There's no need to separate NEW fans from OLD fans...YOUNG fans from OLD fans...MEN fans from WOMEN fans...If all the states/regions/tracks started following NYRA's recent changes and just continued to clean the game up a little, clean/repair the facilities up a little ( absolutely NO need for palaces like Jerry Jones Stadium or Dubai)...you could keep your long-time fans happy AND bring new fans in..
NYRA, Santa Anita, Remington, Arlington,TVG,HRTV,Haskin & Byk
Matt Carrouthers,Jon White,Tim Ice, that cowboy guy from New Mexico,the Mig are HUGE positives for the sport. The other HUGE advantage is of course Internet wagering. I'm not talking give-aways and promotions either. Just the AVAILABILITY of LEGAL race wagering on the internet is such a huge advantage over anything else right now..I know from experience. I stumbled upon internet racing just 2 years ago and just fell in love with it. Well that AND listening to Steve Byk. They were the door that let me in to see and learn about the rest of the sport that is really so much more than betting. I even took a vacation and went down to Arlington and was just so impressed. I am a Packer stockholder and Lambeau has nothing over Arlington.
I'm 60 yr old and not a naive kid so I know there's bad people in racing, like there's bad people in business, or bad schoolteachers or bad priests, but when you talk or listen to horsemen, horseplayers etc, you hear real people. Listen to any other sport's post or pre-game interviews and you or I could stand in for any coach or player and say the same thing they do.....and it's the same canned crap every week.
Other sports have all become dull and uninteresting with the same cast of characters year after year saying the same things..A lot of posts on this board and others are crying cuz we only get to see great horses for one or two years and they're gone. Believe me (see my avatar above) when I say I actually got tired of Brett Favre BEFORE he went to the Jets and Vikings...Big Time Sports got boring for me cuz it never really changed in 40 years.
Horseracing changes every month and if you're a bettor, you'd better ( no pun) change...If you're a fan and don't bet, you don't need Direct TV or Season Passes or Seat Licenses to watch your favorite horse run..just grab your laptop or Dick Tracy wristwatch and sign up to Xpressbet, Youbet, Twinspires...any of em. They don't charge you more if you don't like betting.
....but who doesn't like betting? I mean, really?
It's none of our jobs to worry about the future of anything. Just enjoy the advances in technology in the last 10 years. Encourage honesty and sportsmanship whenever you can, and enjoy the most down-to-earth sport there is, cuz it's beginning to catch on...just in my little town in the U.P. of Michigan, hundreds of miles from any track...you got a bunch of us "new fans" up here now without even trying. (Well we DO get Steve Byk on Sirius 126, even up here so I wouldn't say it was accidental.)
Horseracing's future is brighter than most of you think, probably cuz you're too close to it. It's a great passtime and I'll give you 3/5 the glory days are coming back. In the meantime just enjoy what we have now.
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