Colonial's future in real doubt..
 

http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-lo...0,662477.story

Will try for 'Instant Racing' game as revenue boost... Housing development a viable option for suburban Richmond tract. Does not look good...

Instant Racing...


I'm at a loss for words.


*cackles*

If you add Shopping Development...... that sure sounds like what happen to Garden State........!

to beautiful a facility to loose that way.... very sad!

very sad it looks like another one will bite the dust. went there last year

now glad i did cause progress will take it over.:(

ooooo, let's go shopping. yippeee.

I don't know much about Colonial because they really don't do much to market themselves.

I do know, however, that they offer quite a few TURF races, and, as I play primarily turf, I'd LOVE to bet on their races. UNFORTUNATELY, I can't get their video (not on CALRACING, and I'm certainly not going to pay to view it).

So, maybe, as a first step, they might consider putting up LIVE, delayed, or replay, video of their races on their website.

If I'd be interested, I'm sure some others would be as well.

A VERY SIMPLE FIRST STEP towards catching up with the times and generating some more revenue. What a novel notion in an industry stuck in the 1950's.

you can play colonial on xpressbet.

they just celebrated their 10th anniversary last year. we really enjoyed the virginia derby other than it was hotter than hell.

Currently, there is a housing/ (2) golf course community adjacent to the track. Otherwise not much there (yet).

Attended the 2006 VA Derby and it was brutally hot that day as well. Hope they find a way to keep the place going.

We need less tracks. May as well lose one with little history.

This is sad. Where is Magma when you need them? You can always sell it off in the future when you need the $$. Opps I guess they need the $$ now. No slots no interested buyers. No one gave a crap about N.Y. racing without the added allure of slots.

They are bluffing.

The Golf Club at Brickshire (Blue Green Management) and Royal New Kent (Tradition Clubs) are the two courses there. Brickshire is the one with the housing community attached to it. Neither course is doing that great. If memory serves me, Brickshire had between 1,400-1,600 lots for sale when they first opened....and they sold all the developer lots. Anything for sale in there now are strictly resales...and Im not real sure how those are performing (slow, I would imagine)

I definitely disagree here. We need as many tracks as possible. That way, we're not held hostage by any of them. Can you imagine if this were 1988, and you were forced to play AQU this winter?

And we can then take advantage of stickout plays at multiple tracks, rather than trying to force plays when there are limited options.

Royal New Kent opened with a lot of fanfare. We played a college tournament there- WAYYYYYY too hard. Toughest course I've ever played, to the point where I was like "this is ridiculous". And this coming from an accomplished player, I can't imagine how un-fun and unfair it would be for an "average" player.

Colonial Downs will find a way to survive, I agree with Chuck that they are bluffing. It's doing much better than it's sister tracks in MD.

It is too good of a setup to give up. They dont race that many days, control the OTB system, have no competition in most of the state, and would be selling into the worst real estate market in years. If they could get some kind of slots/quasi slots system in place and include the OTB's with them it will be a gold mine. To just sell to unknown developers seems unlikely but leverage is always nice to have.

Not only is it hard...it is a maintanence nightmare. I have played alot of Mike Stranz's (RIP) designed courses. Most are very visually intimidating.

I think after Caledonia, which is a GREAT course (tough but not ridiculous), he decided that a course had to be absurdly difficult to be "great". He should have taken a lesson from the top 10 in the nation list... none of those are murderously difficult.

For me the the potential loss of Hollywood Park and 1 Bay Area track within 2 years are bad enough but this closure is possibly even worse, even without much history, because it would take away a track from a region of the country that needs more racetracks not less.

A grass meet is a rarity in this country especially one that is in the summer when racing is widing down after the TC. There is so little in that part of the state for recreation it would be a shame to lose Colonial which is a beautiful facility. But then again I'm too much of a damn romantic at times.......

I, for one, would love to see Colonial sell and close. It is a beautiful track that, as we all are well aware, is in a terrible location.

They run a couple nice grass races there, but the rest of them really aren't much. I don't get very excited about cheap claimers on the turf, unless I own one that I can't figure out so I send him to Colonial in one last desperate attempt.

Their daily purses are crap. They hurt racing at Delpark, and soon will hurt MD if they start their season too early.

