Business (and Common) Sense

[richiebee]

Apparently Aq remained open to simulcast Beulah and Turf Paradise on Monday.

Monday would have been a lovely day to be at Aq. The snow dimmed sky presents this aging structure at its depressing best, what with the sounds of less than fashionable horseflesh competing at distant outposts echoing through a facility which was surely nearly empty.

Structures from bygone eras do not necessarily need to decay. Some of the most beloved structures in New York City are older than Aq, though I say this with the full knowledge that NYRA (Old or New) can not compete with the Catholic Church and the deep pockets behind the upkeep of Grand Central Station and the main branch of the New York Public Library in terms of funding maintenance and renovation.

BUT

The New NYRA has expressed a possibly misguided interest in increasing the live attendance at races. New NYRA operatives, especially those who were signed on because of their retail expertise, their experience with marketing a destination, need to realize that two of their three facilities are aging and embarrassing eyesores.

New NYRA management might be resentful of the bricks and mortar they have inherited, the sorry condition of which is attributable to the neglect of the Old NYRA, but good business sense -- at a theme park, a retail store or a racetrack -- dictates that if you are going to open a facility to the public, including potential new customers, that facility must be well lighted (and if well lighted, it must be reasonably clean) and customer friendly. Let me point out that seating, lighting and audio visual quality are substandard in most areas at Aq and Belmont.

Common sense facilities management would say that the entryways to any public facility should be festive and welcoming. The admission gate near the paddock area at Belmont, a plywood and chain link structure which resembles a stock pen, looks much the way it did in the late 70s, when I first attended races at that then great facility. The only attention paid to this entranceway seems to have been an occasional coat of industrial green paint.

Improving the facility at Aq, which hosts the majority of live racing in NY, should be a major priority, even if the long term plan for NY metropolitan area racing includes the eventual closure of the Ozone Park track. Renovating a neglected entrance at Belmont admittedly might seem like fixing the drapes on the Titanic, but it would be relatively inexpensive and also makes good business (and common) sense.

[Boscar Obarra]

Many of the people still attending might think they took a wrong turn and leave if they changed that entrance.