Racing boost???
 

I'm no genius, but am a cable/racing junkie who likes to gamble. If they really want to boost interest in the 'Sport of Kings' they should show the horse racing channels for free. Whenever they show an hour or so of free horse racing (it happens sometimes on my system), i always think, "Damn, I want to get in on that sort of action, I would have had that winner". I don't subscribe 'cause I would be too consumed to lead a normal life, but other channel surfers my get intrigued and begin to follow the sport. I'm I being naive, or am I on to something?

It is free in KY as long as you pay the cable company

of course you are! you'll fit in here just fine.:)

On my system it's an additional fee. I don't subscribe, 'cause it just a couple of more keystrokes to an online acount, and then all heck will/may let loose. Plus I like, no love, the on/off track atmosphere of actually being there.

Just a thought here.... when racing was really big, horses were more a part of a lot of peoples lives...kinda like Nascar is big now because cars are more a part of everyday life now....When I was a kid I had cousins that lived on farms and they had horses....my kids don't have cousins that live on farms and other than me they don't know anyone who is even interested in horses.

All that being said I've got no idea how to really bring racing back to prominence... maybe a cartoon character(sp?) super hero that is a race horse...maybe a few more TV series that have racing as a backdrop...maybe a Charlottes Web of horse racing....maybe a series of college course electives Handicapping 101...maybe playboy doing a series of issues on "Girls of the Backstretch"

stop pkucking over the gamblers....

It was pretty big in the 60's and 70's and I dont think the milkman was delivering by horse then.

Racing does not need to be brought back to prominence, just run it right, treat your customers better, understand where you stand in the marketplace and fight for lower taxation and we would be just fine.

Not sure that you get my point... and I'm guessing you are not real interested in even trying to.

Novel concepts. :D

All that is well and good but it would not hurt to be bringing a few more new "customers" into the game....and racing may have been bigger in the 30's and 40's when the milkman did deliver the milk by horsey

I think I'm kinda' addicted to "live' Tv. I can watch a live 1 to 2 minute event, that no one can predict how will end, except for the lucky bettors, and be excited, especially if I'm one of those lucky bettors. It doesn't get any better than that. Maybe that can't compete with casino gambing, or secks, but we gotta get more people involved. Hopefully secks timing might compare to a steeplecase race?

I'd gladly pay an extra $9.99 a month if Ken Rudolph would talk like Buckwheat.

A good video game might help.

You know how Tiger Woods has his own golf game every year and they call it Tiger Woods 06 or Tiger Woods 07? Well how about a....Funny Cide 07!! C'mon that would be the best idea ever! Funny Cide promoting horse racing to teenagers and young adults! :cool:

There was a video game with Ghostzapper on the cover but c'mon....the general public doesn't care about Ghostzapper! :cool:

I may have to pay the price, just to get that joke! Or wait for the all "Little Rascals" channel.

the winner gets to spot funny cide in a race he can win...lolololol

Game was the pits. I was sooo excited when I first heard about it. I was disappointed to say the least. It was sooo bad, they didnt even bother making it better the next yr. ..One and done...Not even Tom Durkin's voice could help, lol...

The only horse racing game I ever played was in Vegas. The one that had 4 mechanical horses under a plastic dome. Bet quarters on which exacta would come in...the odds changed for every race. I spent a lot of hours in the 80's playing that game.

holy **** sts ive seen those..lol

I think the only way it comes back to prominence is if (pipe-dream about to follow... brace yourselves) these greedy owners let their horses run through the end of the 4-year old years. THAT'S ALL I ASK.

It's like asking a college basketball star to stay through the end of his sophomore season (the same pipe-dream: see Kevin Durant and Greg Oden)... not likely to happen. But just think-

If horses stayed through their 4-year old seasons, the following horses (barring injury, and mysterious owner imposed injury... see Smarty hoof brusing lol) could be in the BC Classic this year:
Street Sense, Hard Spun, Curlin, Rags to Riches, Invasor, Bernardini, Papi Chulo, Perfect Drift, Lava Man, Discreet Cat, etc etc etc. Some of these are stretches, but...

Now I have a solution for owners that would try to claim injury so they don't risk their horses running: Don't let them breed until they turn 5. Have a Vet do a paternity test on every foal and how old the foal is compared to the father. If he is foaled too early, deem him ineligable to ever race (ONCE AGAIN, I KNOW THIS IS A PIPE-DREAM).

To even think of that idea, you're taking a hard line vs. the Sheiks and the Coolmores and whoever else. They might say, "if you don't give us the choice of when we can run/retire/breed our horses, we won't show up at Keeneland with our $$$". But at this point, I think the sheiks and the Coolmores are ruining racing by buying up all the talent and summarilty retiring them anyway. So let them boycott.

I KNOW THIS IS ALL SOME CRACK-HEAD PIPE DREAM STUFF, BUT RACING THROUGH TH BC AT AGE 4... IS THAT ALL THAT MUCH TO ASK?

Join the compusion, I have a full fledged OTB in my basement now.....

I have some friedns that got the Horseracing Channel on their cable for free. They stay up hours of the night and watch it. They don't even bet the races, at least not with an online account.

I don't have cable because.. I don't watch TV and I got mad at the cable company about geez 15+ years ago. They were the only game in town at the time and didn't take my business seriously and I haven't missed it until now.

I am moving in August so I'll re-up just for HRTV. The neighbors will wonder what all the shouting is about :o

I've wasted a lot of quarters playing that machine at the Riviera . . .

Fifty years later and we are still having this same debate: is it better for horse racing to lose a few bucks but gain much more exposure by giving the product away for free? Or should the industry squeeze every last penny out of its existing fan base and HOPE that a new generation will somehow become rabid about a sport it has largely been denied access to?

