Can I Get A $5 Obama/Clinton Exacta Box?

Inspiration for posts from news in the racing world has alluded me this week. Yet with the hotly contested battle for the Democratic Presidential nomination resembling that epic battle between Rags To Riches and Curlin in last year’s Belmont Stakes, I started to wonder what kind of action a horseplayer could find on a Tuesday night when most racetracks worth playing are dark.

For the political junkie, Bodog offers some rather chalky odds on narrowing list of candidates for the oval office. While an Obama/Clinton ticket exacta box is not an option, maybe it should be? Although you might get better odds on a McCain/All exacta today.

At 3-1, Hillary looks pretty good to me.

Hillary Clinton 3/1

John McCain 7/4

Barack Obama 5/4

Big Name Jockeys Missing in Action:

Is anyone else wondering where P Val is these days?. He was supposed to resurface in New Orleans or Kentucky last month but still no sign of every horse player’s favorite substance abuser.

Meanwhile Fernando Jara is still missing in action and rumored to be at home in Panama, recovered from an injury he suffered in November at Hollywood Park and delaying a return to the US in order to ride a very good filly his father trains down there. Even with the weak dollar, his motivation for staying in Panama smells fishy to me.

Expert Advice On Gulfstream to MEC: Relocate the slots

I wonder how much Frank paid for that advice when all he had to was read my blog? And while I am pretty sure Frank doesn’t read my blog, I suspect one or two of his employees do.

Guess what? More bad news about MEC (is there any other kind?).

Given MEC’s troubles, I am beginning to hallucinate about a season without racing at Gulfstream Park. But after this season with cards that feature one 12K maiden claimer after another I am beginning to think I wouldn’t miss Gulfstream that much if it were to close down.

I fantasize about Frank having to sell it in a firesale and someone, probably not Churchill, with some vision knocks it down and builds a nice little boutique track reminescent of Hialeah with a separate slots facility where the slots customers and the horseplayers are kept at a safe distance. I can dream, can’t I?

And now that slots will be coming to Calder, I sure hope whatever racino design Churchill comes up does not fuck up the last unspoiled facility in South Florida, please don’t get any ideas from Philly Park, PLEASE !!

How long will the wait be for the new Philadelphia Park?

Opinions differ as to whether Greenwood Racing tried to pull the bait and switch on the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Assn.and the racing public when they converted Philly Park into a racino and then hemmed and hawed about spending the money to improve the facilities for racing fans. As noted on this blog before the current configuration at the racino makes a day at Philly Park less than a stroll in the park.

So the new plan unveiled last week for a stand alone casino to be built on the site and the re-renovation of the racino back into a track is welcome news.

The bad news is it will take two years to build the new casino and only until that facility is up and running will work begin on the new Philly Park. No date was given for completion of the new track but it would be reasonable to think that it will not be completed with the speed that the casino will be built.

So my guess it that the new Philly Park might reopen sometime in 2011.

Improvements to the backstretch were not mentioned in the article but they are sorely needed so, I hope they throw a few backs at fixing up the backstretch too.

Waiting for a Renaissance

As racing cards go, yesterday’s Pennsylvania Derby card was a feast and a rare event for local race fans with horses like Zanjero, Slew’s Tizzy and Gaff competing and jockey’s like Castellano, Albarado and Calvin Borel adding to the experience. Yet big purses and big names can’t fix what is wrong with Philadelphia Park.

An afternoon at Philadelphia Park isn’t your typical day at the races with a seat overlooking the track and an occasional stroll to the walking ring or winners circle. At Philadelphia Park you spend your afternoon either resigned to your fate in the cramped corners off the paddock where long betting lines, people in line for fast food and slots players who have lost their way mingle uncomfortably. If you want a seat, risk a nosebleed and journey up to the fifth floor. Getting to the paddock from that seat isn’t a stroll, it is a trek. From your seat you traverse a series of claustrophobic corridors that lead to crowded elevators which will take you down to that area just off the paddock where you and the rest of the damned zigzag your way through the aforementioned betting and fast food lines, so you can actually see what you came to see in the first place, a race horse.

I like to stand on the apron near the winners circle and take it all in. At most tracks on a big day, from that vantage point, you can look up into the clubhouse seats, where you might see Todd Pletcher or Steve Asmussen if they have a horse running. But Todd and Steve are smart and neither bothered to show up yesterday and I don’t blame them because at Philly Park the accommodations for the owners and trainers aren’t much better then they are for the fans. When I look up at what’s left of the clubhouse I see a few seats salvaged from the remodeling for horsemen and even they were half full yesterday.

For me the racino age is more akin to a dark age and it leaves me hoping that there’s a renaissance out there somewhere down the road. Till then I’ll visit a track they haven’t fucked up or maybe I’ll just stay home, settle into a recliner, turn on the laptop and log on to Youbet.

Carol Cedeno Throws Like a Girl

Apprentice Carol Cedeno is making a name of herself at Philadelphia Park. She won the 8th race on Speechifying trained by Phil Aristone. Aristone trained for a partnership I was in at Philly Park a few years ago; Phil won 15 races for us.

Carol Cedeno on Speechifying

Phil Aristone

After each race the winning jockey threw PA Derby T-shirts to the crowd around the winners circle; Carol is a better rider than she is a pitcher.

A Derby: Philly Style

The highlight of my day at Philadelphia Park was stumbling on Calvin Borel signing autographs, of course Calvin obliged by signing my program and listening to me complain that after his win in the Breeders Cup Juvenile, I can’t get a decent price on Street Sense anymore; I blame him for that!

Build It and They Will Come . . .

So they re-built it, so to speak and the time has come for the first running of a Pennsylvania Derby at the new Philly Park racino. I’ll be in attendance this afternoon in Bensalem with my camera and camcorder in tow. The weather for the Derby should be ideal with temperatures in the mid-eighties.

