My Last Belmont
 

I post this in the hopes that Steve can share the feedback with NYRA.

Having had the chance to go to Churchill for Oaks, and now to Belmont Park, the contrast between the two could not be more glaring and not flattering to whomever manages Belmont and prepares for the biggest day of the year. While Churchill has an infield, it still serves more people with much more skill and comfort than Belmont Park

At Churchill, they have enough security and access control that if you don't have a ticket for an area, you don't get in. At Belmont, there was absolutely no effort to check anyone's tickets, leaving a chaotic situation where with 15 minutes to post, police had to be summoned to evict seat squatters.

Add to that very limited food choices (hot dog or something they claimed was a Philly Cheesesteak), no apparent plans to restock vending areas that ran out of beer and ice, just not enough vending staff to serve this number of people, half of the ATM's inoperable, non-working escalators, and overflowing toilets. At $10 a beer, they should be able to put 3-4 behind each counter, not 2 hopelessly overworked souls. Oh, and have a beer/water line, and a line for mixed drinks... common sense people.

There was an inexplicable decision to barricade 4 of 6 exit doors on the north end that caused thousands to have to squeeze through two doors after the big race, and a truck parked across the pathway out to parking lot buses creating more difficulty in exiting.

The card was extraordinary and I'm sure that everything was in good order in the Jockey Club, but the experience for the average punter was generally frustrating. I expect rookies on both side of the windows on these days, and there appeared to be sufficient staffing for wagering, but pretty much every other part of the experience was a fail and I will not go back on Belmont Day.

Sorry if this sounds like grousing... but The Belmont is part of a national institution, and in my opinion NYRA needs to raise their game a lot.

NYRA addressed theses things with the hiring of a Chief Experience Officer a few weeks ago so they know things need to be cleaned up.

I had a blast. All of what you say is fairly accurate the building is a dinosaur and the hospitality leaves a lot to the imagination. The building needs to be blown up and rebuilt but save that they will need a major commitment of capital to truly make things substantially better and i dont see that as a reality. This is kind of why I thought addressing these issues with the hiring of such a figure was premature? Without the money job will be impossible to perform in

I'm with you...it was a really poorly executed day from a fan perspective...i highly doubt your going to get many casual fans to come back when they are treated as poorly as was the case yesterday. I understand its hard to account for 100k plus but they had 3weeks and everyone knew that things had the potential to test the limits

positives for me would be traffic entering and exiting via car was simply perfect...security was just fine getting inside..card of course was epic..shuttle getting in was very efficient...parking was a fair price

everything else was pretty bad...i hate to say it but pimlico does a better job year in and out then what nyra put on this year

I saw nothing but people smiling and having a great time. I really dont think people will be deterred from coming again. The issue is more the place needs a major face lift and not unlike what they did to MSG. Its easily fixed with capital

Looks like it was a nightmare afterwards too.

http://deadspin.com/leaving-the-belm...ter-1587682934

My God.... I saw the potential and sprinted to the exit as soon as I saw the finish, luckily sailed out without any issues.

Barricading 4 out of 6 exit doors???

The geniuses had piled confiscated bags and backpacks directly outside of the two doors on the left as you try to exit, and I can't remember why the two on the right were not in use, but the entire crowd was trying to funnel through the two double doors in the center. I asked someone who seemed to be in authority if they wanted a riot.... she just shrugged

Leaving was a total sh*tshow, and I don't understand why. Every year there is a triple crown on the line, they have about 100,000 people come, and every year Belmont seems to staff for a non-TC Belmont. I know the staff is working hard, and I certainly don't blame the tellers for novice wagerers, but for the love of pete, would it kill them to put four bartenders behind each bar instead of two? Or double the number of people working the concession stands? The lines were out of control (and I can't even where the women's rest rooms were concerned- there were lines over 50 people deep, waiting, by 1PM, when we arrived).

We stayed for the last two races to let the lines drop down a bit on the LIRR (and so a friend who came with us to the racetrack for the very first time ever could have the fun of going down to the rail to watch the races since the crowds had cleared), and when we left, after standing in line still inside the facility (it's a long walk to the trains once you're outside), we were rerouted downstairs because we were told the walkway structure was unsafe. We were given no instructions of where to go once we were outside, and the trains are only reachable via the long walkway on the second floor, so thousands of us ended up at the bottom of stairwells that were fenced off from the walkway, manned by policemen without megaphones so no one could hear anything. We stood there over an hour, until finally, without any information, they started letting people who had ignored their instructions to go downstairs and had stayed on the second floor go over the same walkway they had told us was structurally unsound. They then brought out blowtorches to cut through the fencing closing off the stairwells, and then let us stand there quite a while longer. I was at the last stairwell to be finally allowed to go up to the walkway, then down to a train, where we sat for 40 minutes in the station (or I should say, some of us sat; we were lucky enough to get seats, but many people didn't and stood until Jamaica, so they stood another 40 minutes on a not-moving train). We headed for the exit at 8:30, and finally were permitted onto a train after 10PM. I got home close to midnight, and that was only because the Gods of the subway took pity on my poor tired self and sent a C train to my platform right after I disembarked at Penn Station . Less than an hour out to Belmont, three hours to get back.

