If you want to see how bad the Daily News has become, take a look at page 5 of the Tuesday paper. \"Probers Say Racino Mess Is Growing\". Hot story, right?
NO named sources. No specifics. \"It\'s become clearer and clearer there\'s a problem there\", a source close to the investigation said. That\'s the news story. It gets as many column inches as the only health care news story in the paper (which comes two pages FURTHER from the front. Obviously not as important).
Somebody has a great lobbyist, and the News has been their go-to guy for years now on this. Best guess is that Aqueduct won\'t get slots until whomever the lobbyist (D\' Amato?) represents gets the deal.
Speaking of the racino, and not to pile on NY, but ...
Did you see the Jersey racing plan? UH-OH!! Right as NYRA is in the process of turning Saratoga into Finger Lakes, NJ comes up with an elite summer meet at Mth, running on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays only, ave daily purses $1 mio. $20 mio in subsidies from the casinos. No Meadowlands t-bred racing in \'10.
There\'s a little out-of-the-box thinking for you - stay lean and efficient during difficult times, offering only what the public demands.
Something tells me I\'ll be putting a lot more money into these Mth pools than the Saratoga pools.
Michael-- and something tells me that given the jump ups at Mth in recent years Mullins, O\' Neill, Mitchell, Amoss, Autrey, Ziade etc. will join Levine, Breen, Dutrow, Pletcher and the boys in requesting stalls now that the purses are astronomical.
a) We will see some of the biggest figures ever run-- daily.
b) If you can get Allday to mark your program you will do REALLY well.
From DRF...
...Maiden special weight races during the first Monmouth meet will offer $80,000 purses, according to officials who have worked on the plan. First-level allowance races will start at $80,000 and rise in $5,000 increments. Purses for overnight stakes will be $120,000, according to the officials...
Wow..They will definitely steal some of the top horses from SAR with that kind of money..
Claim a speed horse at the Belmont meet give it to Bruce Levine and win a ton of money at MTH..Anybody else thinking that..
JB,
D\'Amato\'s people would have to get it by default. After Joe Bruno took big money from 3 different groups none of which ever got close to getting the contract ?
Amazingly none of that came up during his \" theft of public services \" trial !
What a place NY !!!
Jerry, if there\'s five of them in one race do they play \'spin the bottle\' to see who gets , uh, blessed?
Dont know JB, but they are talking a 40% annual reduction in races and you would
hope that they would be able to apply a stricter testing regimen under those
circumstances.
John Forbes hit the nail on the head. The 40% reduction in races and the
competition for these swollen purses will probably be the death knell for some of
the smaller stables, to which Forbes replied pithily: \"The smaller horsemen don\'t
have the kind of horses the public wants to bet on.\"
Outside the box: I never liked thoroughbred racing at the \"Ghettolands\", but I
would love to see a night/summertime meeting at the Atlantic City facility--
they could race weeknights (Monmouth plans to race only during the weekend, nyet?)
and provide an outlet for some of the stables/horses which would not be able to
compete at the prime Mth meet. Maybe also run alot of the NJ Bred races at AC.
Hal \"take the High Road\" Handel, COO of the SS NYRAtanic, put a mad positive spin
on Monmouth\'s bold plan, saying that Monmouth\'s purses would draw great horses
from all over the country to the Northeast Region, and Saratoga would benefit
from the presence of this horseflesh.
Of course if NYRA hadn\'t fallen in with the New York State Breeders years ago,
these great horses and stables from all over North America would have been coming
to Saratoga all along.
As a racing fan, I look at it this way: April: Keeneland; May KY Derby; June/July/
Aug/Sep high quality racing at Mth/Sara/WO/Del Mar(protecting myself from a P-Dub
attack); Oct Kee; Nov. Breeders Cup. Kinda Sweet.
richiebee Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As a racing fan, I look at it this way: April:
> Keeneland; May KY Derby; June/July/
> Aug/Sep high quality racing at Mth/Sara/WO/Del
> Mar(protecting myself from a P-Dub
> attack); Oct Kee; Nov. Breeders Cup. Kinda Sweet.
Richie,
I would never attack you, I enjoy your writing too much,
Its a new P-Dub, trying to be much nicer.
Richie-- it\'s actually not a 40% reduction, they\'re going to run 12 a day. Question for me is whether we still charge $25 for that-- it\'s four days worth of races over three days.
Meanwhile, someone has to explain to me why Mth and all the beach tracks don\'t run night or twilight cards every day except Sunday. Dmr does tremendous business on Fridays with the 4:00 start, and it\'s a very hot scene.