Nice write-up Pat.
Not sure if you got the same show we did on the Western front... but, Pennsylvania did have some awesome horse racing coverage on cable tv in the 1980's.
They were about 15 years ahead of their time...I still have some old VHS tapes of it, and I think a lot of people would prefer the coverage we got here in the late 80's and especially early 90's to the coverage TVG gives today.
After both Commodore Downs and Erie Downs closed here in the early and mid 80's ... there was a period of a few years in the city where if you wanted to bet on horse racing, you either had to drive 35 minutes across the state line to a NY OTB that was about the size of grocery store, or you had to do it on a State Telebet Phone account, or (if you wanted to bet horses on credit) you had to go (or call) to my fathers bar on the Eastside where he booked all horse racing action and had someone answering the phone just to take horse bets from people watching on cable.
The Downs At Erie Simulcast parlor didn't arrive until the late 1980's. It was a huge building with four large rooms, a restaurant, a bar and easily over a hundred TV's.
It's hard to believe their was a life before the Internet.
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06-04-2013, 01:56 PM
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