And that was only a half hour more than it took to get back from Smarty Jones' TC bid, and that time there was no rerouting downstairs.

On the bright side, my friend who was going for the first time cashed on all but one of her wagers, so she at least was not turned off the whole experience, and does actually want to go back next year.

your female friend like going into the mens room with piss cascading out the doors because the girls line was at least 50 yards out the door ?

its hard to be a super hot track babe in conditions like yesterday ..lots pulled it off tthough

check out twitter, pa or local papers...doubt those were smiling faces

Yesterdays Belmont Stakes card is a good example of crowd control study. 100k is abnormaly large for a sporting event. Yankee Stadium or MSG can no where hold the many people Belmont can so this was probably a learning experience for future events on what not to do.

But Belmont has this happen every time there is a TC on the line and every time it's understaffed. They are choosing not to learn from it. The best Belmont, in terms of service, I can think of was I'll Have Another's non-run, because 20,000 or so decided last minute not to come, and NYRA's idea of what 100,000+ needed in terms of service was about right for the what, 80,000 who did go. That was a very nice day at Belmont. Yesterday was not.

To be fair my track experience is much more controlled because of my experience and ability to procure some things the average fan doesn't have access too. Lots of a
bad stuff, including valid complaints and again we know Belmont is desperately in need of full renovation. Yes I saw the lines, yes there was A LOT of ladies in the Men's room, Yes I saw them run out of beer and yes I went to a concession stand at 1230 pm and they said come back in 45 minutes we have NO FOOD ready. All in all given what they have to work with in infrastructure and the reality that these type crowds are so infrequent it was a friggin blast and a decent job by NYRA

As someone who goes to the Belmont every year, I can assure you that it is always difficult to get out of the place. What added to the problems yesterday was that no one left after the Belmont. It is usually a mass exodus following the Belmont and yesterday absolutely was not.

Handling a crowd that size is nearly impossible, especially when you get it on average of once every 3-4 years. It is nearly impossible to not be understaffed.

Issues with the parking lot and train platform are unfortunate. They also will not take away from the great experience that the vast majority of people had. It's a shame that some people ran into problems and I feel badly for them, but no one should be dissuaded from attending the Belmont because of issues that can be fixed with more planning by new personnel in the future.

Why were there no lessons learned from 2002 and 2008? Isn't it common sense to ask what were the shortcomings in those years and insure they didn't happen again yesterday? Even if new people were in charge there are those that were involved that could give feedback that are still on board. Let's face it they acted like all business and tried to milk every dollar they could by short staffing knowing that people would continue to come when a triple crown is on the line regardless of their prior experience. One lesson I hoped they learned is if they give us great full field stakes racing we will take the rubber band off our bankroll and push it in with both hands. I had 4 heart breaking high 4 figure beats yesterday yet enjoyed the hell out of the day.

Well look at you being all positive and nice! :p

Obviously I wasn't there so cannot comment BUT I will say well done... just a great day of racing.

Any big event has problems and yes, I know, easy to say when I didn't have to experience them but I hope this fantastic day also served as a learning experience and that whatever needs to be addressed and sorted will be so that they do it again next year.

Truly an amazing day! :)

The place has 300% too much capacity for all but BC Cup days and Belmont stakes day. And simply can not pull off a huge event without a major dose of renovation.

Pimlico has the same archaic facility with the same lack of funds but here's where things differ...i get a survey literally days after the preakness wanting my opinion of where they succeeded and where they failed
..

does Belmont do this? Cuz from what I'm reading its business as usual and they simply don't care...raising the beer $3 Friday vs Saturday was a little over the top.. Prices were far worse then any sporting event I have seen peanuts 5 hotdog 5 beer 10 pretzel 5

There were toilet issues in 2008. Why not bring in a boatload of portables? Why have 2 bartenders servicing a food stand or bar when there are 100K people. I hear your point about renovation but you need to look at past failures and create workarounds. It was all about maximizing profitability without regard to customer experience. Did I say it was awesome racing though?

Again give the new hire a chance. When fixing an issue you need to hire someone to own the responsibility to make change. First step was done now its up to this person to get money and talent in places that matter. It really wasn't all that bad.

Preakness has a huge infield for the yahoos Belmont doesn't you kind of have to keep perspective in place. The infield plays a major roll in quelling the casual fans appetite for partying without subjecting the more ardent horse players to their brand of entertainment.

