Where to Watch the Races ?

[the_fat_man]

Originally Posted by Linny

NYS Racing Law requires that the OTB Channel show NY TB races LIVE and out of state simulcast races on delay.
While as a viewer it is somewhat inconvenient (it's inconvenient for the technicians as well!) at least you are seeing the races. In many cases the "replay" is starting as the winner is crossing the finish line, so the delay is a matter of the length of time it takes to complete the race.
The problem is when there are alot of things going on at once, 3 races starting with in 2 minutes AND NYRA is running a race which OTB stays with. Other issues are when there is a foul claim or inquiry in NY, which we try to stick with. It gets things backed up. Also, some tracks (Tampa comes to mind) are very slow to go. At "0 minutes to post time" the horses may still be 1/4 mile from the gate. It's 3 minutes later when then run. To the viewer post time was 4 minutes ago and you want to know why we are "holding" the race. The problem is that they haven't run it yet!

I honestly think that it's an absurd and archaic sense of "protectionism" by tracks that keep them from simply putting their "in house" feed up on their own site every day. Its the same mentality that kept them from wanting racing on TV in the 50's.
I can go to a Hong Kong sire and get PP's with video clips embedded in them showing the last 10 races a horse ran. FREE! In English or Chinese (and probably some other languages) without having to bet anything o buy anything. They make info available.

The problem with the NYCOTB feed is that while NYRA racing is happening, they don't have video of the other races. Even though there's a second channel (73), this only kicks in AFTER NYRA racing is done for the day.

I'm with you about HKG. They're giving all sorts of things away for free over there. Things that parasites like EQUIBASE feel the need to charge for here. And the irony is that EQUIBASE data is NO WHERE near as ACCURATE as that disseminated by the HKG Jockey Club. Shouldn't your precious data at least be accurate?

It's a slow progression but I see myself betting HKG exclusively in the next couple of years, asssuming that things don't change for the better.

Then you have Churchill Downs run tracks (CD, FG, AP, CRC) which offer realtime odds, tape delays of their races (good luck getting these in a timely fashion) but no headon replays and they choose to save bandwith rather than keep the replays up when they're not running.

Oh, then there's SA on Calracing.com, or Meadowlands. Their idea of saving money is NOT SHOWING the backstretch or turn shots on headon replays. Why hide this info?

The track heads are buried in the '50's. They see their clientele being the typical octogenarian at your local OTB. He/She has the local paper, with the day's entries, and could care less about PPs, or even watching racing, or keeping notes or charts.

What a ****IN joke.


On the plus side, we have KEE: live web feeds, impeccable video, and the attempt to make their data as accurate as possible.