BC Official: Friday 'True Championship'
 

The repackaging of the Breeders’ Cup World Championships and move of female stakes from their customary Saturday spot is part of the plan to make Friday’s program “true Breeders’ Cup championship racing,” Breeders’ Cup president Greg Avioli said.

The shift of all the female championship races to Friday was announced Feb. 27. Breeders’ Cup expanded to a two-day event last year at Monmouth Park in New Jersey.

Breeders’ Cup officials said there should be news soon on race sponsorships. There will be changes; none of the races currently are referred to by sponsor name.
http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=43871&source=rss

" Earth to Alan. "

lets burn his house down!

If a filly runs in the turf does she get to start on Friday Allan?

I still can't believe how unbelivably retarded it is to have gender days for the BC.

geldings on Thursday

Yes!! An all gelding day. Geldings on turf. Geldings sprinting. The Gelding Marathon Sponsored By Swiss Army Knife.

Then, ridgelings on Wednesday!

--Dunbar

Can't wait to see the sponsors for "ladies" day at the races on Friday

gelding sprint brought to you by ginsu knives.
gelding turf brought to you by troy built
gelding classic brought to you by Viagra



ladies classic by what else...secret. strong enough for a man,..well you know the rest.

a greys day

a white horse day...



hey, let's move the claiming crown to tuesday. enough filler, we can run for a week.

Steeplechase monday

Breeders Cup Geldings Thursday: It's Gonna Be Nuts!!!

If you haven't read Lamarra's B-H piece linked above, you missed this gem:


" Peter Land, hired last October as chief marketing officer for Breeders’ Cup, said Feb. 29 the bolstered Friday program is attractive to ESPN and should help lure some local sponsors. Land, however, also said the decision to move the Ladies' Classic to Friday “was a racing decision first. The intent behind it was to create two separate but equal championship days.” "


Boy, that's a great choice of terms 'Pete'.. 'Separate but equal'.. rooted in the great American tradition of inequality and elitism! Congrats fellas! You did boffo! You showed everybody exactly how modern the thinking is around racing.

Attachment 686

Massengill filly and mare sprint. I think it has a nice ring to it. :eek:

I've heard a rumor that the BC is going to have a dustpan giveaway on ladies day.

Any truth to that?

What? Separate but equal! Where I have I heard that before? Oh yeah...I think Klan politicians used to use that exact phrase in the 50s...in a different context of course. Poor choice of words. Arrogance plus ignorance equals BC marketing.

Do I hear Wednesday for Ridgelings (sp)?

I think I'll show my support for the Breeders Cup Limited by not attending the Breeders Cup this year and I'll also pass on wagering on ALL of the races. I'll just pretend I live in the days when "seperate but equal" really meant something. This decision is to make it Femal Friday is completely absurd.

Putting marketing people in an industry that they have no knowledge about, especially knowledge about the 'base' of the industry, is the reason you get this.

Marketing people are creative, and they throw as much calculated **** as they can against the wall and see what sticks. I don't fault them for trying, I fault them for not educating themselves about the industry, I fault them for not surrounding themselves by all 'types' of people in the industry, and I fault them for making so many changes at once.

I almost think they are just listening to a single people within the industry, instead of talking ideas out with people and seeing potential and working it out.....

Well, separate but equal was actually the US court systems' explanation for upholding segregation in the American school system, (see Plessy v. Ferguson, c. 1898), until the landmark reversal in Brown v. Board of Education in 1956. But you've got the right idea. As Steve Crist said, every woman remotely connected to racing has ridiculed this slapdash farce.

Not to mention that "Ladies Classic" sounds like a scent of underarm deoderant.

They should just offer discounted or free admission for women on the Saturday card instead of segregating the horses.

the actual wording in plessy was "equal but seperate".

one of the great mysteries how that got reversed in common usage.

sponsored by Planters...

This lady is holding out for a George Foreman Grill.

