Destruction of our beloved sport

[SoCalMan2]

Feeling very sad about Breeders Cup decision to go back out to Santa Anita in 2012 for third time in 5 years.  I think Crist is being diplomatic in his piece on this.  Fact that Belmont hasn\'t had the cup since 2005 and cannot even get it promised for 2013 is disgusting.  Why does this sport have such losers running it?  Are they trying to kill it on purpose?

[phil23]

Here here.  Just read the Crist article and agree completely.  Worst of all, there is now talk of NYRA hosting it\'s OWN championship set of races (pretty sure they already do that with Jockey Club Gold Cup day anyway), which of course, would lead to fragmentation of the BC with no longer all the best horses on the same day.  This would be a categorical disaster for racing.  (see Cart/Indy Car split into irrelevency for that little bit of fun).

What the BC has against NYRA I don\'t know, but it\'s a terribly short sighted decision.

[miff]

\"What the BC has against NYRA I don\'t know, but it\'s a terribly short sighted decision\"

...I\'m totally NY guy but Santa Anita is a much better venue than Belmont in November. Crist joined at the hip with NYRA.


Mike

[Lost Cause]

I agree with Miff there.  I think SA, now back on dirt, is the place to be.  Anytime I think of running it up here I remind myself of that MTH park year..The weather is really unpredictable up here during that time while SA is always sunny and bright then..

[plasticman]

Its a weather thing. SA won\'t be 40 degrees and raining.

[phil23]

Fair points about the weather, although it is an outdoor sport and as such, the vagaries of weather are part of it.  

The BC was designed originally to be rotated around KY/NY/CA and it ought to stay that way, imo.  Also, god forbid it, but if NYRA ever did decide to take their ball and bat and go home, move the JCGC day back a few weeks, raise the purses, and stage their own \"championship day\" it would be a disaster for racing.

[albany]

If NY racing still had the ability to compete, it would be a regular Breeders Cup venue and there would be no need to put on its own championship.

[JimP]

I thought it was originally designed to be moved all around the country, including FL/IL/TX as well. As the BC moves farther and farther from that original concept I think it will lose some of its appeal.

[richiebee]

Yes the weather is part of it, but have any of you guys been to Belmont lately?

How can BC count on NYRA/Hayward to properly clean up Belmont and promote the
event? They can\'t.

Expect to see BC back in NY once some of the Resorts World money starts flowing
in to NYRA.

The other consideration is that SA (time zone) and CD (lights) can present late
afternoon/early evening racing which is where the event seems headed.

[SoCalMan2]

Look, my moniker on here is SoCalMan...I love Santa Anita....have nothing against Santa Anita....there are lots of things I love that I still don\'t want 3 out of 5 times.  

I was at the Breeders Cup at Belmont in 2005 and it was fine.  Place was loaded with Euros (which, incidentally, I think liked the NY weather just fine) and Belmont has got New York which is not a bad attraction.  

But, putting all this NY versus California aside, the real point is this sport is dying in this country.  Really truly dying.  And the people at the top either do not realize this or are intentionally trying to put the sport out of its misery. The guys in charge need to be trying to help the patient, not kill the patient. A major attraction of the Breeders Cup was the change of scenery.  I watched the Lone Star Park Breeders Cup on English television and they were gaga about being in Texas. We need to be getting people excited, not get them thinking that the sport is just going through the motions.

[P-Dub]

Richie makes a great point about lighting and time zones.  That is a logical consideration when appointing sites.

As for attracting people to a dying sport, why would holding it in NY have more appeal than any other venue??  The vast majority of people won\'t be on-track. Super Bowl, Final Four, do people really care where those are held??

Grow the sport??  Hold it in a time slot that reaches the biggest audience, and hold it in a venue that can accommodate that. Santa Anita and Churchill Downs are 2 of the most picturesque venues in the country.  They also have the ability to run the races in prime time.

Yes, weather is part of sport. I attended the BC at Monmouth, and despite having a great wagering weekend thanks to Thorograph, it was miserable.  That track was flooded, the turf course a bog, a horse got put down on track (can happen on a dry track too), traffic was crappy, it was uncomfortable if you were uncovered (many seats at BC locations are uncovered). Not once did I go down to the paddock in the pouring rain. I wouldn\'t think this is the recipe for growing the popularity of the sport.

I have nothing against Belmont Park. It seems that if you are concerned about helping a dying sport, then fairness about the rotation should be far down the list of concerns.

