ect - Massachusetts is really out of touch with the real world - just like New Hampshire is - Mass has the lottery, liquor & cigaretts- NH has more of it - and people are moving out of Mass just for those reasons - the pols get paid off and when it comes down to cruch time then they don't produce what they were paid off to produce - I would hate to see Suffolk Downs close but without a better purse structure & a racino it looks doubtfull.

thanks
minis mom

[bdw0617]

bdw617: Less racing is not the answer. Fewer horses is not the answer either. The industry cannot continue with less racing and fewer horses.

In many respects the horseracing business is exactly like the revolving door at a Waffle House.

Racing Secretaries across NA require thousand upon thousands of horses to fill to capacity barn stalls because at the very minimum hundreds of horses are required to fill daily race cards. Not all horses complete a particular meet because of illness, injury, or poor racing and they have to be replaced. It is a revolving door at the track. As horses leave, they have to be replaced and if they are not replaced the race cards don't fill and the racing secretary has to write optional races for the fewer horses available. If optional races become the norm, the quality of racing is deminished and what fans racing still have lose interest. There are many smaller tracks that have failed as the public interest in the sport has lessened. Some are hanging on by a thread. Rockingham in NH, Emerald Downs in WA, and Fairmount in IL are a couple that come to mind. These tracks are near large metro areas. Now Suffolk is at issue. TX is suffering. CA is unraveling. If you look around to tracks that are succeeding, you find optional sources of revenue, gambling notably.

JMO, but the problem is greater than a few budgetary cuts.

The horseracing business is expensive for everyone involved in its production. Wilf has hit the nail on the head. If horsemen want a place to race they are going to have bare a greater burden and not expect other gambling venues to support a failed business plan while they stick to racing and breeding as usual.

Like I said previously, it is apparent that something is going on in CA. If you have kept up w/the TX thread, you'll see the same problems. Certainly, the national and world economies are not helping.

As a comparison, watch TVG or HRTV in the morning as they broadcast international racing. Recently, the UK races have been broadcast and the tracks are jammed w/fans. Good racing with pedigrees you know about too.

but you still, have not addressed what i spoke about

see, this is the real problem.

in your entire post, you did not pay 2 sentences to the people who actually fund your business, bettors.

you would rather talk about slots, then talk about gamblers. that, is the problem.


The bottom line is that at a very basic level, the reason you are having to ask for slots and everything else, is beucase racing at it's current level cannot survive with the current support from horse players it's getting which is why you are looking fore "expanded gaming" in the first place, to keep doing what you are doing.

what i am saying and what people don't seem to get here, is that hey, run a product that is self sufficient, that turns a profit, even if it means cutting days, getting fuller cards, becuase even though you aren't racing 5 days a week, you know what, you are running a profitable business model and slots or government assistance is not needed



the most important thing horse racing needs to do is to become self sufficent.

no other business gets to operate the same way they do when they lost money and think it's okay to do so without cuts.


even when you responded, you did so in a way to talk about how horseman need to be supported, not what gamblers are actually demanding.

This thread is a of the hore racing industry. lol, no one gives a shit (Excuse the language) about horse players, i have never ever seen one trainer, one horse owner sit down and say how can we run a more efficient product to get people to wager more money. hence, which is why most of the tracks across the country are struggling.
In that sense, i don't' feel bad for tracks at all, you guys shoot yourselfs in the foot by not catering to your base.

truth be told suffolk downs is probably the worst racing product in america. the horses are horrible, it runs basically the same time slot as NYRA racing in an age where 85% of all handle is simculast money that's nto smart, suffolk downs is the only track where i have seen a 4k claimer win a race, go up to allowance class the next race and BE FAVORED and draw off by 10 (true story.. i even posted about that here a few years back.. at that point i said you know what maybe suffolk downs isn't for me lol) yet no one cares about any of this. it's slot's or die.

badly ran businesses die. finger lakes is a better product and that's saying something

[Shammy Davis]

bdw617: I did address the bettors. Respectfully, there are very few and as the CEO of TVG/Betfair put it 85% of them are over the age of 50.