You are looking for a huge amount of qualified day workers and then have to train them in 10 days. Let's with what Julie McCoy does fixing the lido deck.

Yes NYRA looked to earn ,they have too, there in business to provide profits to give to the State and politician then take the profits and elect not to reinvest them into racing.

No worries... I don't give slack to a new hire who had the ability to query about past failures and make changes. We probably will be in the same situation x Years from now when we have a "New Hire" in place for the next Triple Crown shot.

I think she was hired 14 days ago. Have a heart

So no one that was there 21 days ago gave a **** about fan experience or had the means to explore past failings? Just admit that I made a valid point and we can drop this. NYRA gets a 10 out of 10 for the racing and a 2 out of 10 for fan experience. Hopefully we get a shot at this next year while the "Chief Experience Officer" is in place. The fact that they need this position boggles my mind. I am sure it is a relatively high paid position for a job that should be the number one priority for any business dealing with the public.

And you know that representatives from the Breeders Cup were in attendance as they usually are! These people are very keen to attendance figures, customer service, concessions and transportation issues.

I would be very surprised if after yesterday what they witnessed in person and have read regarding the post race problems of the fans that we ever see a Breeders Cup in Belmonts future.

They would have had a 1000% return on investment to hire sufficient staff to service all the thirsty guests.... I can say with some confidence that between placing wagers and trying to get food and fluids, most folks spent over 50% of their day standing in some kind of line, probably more. The persistent long lines also made just getting around a constant battle. At $10 per beer, you would have to sell like 3 additional beers an hour to cover the cost of the lager and an hour's wages plus incidentals.

Refreshment staffing was at least half of what was necessary, so they would have been short without the TC influx. Not rocket scientists making these decisions......

I couldnt tell but was the infield open at Belmont? Pimlico sure does and that probably helps spreading out the crowed instead of packing them in one spot

Belmont doesnt need to hire extra staff. There are companies like Sodexho u can hire that bring in thier own trained staff and thier own equipment. Hire them for one day and they can be gone the next.

no but Belmont does have the outdoor picnic area which pimlico does not have

Many regular Belmont attendees were surprised to see than $30 General Admission to the clubhouse got them no access to the track. A private party closed the clubhouse first floor simulcast room and created the oddity of very few people on the apron on that side of the tunnel.
The track has a history of GA offering generous access and several friends were upset that they never saw an actual race. Another went up to the second floor and blithely walked past the curtains and found a high top near the windows behind the reserved seats and stayed there all day. Clearly the crowd management wasn't very good.

Food service was dreadful. Before the Phipps, I waited 10 minutes for a snack on the patio near the paddock, only to be told that they had no food. After the race I went upstairs to the "café" area which had no coffee. (Just as well due to bathroom lines.) There were two lines and each had the "menu" posted on the wall behind the cashiers. I chose a line and waited 10 minutes when there were 3 people in front of me. I was told that if I wanted a pretzel I had to go to the other line! There were 7 or 8 people in line for hotdogs and pretzels. It took until post time for the Just a Game. The woman in front of me ordered 2 hotdogs, two pretzels and 2 sodas at 7 minutes to post. At 1 minute to post the order was complete, but wait! He accidentally gave her three pretzels and was flummoxed! Give it to me! I tossed the money over the woman's shoulder and ran to watch my P3 go down in flames by a nose. It was awful.

I left the clubhouse at 9. My friends had taken the LIRR and headed off the other direction from me. They live in PA but were staying over in Jersey. I had offered them a ride to NJ but they declined. Halfway to my car they called. Can I get them to Jamaica? Sure, I innocently said. Luckily, we stopped in the Morning Line on the backstretch to eat. At almost 10pm, it took us 10 minutes to exit the barn area onto Hempstead Tpke. It was another 20 minutes before were crossed the Cross Cty. Then were were rolling. It helped me as I was able to hop on the Van Wyck and didn't see any more of the fiasco.

I don't hold NYRA accountable for the LIRR mess. They experienced the mess with Funny Cide and Smarty and Big Brown but didn't fix it. The food service company was a disaster. I watched a supervisor scream at two young women who were actually trying to hustle because they hadn't refilled the supply of chips. For God's sake, let them serve the beer and keep the lines moving. Again this is a contracted group, not NYRA, but they need to know how bad it was. It's not that hard to get extra help for the day.

Bringing in porta potties for the day would help. I know that they are unsightly but there are fairly nice ones available.
Asking a couple of 100 pound 25 year old women to manage the reserved seating area where I was, was a fail. The aisleway stairs filled with a crush of people and those who paid $200 for reserved seats had to battle through to get to them after going to bet.

On the plus side, the racing was great. The place didn't feel as mobbed as it sometimes does. I used my NYRA card and had no issues with machines or lines to bet. My friend who uses cash had no issues as many people have been weaned onto vouchers or cards or accounts.

