Ellis Park closing, now opening

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by stonegossard

In the end the horsemen are screwing both themselves and the game up. In the end a lot of horseplayers who dont have access to these tracks (CRC,CD,...etc) will permanently alienate them. I know on my end I dont even bother looking at CD entries or following their meet at all anymore. While I normally make a few trips to Calder by now, I have not gone once and have not made a single wager there yet. At some point if the horsemen at Calder smarten up and let out of state betting/adw's back into the game, I still probably wont bother. The quality of horses at CRC is beyond a joke, it might take a long time to fix the damage that has been done.

I hope the horsemen down here in Fla are happy with the result so far...they have all but destroyed horse racing down in S. Florida.

I applaud the owner of Ellis of basically telling the horsemen to go screw off. The guy cant run a business without out of state betting coming in, and the horsemen wont budge. I guess the horsemen would rather not run at all. Real smart move on the horsemen's end. Hopefully the McDonald's down in the Ellis area is hiring.

All the tracks have to do is come to the table with a better deal. They refuse to deal with THG because they dont want the horseman to be united nationally. I cant believe that you guys dont understand the deals that sre asking us to take. Do you understand they want us to take less than half of what we get for regular simulcast and on track bets? Do you think it is a coincidence that handle goes up and purses go down? So we should sign a deal that is a horrible business deal for us because it is inconveinent for you? Maybe you should be asking the tracks why they think we deserve less money? Maybe you should ask CM if he thinks that it is a coincidence that Tracknet (which is CDI) is making tracks do the same thing they railed against TVG for? Or that CDI suddenly is so concerned with AWD'd since it is now operating one? Maybe you forgot that it was the horseman that pushed to open CA to ALL AWD's when CDI and Magna were trying to cut out everybody else.

Geary made a bad deal when he bought the track. He thought for some reasons that he could "turn it around" by ignoring all the issues that a track in an area with demographics like Evansville has. His insistence that the judge not granting an injunction against the horseman was the main reason that he was closing now, rings hollow. The law is very specific and this hearing was a formality. He was simply looking for a scapegoat and apparently has found one. Personally i dont like Ellis park and rarely run there. But for the people that have jobs there and the horseman stabled there who depend on it, I feel bad for.