I'm looking forward to putting on my best apron, and saving enough S & H grocery coupons to get a special half-priced "Female Friday" admission ticket!

Has anybody else bothered to e-mail the Breeders Cup with their thoughts?

why, we don't matter, they would do it anyways. The only way it would go back to normal is if handle was down 10%, which it might be anyways given it is on a synthetic

Look for special admission coupons on your next box of tampons!

The last time the BC tried to market the addition of the 3 new races Steve had a representative from the BC powers to be on the show, who also was from West Point Stables if memory serves.

The gentleman was a fairly stand up guy answering questions about why the changes were made. I was wondering who you were going to get this time Steve to explain why it was necessary to segregate the event to boys and girls and how they saw this as a step forward when the best day in racing has been ruined to be replaced by two mediocre days.

Given that the higher profile owners who are represented on the BC governing body are likely race fans to some extent, is it not obvious how poor a decision this is when they look at the event as players and fans aside from business.

Usually when something in the realm of the world does not make sense it has something to do with money.....but for the life of me I cannot see how this will make them more money as the serious players leave their Dead Presidents
at home rather than wager serious coin on turf sprints and other random events....what am I missing here??

I wonder what John Gaines would think of this? Is this what he envisioned? Maybe it was?

This will make them more money in the short term. More races to get sponsors for, control of the venue for another day, higher ticket prices neatly packaged into a weekend event, more handle simply because of more races...

But aside from the weather last year didn't they already have that with the new races.....won't they actually hurt handle by eliminating the toughest P6 in racing and P4's that payed like no other.....they split it up and destroyed the handle

Those who don't wager by computer...they'll be forced to come to their track 2 days in a row.

Then once you are there on a day you normally aren't there...you're going to buy food...drinks...parking...and you're going to play races you wouldn't normally play because you're going to get bored waiting for the BC to start, so you'll probably blow half your money on some cheap claiming race...then you realize you'll need money for the BC still so you'll withdraw from the ATM and lose some more....but you still have to see the male division...

So then you're going to come back the next day and spend more money on food, drinks, etc

I see why they do it, even though I don't like it.

I knew Breeders' Cup was in trouble when they stuck "World Championship" in their title. The BC is about as much a world championship as the World Series. If it weren't for a few trainers like Dermot Weld, Andre Fabre, and Aidan O'Brien, the Euros would be uniformly second stringers (Red Rocks, etc.). Southern Hemisphere horses don't attend, because November is spring, their horses are just gearing up for the classic season, and they aren't going to miss the Melbourne Cup or Carlos Pellegrini carnivals to pay shipping and enormous supplementary fees on the long shot that their horse adapts to US conditions fast enough. (The purse structures in South America are such that a champion horse may not have earned enough money to pay a full BC supplement, sire not nominated, foal not nominated.)

"World Championships" sounds like something a PR flack thought up and management bought into it as a means to attrack new fans. But it is lie.

And so is "win and you're in". A non-nominated horse cannot get in by winning one of the designated races; he still has to pay the supplement. The lack of basic understanding of the meaning of English words in the upper BC management is staggering.

I wonder what this will do for TV revenue. The BC has never been a big TV success. Few non-hardcore fans were willing to sit down for 4-5 hours of nonstop horseracing. But stretching the races out over 2 days, while adding races of less interest can only make whatever TV interest there was all but non-existent.

--Dunbar

Kasept, ESQ.

Though it is just speculation I would guess that ESPN has had a hand in the entire process

it's less of a success due to moving the coverage to espn, which many still do not have. so they can't watch even if they want to.

I would have to say that if you live in this country and dont have ESPN or access to it there is a good chance that you may not be of vital interest

believe it or not there are still a lot of people without cable/dish, and they complain about any type of coverage moving from the traditional networks. not sure what they call them in your neck of the woods, but i usually refer to them as tightwads.

I hope you are investing in a digital signal converter soon. You won't get any signal with the conventional rabbit ears by this time next year.