"Like Whipped Cream on Horse$%^&"

[richiebee]

...is a term I have heard primarily on the golf course. The first time I heard
it, my father had just sunk a long, sharply breaking putt, concluding a hole on
which he had butchered every other shot he had hit, resulting in an 8,
a \"double par\",the dread \"snowman\". When I commended my dad on his putt, he
mumbled \"Like putting a scoop of whipped cream on a pile of horseshit\".

This colorful and descriptive turn of phrase came to mind after reading 3
articles which wrapped up the 2007 Saratoga meeting. These articles were Steven
Crist\'s DRF editorial \"What a Difference two decades makes\", an article
entitled \"Handle rises-- ontrack bets a record\" (DRF online, David Grening) and
\"Summer Fun at the Spa\", by Ed Fountaine, reporting in Monday\'s New York Post.

If you read Steven Crist, you know that his primary focus is New York Racing,
so it was almost not necessary to read his editorial to know what was coming.
Mr. Crist outlines the \"mores\" of Saratoga (and New York) racing: to summarize,
more \"cheap\" (conditioned and claiming) racing, more turf sprints, more races
per day, more days of racing, more grass races at all distances, more New York
bred racing. Mr. Crist concludes (sorry if you have already read this):

\"It\'s hard to see anything positive in these changes. None of them was
deliberately engineered, but taken together they reflect two discouraging
things: an increasingly fragile breed and a changing thoroughbred population,
even at what was and still is the sport\'s premier venue, of more chronic
nonwinners who are now in need of restricted company or conditions to thrive.
It\'s getting harder and harder to say that racing is improving the breed.\"

More on this later.

Moving on to Ed Fountaine\'s article, he investigates some \"salient points\" of
the 07 Spa meet. Discussing grass sprints, he points out the following--38 of
the 152 grass races were 5-1/2 furlong dashes. These 38 races drew an average
of more than 9 entrants per race. Of these 38 races, only 5 were won by post
time favorites (13%)(Ed could have given the average win mutuel on these 38
races, would have been interesting).

Fountaine mentions that a horseman\'s group led by Richard Violette was not
happy with the conditions of the Saratoga tracks for morning training:
Suggestion: these horses are the product of a diluted gene pool, are not
durable, and are being overtrained.

Also mentioned in Fountaine\'s piece is the highly publicized and successful
\"Baffert invasion\" of Saratoga. Let me get to the point here. Baffert purchases
horses which will race with the intent of maximizing their value as breeding
stock at the conclusion of their racing career. All of Baffert\'s winners at
Saratoga would have likely won similar races at Del Mar, but the final times of
these Del Mar wins would have looked quite pedestrian on a catalogue page,and
the breeding industry will be slow to let go of its attraction to fast final
times on the racetrack. Hence Miff\'s comments of a few months ago that he was
not certain how large a gamble breeders will be willing to take on synthetic
surfaces in the first few years.


Grening\'s wrap up mentioned the increases in handle and attendance. All success
stories here, driven by good weather which allowed for more turf racing and
bigger fields etc. The attendance gains of course are totally bogus, driven by
tote bag and bobble head spins. My opinion is that the handle has been driven
by the fact that as bad as the quality of Racing in New York has gotten in
recent years, there is very little Racing of quality being conducted anywhere
else. I read with interest that Laurel\'s reduced take out experiment was not
considered succesful; I would be interested to see the post mortem on Ellis
Park\'s Pick 4 experiment.

Back to the quoted Crist paragraph. I think,deep down,Steve is a true fan
of the sport of racing,and New York racing specifically. I think it bothers him
that the Racing in New York does not have the quality and importance that it
used to have, even though NY racing is arguably still the best year round and
day to day racing being conducted. I think it is of small consolation (no pun
intended) to Steve that large fields of anonymous runners are probably more
likely to produce Pick 6 carryovers.

Unfortunately, the angriest Steve can sound is to say \"It\'s hard to see
anything positive in these changes... It\'s getting harder and harder to say
that racing is improving the breed\". As publisher of Racing\'s venerable \"house
organ\", it is not practical for Mr. Crist to really come down hard on the
status quo of Racing, to ruffle any feathers, to hold racing\'s feet to the fire
on any of the hot issues which are discussed, sometimes reasonably, on this
board on a daily basis.

If you read between the lines in the paragraph lifted from Crist\'s editorial,
he is reciting a mantra which has been recited on this board by many posters--
too many mediocre and fragile horses being bred, too many unimportant races
being run, too many unprofitable and marginally profitable racetracks being
operated.

The sad thing is that Steve can not editorialize to make reductions in all of
the areas listed above, because the end result of less horses and fewer races
and fewer tracks is lower circulation and fewer advertising column inches sold.