Great day of racing which I was happy to see via my computer and TV

Thank you Belmont for you crowd management!

Hopefully you don't wrestle the Breeder's Cup from Santa Anita for a good long time.

Biggest crowd I have encountered at Santa Anita was 60,000 and it did take us 45 minutes to get to the freeway nothing like this nightmare:

http://tracking.si.com/2014/06/07/be...n-parking-lot/

The last time Belmont had the BC, it went perfectly smooth. You can't compare a Triple Crown on the line and the BC equally.

That's true. I spent three hours in the cluster*ck that was Saturday night, but I was also at the last Breeders' Cup at Belmont and that was a pretty smooth day. Though I drove out with a friend, and we bolted as soon as the Classic was over and were out in five minutes. I don't know what the train situation was like.

If I can continue to vent about the trains this weekend- NYRA is saying the whole thing wasn't their fault it's the LIRR's and the LIRR is saying wah wah wah everyone wanted to leave at the same time wah wah wah.

You know why everyone leaves at the same time, LIRR? Because you don't give out a schedule of when trains are departing; you just say you're running them until 9, which gets everyone panicked about making sure they're out by then. If you would actually schedule them, the same way you schedule the out bound trains in the morning/afternoon, and schedule them until 10, there'd probably be less of a huge pileup of people between 7 and 8.

And NYRA, you could help by keeping betting windows open and food concessions running for awhile after the last race so people are tempted to stay a bit longer. I'd much rather sit, eat something and continue to lose money betting on other tracks for a couple of hours than stand for the same amount of time in the dark and the humidity, hungry and thirsty because the lines were too long earlier in the day to get anything to eat.

another good one was having all of the portajohns banded shut on Friday..after being stuck in NYC traffic for 3 freaking hours I had to piss like crazy when we pulled in...I saw an oasis of portajohns in the lots and made a beeline for them...my oasis of toilets turned into a mirage when they were all sealed with zip ties...I ended up going behind the public toilets in the middle of the parking lot...

Forbes has a good article about the customer service issues:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/teresage.../1752-1784-504

(The link is going to scroll down to a comment, but scroll back up for the article)

I hadn't even thought about the cell phone signal because I'm accustomed to the cell phone signal at Belmont always being crappy.

Lack of lighting in parking lots was a mess. The place is usually closed well before sundown but when the last race was ending as the sun was setting there was no hope of everyone getting out before dark. Non regulars and even those used to parking in other lots were out there for hours.

When I was on Hempstead Tpke at about 10pm, there were people all over the place. One guy approached every car with "livery" or taxi plates. He and his friend were dressed up nicely, probably escapees from the LIRR who were stranded. I got the impression that Nassau Cty police had lost control of the traffic.

I read a TDN blog mentioning trying to attract new fans with great stakes racing but to the uninitiated, the difference between Close Hatches and Princess of Sylmar and a pair of 10k claimers is non existent. Meanwhile they bring in newbies and the trash barrels are over run by 2pm, the bathroom lines are eternal, the food lines are worse and then you discover that there is no food.

Regarding trash, I have one bit of free advice: Place big plastic filled boxes about for recyclable bottles and cans only. Enterprising people will (as they do nightly at Saratoga) gather them up for return. If the gathering had gone on during raceday the place would have been tidier and the trash cans which were mainly filled with bottles and cans would have been available for real trash.

You would think that with the average Saturday at Belmont getting 50,000 people, it would be really simple to handle double the crowd once every few years.

Or not.

They better expand that press box to keep the savages from killing each other because they just can't hold as many writers as they should. Tables were stacked tighter than anything I'd seen before. And there was at least almost one fight that I witnessed...cooler heads prevailed (all sarcasm aside - this really happened).

It's worth noting that the same crowding you may have experienced in some parts of the track was similar to some in the press box.

I get it - we want people to have the best experience possible at the races. What would everyone have been saying if California Chrome had won and they still had to deal with these issues? 100,000 on site, but revisionist history would have 300,000 saying they were there to witness it (and happily deal with the headaches).

If NYRA makes wholesale changes to refurb Belmont to be able to better handle a Triple Crown chance - guess what - the full exec team should be fired.

Surely, there are small things that could be done to increase some comforts, but whining about a singular experience is like being in the middle of a forest and standing right in front of one tree and complaining about the fact that this single tree is in your way. Step back and look at the big picture and just think about it all for a few minutes.

As the progressive racing entrepreneur Andrew Rideout @thoroughbredAR tweeted this weekend -

"Nobody comes racing. Empty grandstands. The sport is dying"
"Too many people here. OMG. Stop everything. The sport is dying"
See a pattern?

I do see the pattern that someone from the racing industry is blaming the customer when they complain about the expierence. Happens all the time. No changes just excuses and blaming the victim.