Fifty years ago, major league baseball and the NFL decided to "give their product away" and the short-term revenue they "lost" was made up by a massive increase in their sports' fan bases. It's crazy to think that the horse racing industry refuses to learn this lesson of history. The industry is making the same bad decision it made back in the 1950s despite all the proof that it was a bad decision :(

I get your point. I have heard it many times and think it is crazy. Horses have not been an important part of American culture for at least 75 years. Just have a hard time understanding why people not being associated with horses would keep them from betting on the races

Dave
Outside of the few big events of the year and special meets like Saratoga and Del Mar, no one is going to see the horses. They are going to bet on them. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but if you are a fan and don't bet, you are of little value to the industry. We dont have tickets sales or merchandising or TV contracts as a source of revenue. We only have betting handle as our sole revenue source.

I think you make good points . However I think that TV was a new medium then just as the internet is now and even as Congress gave us internet betting on a silver platter the greed of the tracks has screwed that up. The insistence of a few of the bigger racetracks companies to do things their way on their terms with no thought to the longterm health of the industry (or shortterm for that matter) will cause disharmony for years to come.

Pmayjr,

No, it's not too much to ask, but you're right; it's a pipe dream. The two major influences in racing are gambling and breeding, and those two industries are completely independent of each other. The only way I can imagine the average fan influencing the decision of when horses should be retired is if every person who gambles on races (or at least a sizeable majority of them) agreed to unite and boycott all the big stakes races until the NTRA imposed some sort of nationwide rule about what age horses have to be to breed. Otherwise, it'll have to be up to the racetracks, if they ever start to care about declining attendence, to push for something like that, and I just don't see it happening. But I'm with you; it'd be a big deal. Heck, I'd push for 6 years old being the minimum age for a horse to breed. :)

Cannon is right; it's a gambling-driven industry with no money to be made in merchandising and licensing. As fans, we just don't have any economic clout to influence people to keep their horses in training. And gamblers are in it to pick winners and make money, and that has nothing to do with whether Street Sense runs at 4.

Though yeah, greedy tracks cutting the percentage they take would help, too. I also think a few months of the year where there is no horse racing would be good, too. It's harder to follow a year-round sport than one that runs a limited number of months per year.

Where evryone misses the boat on the retirement issue is that in many places that those retired early horses race, SAR, KEE, DEL MAR, T Crown, BCUP, attendance is been at record levels recently. The big events and big meets are doing just fine. It is the day to day attendance and weekends when there is no big races that are suffering. This is an apples and oranges argument.

You're right, but I think the hope might be if the superstar horses would stay around long enough to generate some casual fan interest, then maybe the casual fan might go to the track on some of those other days because a day at the track can be a lot of fun in and of itself. Because, as long as OTBs and gambling via the Internet exist, there isn't any reason for the gambler to go to the track.

I think the tracks should try to get the TV coverage on the big days to include segments on Handicapping 101's- make it funny and informative and comprehensible and I think a casual viewer might get a little intrigued and want to test his or her luck at the track. But as much as gambling is huge business, on some level I think America still regards it as a bit dirty and sinful- we do it, but we don't want to talk about it. Like lots of other fun things, come to think of it... ;)

lol yep all hotels have TVG in KY. when i visted keeneland or when i shipped and ran@cd or tp ive watched tvg in the hotel. i swithced from the dish back to cable and i pay a measley 5 bucks a month extra for a sports package that includes tvg, comcast is gonna need to offer HRTV soon

Gallop Racer was not bad. I believe that there are two versions out there. The Breeders Cup game with Ghostzapper on the cover is absolutley awful. There is a game called G1 jockey, that is probably the best one. They were supposed to come out with a new version of it, but I have not been able to find it.

I'm sure that your perspective is more relavent and informed than mine...and I'm serious when I say that...I just think that one way to get more people involved in the wagering aspect of the game is to start by getting more people interested in the game in general...my thoughts are that turning $2 bettors into $20 bettors is something to work on after you have gotten them interested in the first place....granted baseball, nascar, football, ect ect are not dependent upon wagering...in those sports the fans are spectators... in horseracing the fans are both spectators and participants...the more fans there are the more participants (ie people wagering) there will be....I'm trying to say that I think that people will become more involved in the wagering after they have been exposed to the game as a spectator...I'll shut up now and leave the thinking to the more informed.

Make the Breeder's Cup a prime time event.

I played that.. It was in the MGM.

The main problem is that people are lazy. It takes time to dope out all those pick 3's 4's 6's and so on. There is so much information to compute. As a beginner that information seems like it is in another language. Even simple bets could seem difficult. As opposed to knowing that the starting QB for the jets is out and they should lose by 30. The majority of the people on this site enjoy handicapping the races. If there is a way to simplify all the information for the real beginners, so they really understand why they should bet the closer because of all the speed in the race. Then maybe they could catch the fever and see how interesting and exciting the sport is. If they understand then maybe they will bet more based off their own opinions. Until then they will be betting two dollars on there favorite numbers, names and whoever the newspaper picks.

We are sort of saying the same thing....you are not gonna get very much new blood interested enough to put the effort into learning how to handicapp without getting them interested in the game in general. I bet that the majority of the people on here started off as small bettors and spectators...catching the fever so to speak probably did not start off without some interest in the spectator aspect of the game...

I would think that most people here probably became interested as kids. I remember my old man taking me to the track when I was a kid. He gave me $2 dollars a race. As I got older, I fell in love with the sport more and more. Now I watch racing all the time whether I am betting them or not. But for a first timer, going to the track and looking at the program can be a confusing moment. Without someone showing them what to look for, they might be missing out on a very exciting day.

They have this game at an arcade on the boardwalk in Wildwood, NJ. Boy, it's a lot of fun.