Steve probably does not believe in breeding lightly raced, marginally qualified
stallions to unraced mares, and would probably avoid betting on the offspring
of such a mating, yet if the owner of the stallion, the mare or the resulting
foal wanted to buy some advertising in the Form, (s)he would not be turned away.

The observation I\'ve made about Steven Crist -- that any inclination he has to
raise his voice, whether he is addressing drugs in racing, or track surfaces,
or the decline in the general quality of Racing will likely be nullified due to
commercial necessity -- also applies to Jerry and Len and Barry Irwin and Ed
Fountaine, all of whom rely on the game in its current state of \"mass
quantities\" (remember the Coneheads?) of horses, races and racing facilities
for their livelihoods.

None of the Daily Racing Form, Thorograph, Ragozin, or a syndicate like Team
Valor would benefit from the contraction of Racing, even if we all know that
such contraction would restore the overall quality of Racing and the
thoroughbred breed.

[miff]

Bee,

Re your post a couple of things;

1.Crist is a friend of the game and walks a fine line not to offend.You probably know that DRF is up for sale at a huge profit to the present owners. I believe Crist will stay on, not certain.Crist is also a gambler at heart and will take a little liberty from time to time to vent his personal frustrations, not necessarily yours or mine.His thing on breeding is a polite way of saying that anyone with an upstate back yard, a mare, and a few grand is a breeder.A joke and a further dilution of an already strained gene pool. Just look at winter racing on the Aqueduct inner with loads of maiden claiming NY bred slow rats and snails.I gamble that meet pretty good and recall many races where the best TG Figs are in the high teens or 20\'s.

2. I know you are aware that the state of racing in NY is strictly in the hands of the Albany crowd and it was perilously close to falling into the hands of a group of upstate \"lightweights\" with political pull. It seems,mercifully, that they will not gain control.I heard an unconfirmed story that NYRA will survive with minor additional encumbrances but this thing has bounced around too long for anything to be definite before Spitzer signs off.On racing date contraction in NY(very much needed,imo), both the legislature and the horsemen will oppose it for economic reasons.

3.Re Baffert\'s impressive winners, I am not sure that they would have won at Del Mar. With time passing there are more obvious things about Del Mar poly that trainers,riders and handicappers are zeroing in on.Not only is the surface slow but it seems to favor certain horses with certain high action turf strides.People in the game in Cali tell me it is kinda anti quick action types. There is some very interesting data about the pace call results of the Del Mar meet.

A Cali gambler thinks that the Beyers for the whole meet were generally lower than he had seen on dirt at Del MAR and since they adjust for variant(track speed) one could only conclude that the horses were \"slower\" this meet, not just running slower, just slower horses. JB, please comment, understand it\'s not your numbers but you may know something about Beyers figs at Del Mar and how they compare, relationship wise, to years past vs your figs.I recall a conversation with you where you felt that Beyer was too fast in Cali. I remember big Beyer figs for the Cali 2yr olds(90\'s) which I have not seen this year but I have not followed closely.

Does anyone who follows Cali closely have any comment on the generally awarded Beyer figs by class for this meet vs Beyer Figs, same classes, for previous meets with the dirt surface.I believe TG has the figs to be holding as usual.

4.There is an adversarial thing going on between the horsemen(led by Violette) and Passero, track super.Horsemen are claiming the constant sealing and unsealing is often leaving the surface too hard and horses are getting jammed up and sore.Passero stands by the surface and believes it to be \"trainer\" excuse to the owners.Passero is said to be a bit of a hard ass who has dismissed the previous concerns voiced by the horsemen who are looking to have Passero sacked!


Not surprised that the numbers (handle/attendance) are up for most venues but that does not mean the game is on an upward trend,unfortunately, just the opposite is concluded by most studies projecting the future of American racing.


Mike

[richiebee]

Miff:

Re Crist: I was not aware that DRF was for sale, hopefully the Murdoch clan is
not one of the suitors, can\'t imagine a Page Six-eye view of Racing.

I have stated in the past that I would like to see Crist get involved once
again with the administration and improvement of NY racing. As I explained in
my post he has a great soap box in DRF but no real oportunity to raise his
voice.

Re Spitzer/NYRA: Yes it looks like NYRA prevails, but will it be a NYRA packed
with Spitzer appointees? I will never forget one of the worst patronage driven
appointments in the history of New York and Racing: Mayor David Dinkins\'
appointment of Hazel Dukes as the president of NYC OTB. I am still trying to
figure out how Ms. Dukes long service to the NAACP qualified her to run the
world\'s least profitable bookmaking establishment.

[rosewood]

Richibee,

There has been a story for a week or so that DFR was sold fr $200 million.

