A great day for the sport.

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by phystech

Interesting thread.

I completely understand Steve's comments about Belmont Day. Being a Maryland owner and resident, I felt exactly the same way on Preakness Day. The only way I could have felt more proud that day was if I had a horse running in one of the races - any of the races - that day. I didn't care what the final times of any of the races were, or what the class of the race was, it simply was a wonderful day to be a MD'er, an owner, and to be at Pimlico.

It sucks to see too many bashing Belmont Day just like they did Preakness Day.

The best thing racing has going for it are the bettors. The worst thing racing has going for it is the bettors. How do we reconcile that?

I saw no one here bash the Belmont day -- and certainly I don't know of one person or one entity that has bashed this years Preakness day.

Big crowds and festive atmospheres are fun. I remember going into the infield on Preakness day the year Point Given won and I loved it. Good looking college aged girls were being hoisted up and showing their tits every few minutes in different ares. I saw fights. I've been to toga parties in highschool that were way more civilized. It was wild.

I've been to the Derby five times. Great atmosphere. I've been to the Travers a couple times.

In the 1930's -- they'd get crowds of over 200,000 people on Ascot Gold Cup day and the environment was famous the world over.

You need 7-day a week fans who bet. Not people who want to drink and socialize and show up for big events three or four days a year and maybe bet $20 on a slowpoke like Ravelo's Boy who hasn't raced in 100 days.

They like to talk about "reaching" the new fans who show up for these races -- well that's good and I know they can do a better job of it. However, the people who they need to get are the people who aren't showing up at all on those days and have no plans to show up at a racetrack anytime soon. These are people that barely know horse racing exists.

In theory, It's very simple and obvious how you get them in force. You detach the "sucker game" label that haunts this sport. Doing this will also greatly empower the current bettors.

I tried to restrain myself from not saying anything in this thread -- but nothing is going to get better if people with vocal platforms want to make it a stride-for-stride myopian Us VS PETA and Us VS The NY Times argument.

Steve said I missed his point -- and I think he was also getting at those who thought the Belmont day would lose some of its sparkle without I'll Have Another running. I guess that's what the magical day stuff was about.