In the past, I was never a fan of NYRA so to speak. However, if you are going to look at this situtation in it's totality, then you cannot argue that NYRA has done a wonderful job in righting many of the wrongs. Their goals and objectives in the past 3-5 years has not been to improve the sport, the industry or the show they put on. The focus was, and needed to be, on infrastructure, management, and cleaning a house that needed to be clean. Anyone who doesn't think they have done that, and done it well, is either very misinformed, uneducated to realities of the global situation, or just entrenched in their own prejudices. With regard to the latter, I understand those types of prejudices don't die overnight.
Be that as it may, one cannot look at attendence and then point to who would be more successful in running the franchise. You can't look at handle either. Those aspects exist in different worlds. I think many of the people who looking to justify bidders other than NYRA are grasping onto the successes or positive attributes that these bidders may have had in other venues. At the same time, they must point to negative items that befell NYRA. Unfortunately, this doesn't speak to the important issues. Bankruptcy is not only indicitive of management. It is also, as in this case, indocitive of environment. Every bidder -- every single one -- is looking for the franchise and wants it under a different set of rules, laws, etc. However, the old ones are the ones NYRA was saddled with for the past X # of years. It's a fallacious arugment.
It's not about lies, hypotheticals, bankruptcy, or any of the other propaganda. It's not about me, you, the guy sitting at the end of the grandstand, or the owner in the Trustee's Room. It's about what is in the best interest of everyone -- NY racing as a whole. I think that most people are letting the propaganda take the front seat to the very real issues that will dictate the future of NY racing.
Eric
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