[Topcat]

BC committee likes the Hollywood star-power aspect of Southern Cal, as well.

The Euros like Belmont better, BECAUSE of the relatively-cooler weather.   But to align the odds as favorably as possible towards Belmont, weatherwise, you don\'t want to run the thing in November.

The only three reasonable places to conduct BC anymore are Bel, CD or SA . . . CD being the fairest.  Virtually all other venues are too small to give Joe Fan a reasonable shot at legitimate seating.
I rejected the very idea of attending at two sites dear to my heart (AP and Mth) for that reason.

[alm]

If you\'re looking for an edge in handicapping BC races, which are tough to begin with, there\'s no better place to stage them than Santa Anita.  It gives an edge to SoCal horses who\'ve been training in the heat and wildfire smoke (remember that?) and it penalizes the Europeans who\'ve been training in wet and cool.  Sharpens your focus.

[SoCalMan2]

Maybe I was too over the top about Belmont.  To be honest, my issue is not as much about it going to Belmont as about it getting a change of scenery from year to year.  

I spent a lot of years in europe and even though a lot of those guys are watching from overseas, they love the variety associated with different racetracks and different regions in the US. There was a lot on TV about Dallas and Texas and Lone Star when the cup was held there and there was definitely a fresh excitement in England about that choice of venue.  If there were not so many barriers put up, we could get a huge influx of foreign money into our big exotic pari-mutuel pools and rotating the venue would definitely help pump that up.  there are places where there is a vibrant, vital, interested horsebetting public.  Those people have money and want to bet.  We need to include them.

My friends who do go to the Breeders Cup regularly, loved the opportunity to go to new or rarely visited places and definitely miss the travel variety for years back.  Santa Anita is the great race place and it is a great place for the races.  I am not against Santa Anita, only against concentration of the venue into a rut.

Also, for horses shipping from other countries, climate issues may suggest that a range of options is more inclusive. Also, all racetracks have idiosyncracies.  Santa Anita has the unusual downhill turf sprint.  If all turf sprint races were the downhill sprint, you are rewarding a very narrow set of specialists at the expensive of the rest of the class.  Rotating the cup allows all horses in the class a fair shot, and healthy and fair competition is going to help increase the betting attraction. If a great horse comes around that has a distaste for a particular track and that track is the one that hosts all breeders cups, then we will never see that greatness on display in what should be the showcase.  Also, if the cup is at one place, a one track specialist may all of a sudden be viewed as one of the great ones just because he or she was lucky enough the he or she was the horse for the course of the only course that matters.

I am not expert on sports marketing and what is required to get more money into our pari-mutuel pools, but I would feel a whole lot better about the choice to concentrate the venue if it were accompanied by a detailed well-reasoned analysis of why that choice is going to help the sport attract more betting dollars than any other option would.  If such an analysis were published, it would help get a lot of people who have a knee jerk reaction against the choice to reconsider and support it.  The fact is, we all want horseracing to succeed and thrive and there is not a lot of confidence out there that the decisionmakers either share that goal or are competent.


P-Dub Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Richie makes a great point about lighting and time
> zones.  That is a logical consideration when
> appointing sites.
>
> As for attracting people to a dying sport, why
> would holding it in NY have more appeal than any
> other venue??  The vast majority of people won\'t
> be on-track. Super Bowl, Final Four, do people
> really care where those are held??
>
> Grow the sport??  Hold it in a time slot that
> reaches the biggest audience, and hold it in a
> venue that can accommodate that. Santa Anita and
> Churchill Downs are 2 of the most picturesque
> venues in the country.  They also have the ability
> to run the races in prime time.
>
> Yes, weather is part of sport. I attended the BC
> at Monmouth, and despite having a great wagering
> weekend thanks to Thorograph, it was miserable.
> That track was flooded, the turf course a bog, a
> horse got put down on track (can happen on a dry
> track too), traffic was crappy, it was
> uncomfortable if you were uncovered (many seats at
> BC locations are uncovered). Not once did I go
> down to the paddock in the pouring rain. I
> wouldn\'t think this is the recipe for growing the
> popularity of the sport.
>
> I have nothing against Belmont Park. It seems that
> if you are concerned about helping a dying sport,
> then fairness about the rotation should be far
> down the list of concerns.

[MO]

If the Breeders\' Cup were truley a world championship event, then it should be run at least once in Europe.