In 40's and 50's horseracing had a 40% market share of fan paying participation and attendance. Boxing and football had the remaining shares. Today, it is probably less than 1% and I'm being generous. The industry can no longer be supported by supplemental incomes like gambling. The other side of the coin is that to be self-supporting it can't continue to cut down on races nor the number of horses required to run a meet. Nor can it allow its infrastructure to crumble into disrepair. Lastly, the government always get its share of take.

Currently, the industry is completely fragmented into states. Each has different rules and the only constant is the JC registration process which is another subject to boot around. No one disputes that it is not being managed well. The problems are immense and the state laws are sometimes prohibitive and preclude changes that you may think should be made. Like in TX and VA, the state laws have prohibitive clauses that are essentially exclusionary when it comes to competition. Like in TX, all the tracks are owned by the same corporation and therefore they have a monopoly. In VA, you have to have a regular license to have OTB Parlors, thus excluding competition. It is extremely complicated and one size does not necessarily fit all.

Bdw617:

. . . what i am saying and what people don't seem to get here, is that hey, run a product that is self sufficient, that turns a profit, even if it means cutting days, getting fuller cards, becuase even though you aren't racing 5 days a week, you know what, you are running a profitable business model and slots or government assistance is not needed

the most important thing horse racing needs to do is to become self sufficent.

Forgive me again, but you really need to educate yourself on the industry. What you suggest is happening today. We've got shorter meets, less tracks, less horses, higher costs, lower purses, less stakes races, lower quality facilities, and yes, less bettors. As you can see, your suggestion isn't working either and many tracks, horsemen, etc., have already implemented much of it. It's not that we don't care about the bettors, it just that bettors come to the track as they wish or post bets on-line and that's that. The vast majority of bettors are at the track or on-line for entertainment. Horsemen and trackers spend 5 AM to 9 PM working at making a buck. Breeders and farmers do the same. The scope of TB racing industry goes well beyond the tracks.

Don't berate me because you are feeling left out Having read your last post a couple times, you might consider spending some quality time on Google or putting your nose into a book. There is a plethora of information on TB racing if you take the time to look for it, because it is apparent that you don't know what you are talking about.

By the way, you misspelled "hore". It is correctly spelled "horse."

Lastly, IMO, this is not a bettor's website. Anyone who has ever hit on the handicapping board on this site can see that. It rarely gets a second look or return post. You, yourself, spend more time on the other boards. If you are all about betting, I know there a many other boards you could visit and they would be more worthwhile. The last I checked this site was title "pedigree query." No responsible betting system encourages using a full pedigree as a betting tool. At best, they suggest you look at the sire and dam which easily found in the DRF.

[bdw0617]

I will defiantly take your advice to heart shammy

[Hotwalker]

The greatest thing the sport has going for it is the horse. There is the gaming interest for sure, but deep down gamblers are attracted to the sport because of the thoroughbred athlete. Saratoga and Keeneland seem to do a good job of putting the horse and their caretakers on a pedestal. The idyllic settings and purses of each doesn't hurt either.

The suggestion that Suffolk shouldn't completely overlap NYRA's race card makes a lot of sense actually. They dabbled with twilight racing on Friday's but didn't renew it this year. They don't have lights, but a Thursday and Friday twilight card I think would generate buzz and be something to market around and draw younger fans. Boston, like San Fran, has a ton of young professionals with disposable income. Make it a place to be seen.

[bdw0617]

hotwalker you are spot on.

truth be told, this is one of the things that really disappoints me in racing when you get tot he bottom of it. Boston is the national hub of smart young people, with MIT, Tufs, boston college and harvard a stone throw away, yet we do nothing to even attempt to get them to the track.

this is a breeding ground for our future owners, future track owners, future track CEO's. Boston is a strategic strong point if you will

[Hotwalker]

an update on the situation at Suffolk. They are scaling down to save cash by laying off 65 employees.

http://www.boston.com/business/articles ... wns_track/

I don't have an insider's perspective, but from following this story, I think the track will give the casino debate one more shot next year. There is a lot of overlap between what the legislature passed and what the governor wants, so putting something together might not be so far off. That said, with an election this fall the state might have a new governor to start 2011.