Great!!! My niece has a nice breyer collection and i'm going to show her how to make them slide on the poly.

The Pick 6 pools seemed lackluster.

If that is the case then you can have 10lbs for 5 cents a lb.

Delmar, Bay Meadows, Golden Gate will for now.

Yeah, I am not real happy about that. I would like to see Hollwood and Bay Meadows until they get some data on the surface.

Pillow I've been going over these numbers here for a while now and I truly can't believe this. This is far worse than I even stated earlier, and although many will think I'm just doing this to bash poly, its the pure stats that I find incredible.
You have 36 racing days as opposed to 27(33% more races run), you have a boost in the avg number of races per day(about 38% more races run), you had the return of grass racing(big boost for handle and field size) and the return of heavily bet featured graded stakes race in the turf festival that wer not run last year. Then Euro cites incresased average field size as well, this is significant because increased field sizes usually mena increased handle.
Now you factor all that in an they only went up 19%. MY god, the increased race dates and races should bump you 35% alone. The return of grass racing and stakes races should bump you at least another 8-10%. So just on increased number of dates and racing and return of grass you would have to expect in the neighborhood of 44% increase in handle. Factor in the trend of tracks having increased handle this year, and its even higher. 19%? Are you kidding me. This was a complete disaster, and nothing short of tragic.
Near as I can tell, this may be the biggest disaster I ever saw, and really proves that people did not wanna bet cushion track. I suppose I should have seen this coming, as I always thought once the novelty wore off, that disgruntled cappers would avoid it like the plague. But this is shocking, and I'm not exaggerating. YOu can run these numbers yourself, its all out there in plain sight, no secrets.
If I was a Hollywood Park management type, I'd have cold sweats right now.
Does anyone here see this any other way? And if so what am I missing or not taking into account in my analysis of the situation?

Whether this is good or not, a big part of the reason for the bump in field size is the success turf horses had running on the fake stuff. Those type horses never ran on dirt, but were more than happy to run on the new surface where the had at worst a fair shot, and probably an edge.

Exactly correct CM. Turf horses now have two options. If they dont get in a race on the turf, they can go in one on cushion. There are many factors to the increase in field size, but the fact that turf horses have more options is a major factor.

I bet the Los Alamitos deal comes back into play next year. I can't see Bay Meadows Land Co. keeping Hollywood open when they can make a fortune developing the land.

I find it very annoying when Vic Stoffer says "And so and so is charging down the center of the cushion track".

Why does he have to remind everybody that polycrap (cushion) has been installed.

Its also very weird to look up at the track condition and see:

Turf: Firm
Track: Cushion

Why not just call it fast?

I was thinking the same thing. Wonder what they will do with 10 million bucks worth of cushion? I bet you could get a real good deal on it this coming year for your niece.

No kidding. But dont they have to keep Hollywood open for like 3 years or so? But that land is worth much more than the racetrack. Didnt Pegram want to develop Los Al?

I think we should put in your yard....oh yeah, you dont own a house.

Cushion is a bust. They'll probably give the stuff away.

And Euro, Pegram backed out of the deal a few months ago because they couldn't get an answer from Bay Meadows. I bet the phones will be ringing now.

LOL!!!!!
Look, I made your argument look stupid once again, perhaps you could tell me how that "great" 19% bump looks in light of the data I just posted.
I'm still waiting for the spin on it. But even for a supporter like you, this one is gonna be real tough to spin in anything close to a postive manner.
Give it a shot though.

You know, anyone who was monitoring this hoping cushion busted out so they could get the land had to be absoultely gleeful when these numbers came out.
I bet the phones are ringing away.

Bullsh!t Oracle. This meet was a significant improvement field-size wise over previous years (even leaving out last year's debacle.) The cushion track brought the runners out, there is no debating that.

FACT: The average daily handle was up 16% over last year. Turf racing or not, that's significant. Some people don't like wagering turf racing (like me), ever thought about that?

How could the average handle be up 16% on a daily basis genius? The overall handle was only up 19% and they ran 9 more racing days.
Get real will you? Better check those stats again.

To be fair, maybe it's wrong to compare the two meets.

Instead, perhaps someone could compare field size this year vs last year for a single class of race.

Let's use the basic 2-turn N1X Allowance and see what we come up with.

Wait, I forgot. They don't run those races in SoCal anymore.

Never mind.

Should say 14%. From the BH article (did you read it?): "All sources handle averaged $9.8 million, up 14% from $8.6 million in 2005."