As Derbies go the PA Derby will probably never rank up there with the Kentucky, Florida or Santa Anita Derbies and to tell the truth it used to be more about the money then the prestige but this year is different with Zanjero, Xchanger, Iamawildandcrazyguy, Cowtwon Cat, Slew’s Tizzy and Patrick Patten’s beloved Cable Boy competing (Patrick I actually think your boy could win this one!).

Some really good horses have won the race including Broad Brush, Summer Squall, Frisk Me Now, Macho Uno, Harlan’s Holiday and Sun King. Of course, I usually manage to miss the best editions and last attended in a non-banner year when the winner was a flash in the pan called Pine Dance with Delaware’s own Mike McCarthy in the saddle.

So stay tuned as Not to the Swift reports on the Pennsylvania Derby from a casino masquerading as a racino that used to be a racetrack, Philadelphia Park.

Racing Needs a Universal Remote

Recently Philadelphia Park’s Phonebet TV channel converted to a digital signal. In my case this meant that if I wanted to see my beloved races on Saturday and Sunday afternoon I would have to schlep over to the local Comcast office and get myself a digital box (the first box is free, thanks Comcast). So on a Saturday morning with a hook up diagram in hand I spent about an hour or so making my new digital box, VCR, DVD, splitter and TV make nice and communicate with each other. Comcast had the good sense to provide a universal remote with the new digital box, so after punching in a few codes I was able to control all the aforementioned devices via one remote. So what does a universal remote have to do with racing?

Its hasta la vista Aqueduct if Gov. Spitzer gets his way and the largely vacant Aqueduct will be euthanized due to the infirmities of old age and the old business model of big grandstands and big crowds will die with it (too bad, lousy quality year-round racing doesn’t die with it too). Meanwhile the new business model, the racino isn’t working too well either. Just look at the live handle and simulcast figures from Delaware and Philadelphia Park. For reasons unknown to business modelers but well known to your average horse player, those crossover slots bettors never morphed into horse players and all the racino model has done is make horse players feel unwanted. At Philly Park the horse players have voted with their feet and stayed home. Why even Gulfstream, that prototype of the new business model, can’t attract slots players and has succeeded in alienating the horse players as well. They say it has something to do with an uneven playing field with the local Indian casinos. Tisk tisk Frank, ask Brunetti and the guys over at Hialeah about even playing fields, they can fill you in.

I am no expert on the racing business or business models and this is not the first time some blogger has said this but what racing really needs is realize that the best business model recognizes that the Internet is here, the big crowds are not and that a universal model that recognizes the needs of diverse entities like tracks, cable and satellite providers and the various ADWs; makes them talk to each other for the benefit of the player at home who now needs both cable and satelite providers and three different ADW accounts to watch and bet the races.

Welcome to Simulcastland

The owners of Philadelphia Park, Greenwood Racing, Inc. recently announced their wishes to leave the remodeled racino as is and not build a new slots facility next door or complete the renovations that would turn the racino back into a premiere racing facility.

The recently remodeled racino was designed with the intent to make horseplayers as uncomfortable as possible and it has succeeded in driving horseplayers away, live and simulcast handle are way down.

The message for horseplayers is clear, stay home and bet on Philadelphia Park’s cable outlet, Phonebet TV (which is what I do) or plant your ass at one of their simulcasting Turf Clubs in the Philadelphia area. It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots when you look at the fact that across the Delaware River in New Jersey, Greenwood is a partner in a series of OTBs set to open across the state. The newest one proposed in Cherry Hill, about 15 miles from Philly Park. One has to ask oneself why Greenwood Racing would spend millions building OTB facilities in NJ and at the same time spend hundreds of millions totally renovating Philadelphia Park. The answer to that is pretty obvious.

If nothing changes soon and thoroughbred racing at the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park cease as predicted, there will, in effect, be nowhere to actually watch live thoroughbred in New Jersey or eastern Pennsylvania. Welcome to Simulcastland.

Sunday Blues at Philly Park

Your Average Coupon-Clipping Horse Player

I made a pilgrimage down to the new Philadelphia Racetrack and Casino about a week ago, enticed by two coupons in the local newspaper worth $25 each in slot play bucks. So along with my Dad,who needed an evening out, we got in the car and made the thirty minute drive down to the facility that was promised to save horse racing in Pennsylvania.

The first thing a horse player would notice about the new racino is that the banner over the front door declaring this to be the home of Smarty Jones has been removed and with it any resemblance that Philadelphia Park used to be a racetrack. Don’t get me wrong this is not a bad thing; Philadelphia Park was one of those utilitarian structures that from the outside looked more like an ugly corrugated metal box that could be mistaken for an airplane hanger if you did not look too closely.

I don’t lament what they have done with the building and in truth as racinos go I like Philly Park much better than Gulfstream Park. Even though the horse players have been herded into some small places, it’s only a few days a year when crowding becomes an issue. I rarely ever see more than 1500 people there even on a Saturday and it’s still more comfortable than Gulfstream Park for the average horse player.

At the player rewards desk I redeemed the coupons gave Dad his slot voucher and went off to the cashier to cash in my voucher, with my free money in hand I headed up to the fifth floor where the simulcasting is and played the ponies with my free slot money. I lost about ten bucks and used the balance to buy beer and hot dogs for the Dad and me after he had managed to lose his twenty five free slot bucks at the slots (big surprise).

Yes, a free night out for this average horse player and all at the slot players’ expense. To top my evening off, walking through the casino I found $100 on the floor that had fallen out of someone’s pocket. All in all a profitable evening, now every day at work I scour the local paper for those free coupons, Dad can always use an evening out.