[miff]

Bee,

This may be shocking but there is actually talk at the highest level of NYC OTB re consolidation/merger with NYRA.UNFORTUNATELY all the OTB regions will have to join in.The obvious union job losses and redundancies that would arise is something I could never see the politicians, state, city and counties getting together on.Spitzer is treading thin water lately so he may not insist on having his stooges involved in the new NYRA.

If slot revenue is gi-normous, there is a chance to placate all with a check, but that is looking to be only 50% of what was originally projected by the sneaky gambling interest trying to gain a foothold in NY. That has been found out by NYS auditors and most of the pure gambling interest(except the Aussies) have bailed.

Mike

[Bally Ache]

The irony of Crist\'s article is that the same thing could have been written in \'87 contrasting that with \'67.  So the aggregate downward disparity is much greater than younger people realize.

Somewhere in the early 70\'s a horse from West Virginia or Ohio won the Hopeful.  People couldn\'t believe their eyes because up until that time such a thing just wouldn\'t have happened.  It\'s been a gradual downhill trend since then.

I didn\'t even bother to watch the Hopeful yesterday.  That\'s the greatest change.  It used to be that by the time the horses got to Saratoga, a lot of the two yr. olds had established form.  It was known primarily for two yr. old racing.  It\'s on the road to be being just another haven for NY breds.

[magicnight]

Ironically, Richie, Murdoch has already had a large and positive impact on racing ... in a roundabout way.

Murdoch actually owned the Form back in the late \'80s, early \'90s (he purchased Triangle Publications, which was essentially TV Guide, the Form and Seventeen ... what a trifecta!). Had Murdoch not owned the Form, it\'s unlikely that Robert Maxwell would have hired Steve Crist and started the Racing Times. [Maxwell hated Murdoch, which is why he was the only one crazy enough to take on the Form.] When Maxwell took his final swim, it was only a matter of weeks before the Racing Times was put down, the Form purchased its assets (mainly the Beyer figures), Mort Z purchased the Daily News, etc, etc.

Bob

[TGJB]

Miff-- nice post. On the Beyers, haven\'t really been paying attention, and wouldn\'t post in detail if I had been-- after my presentation at the 04 Expo those guys have been much more willing to have track speeds changing during the card, and I don\'t need them getting any better than they are right now. Since you use our figures, neither do you.

But a point on poly-- some horses simply don\'t fire on it, and others get tired and spit it out (same as when Keeneland had the very slow track). The ones that handle it run right to their figures, but a segment of the horse population runs much worse. I would add that the quality of racing in California has also gotten worse-- Student Council is not the only one that has shipped in over the last couple of years and eaten their lunch, and that almost never happened in the past.

As for me, I had good meets at both Sar and DMR, and at the latter not just because of SC. I\'m still in shock over what I got on the late pick four at Saratoga on Sunday-- three betting favorites (all less than 2-1) and one bomb (same one Alan gave out), the payoff was an unbelievable $5,400. That turned my weekend right around.

One more thing-- the last few days of the meet there were several strange results, most notably concerning some Linda Rice runners that were not fast in their races, got bet to oblivion, raced 4 wide, and blew away their fields, running MUCH faster than they had previously. Stay tuned.

[miff]

JB,

Thanks.You mean Ms.Linda Rice, Sprint Turf Queen.I\'ll see her at Belmont and ask what she was feeding them, hee hee.Don\'t know if you ran into Little Andy who was getting ill over turf sprint results.There were some winners that defied any data or logic.



Mike

[fkach]

I estimate the probability of OTB merging with NYRA in the near term at just above zero. I know some people at NYC OTB and they are laughing at that rumor. From what I gather they want nothing to do with NYRA for reasons that I can\'t elaborate on, but it\'s only partially about jobs.

[miff]

\"I estimate the probability of OTB merging with NYRA in the near term at just above zero. I know some people at NYC OTB and they are laughing at that rumor. From what I gather they want nothing to do with NYRA for reasons that I can\'t elaborate on, but it\'s only partially about jobs\"


Fkach,

Everyone is trying to protect their job/career, however a lawyer working on this mess told me that Spitzer, Larkin and the other Albany power groups have agreed to look at resolving the possible combining of these two presently separate entities. All franchise bidders showed tremendous economy of scales and redundancies which will provide more revenue/less expense, dear to any politicians heart. It\'s got steam now, but the politics involved are formidable.

I\'d give it a live long-shots chance if there was a future book.

Mike

[fkach]

miff,

I\'d have to believe the savings would be enormous. Just trust me, I have been told there\'s more to OTB not wanting to combine with NYRA than jobs and the typical things you would think of.

[Boscar Obarra]

Is it my imagination or haven\'t turf sprints been producing wild payoffs and results for ,oh, maybe 40 years?

 I don\' go back farther than that and my Chart Books from the 50\'s are in storage.