I say close Colonial, then close Laurel during the winter and replace those days with a summer turf meet. I mean, that's why Laurel re-did their turf course - to run turf races, right? Can't run the turf in the dead of winter.....

While the racing at Aqu may not be "fair", I'd bet there all year long if they would let me.

I want less tracks so we have fuller fields and more competitive races.

Excuse the digression.

I've made an assumption about the way you play and pretty much modeled my present approach after it.

While I can turn a very nice ROI by watching races closely, keeping meticulous notes, etc., no matter how much I might enjoy the process, I can't get motivated to do it on a consistent basis, ESPECIALLY with mundane conditions (like a bias) or bad horses.

So, I've branched out to betting multiple tracks and multiple surfaces, and using my charts to pick out standout plays. Typically, only in these cases will I get down and dirty with the replays. I'm probably doing the same amount of work overall in terms of time but the effort is alot less, as there's alot of mindless work invovled.

There a more than enough plays (over 5 or 6 tracks) and enough variety to keep me interested. And, I not squeezing out plays but betting standouts.

I've assumed you pretty much do the same with your figures. Or, at least, it makes sense to me. In that respect, the more variety, the better.

I don't know how Colonial hurts Delware Park, most of the low end horses from CT, LRL, PHL end up at colonial in the summer. It's not like they're taking away awsome OCN1X type horses, the horses racing down there are going after MD10K or 15K claimers. Plus, Delaware Park is on a roll as it is with all those slots.
I also find it hard to believe that they would sell to someone who plans on putting up housing on that land given the fact of where this country is at in foreclosure rates.

Just give them what they need, let them turn a little coin and leave them be, their 1-2 month season doesn't affect ANY of the major tracks

-bt-

could colonial go to a split calendar, like march or april and sept or oct? march -april would catch the horses coming back north and sept- oct would catch horses heading south. that would get the meet out of the dead of summer.
springs like this year would have made march tough.

I'll agree with part of your post, and disagree with other parts.

Delpark is far from on a roll - and I'll assume you were being sarcastic without the smiley. They have trouble filling their fields because a lot of the horses that should be running there are being sucked away by ill-advised turf tries at CNL. And yet, I agree that at certain levels CNL had no affect on Delpark.

In the Mid-Atlantic, I'd say that more than 70% of the horses making turf tries, shouldn't be racing on the grass and are doing so only as a last resort. The old "...well, we've tried him short, long, with blinks, without blinks, - what's left. Hey, how about putting him on the lawn". And I'm guilty of this myself. Those horse would fill fields at Delpark if they stayed on the dirt and ran at a level they should be run at.

Close it and sell it!!

From my understanding Delaware has hard time filling and or getting full fields b/c they draw like a week or so prior to race day. That's the only track in the world where a match race doesn't come as a shock to me.
Colonial is what 90% turf? Delaware might run what 2-3 a day in the summer on turf? The only thing i can see you getting upset about is if some N1X or OCN2X horse that goes down to Colonial to try their luck at some type of 50K HCP race just b/c the field is more then likely gonna come up a little softer then say a OC race on the grass at Delaware. Now that PA has got the slots i wouldn't worry too much about the little slice Colonial takes from that track, but rather Philly Park and Penn now a days

-bt-

Delpark takes entries 3 racedays prior to actual raceday. It may seem like a week if they draw for Sat on Tuesday, but it certainly isn't a "week or so".

Delpark has other issues that keeps their fields lite, including horses being drawn away. Workman's comp, drug testing, trainers being denied stalls, etc keeps their horse population down.

And it is the only place I've seen a scratched down to three horse field, get cancelled after the card started.


Puh- leeze, no one is getting upset. Just discussing opinions and I'm trying to throw some facts in there for entertainment.

Now THAT's something we can agree on. Throw in Delpark's ban on steroids, and you will see even shorter fields this year!!

Wil it open this year. Gotta go once as I love turf racing there and would like to see it once.

Spyder

I sure hope so I already have my trip lined up for June...

It would be a shame should they close, their 3 year old Turf series has been enjoyable the past few years.

supposed to start june 13th (friday)

sorry, just checked and it's actually june 9th