Havre De Grace Retired

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by my miss storm cat

...because it's fun.

It adds another dimension, makes racing more user-friendly.

Racing needs bettors but it also needs fans and the people in between.

Enthusiasm.

I think it's a good thing, Kingie.

I know you know what some people here don't and that is that the fans DO play, that they DO bet, that they're the ones trying to bring more people in and get people excited... not the guys who - when they do actually go to the track - claim their spot inside, spread out the form, their laptop, whatever else and spend the day by themselves in a crowded place.

Yeah but they bet so little that it doesn't even register. Personally, I think it's a bad thing because it tends to get fans more intimately involved with the horses and creates a very unrational relationship between the horse and the fan. Look at the stuff those weirdos were saying on the Zenyatta website. Those people were crazy. People start looking at the horses as their friends and there becomes this emotional attachment that's unhealthy because then they forget that these are fragile properties and when one gets injured, as will always happen in this game, they start going to extremes with wanting to change rules and adopting measures, etc, that aren't realistic to what the sport is. This is a violent sport. Injuries happen. Horses break down and die. It happens. Havre de Grace isn't anyone's personal friend on here. If she's sold to a sheikh from Dubai or to some Japanese interests, so what. She is Porter's property, not ours. And she's replaceable. All of them are. Havre de Grace will be forgotten by year's end. If not sooner.

[my miss storm cat]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

Yeah but they bet so little that it doesn't even register.

Kingie I have learned more from you than from any other person on any forum period and you know it BUT I'm not used to seeing you make assumptions like this and if it were anyone else would ask (with pissy tone and all ) when is the last time you were even at the track?

I do understand what your saying as far as the rest of it but all in all I see it (the fan friendly thing) as more positive than negative.

Respectfully, of course.

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by my miss storm cat

Kingie I have learned more from you than from any other person on any forum period and you know it BUT I'm not used to seeing you make assumptions like this and if it were anyone else would ask (with pissy tone and all ) when is the last time you were even at the track?

I do understand what your saying as far as the rest of it but all in all I see it (the fan friendly thing) as more positive than negative.

Respectfully, of course.

I don't think it's an assumption. I'm sure that 95% of the fans that Zenyatta attracted weren't bettors, mostly because they weren't old enough to bet. Even the ones that did, I doubt they were adding serious money to the pools.

As for the last time I've been to the track, it's been awhile. These days, you don't have to go to the track to gamble. Now, ask me how much I've wagered over the past year and I'll tell you that it's much lower than it used to be but still what I consider a significant amount.

[Riot]

People have been fans of race horses since Man O' War and Seabiscuit. Good grief, they used to send Seabiscuit beer I don't see anything wrong with it at all.

Good grief, people get sappy and somewhat ridiculous about the Decorah eagles nest came, and kitties on the internet. Yes, some people anthropomorphize. If "the realities" of animal husbandry intrudes, so much the better for them to become educated and learn the realities around race horses. The open medical details published about Barbaro, I'm sure, kept alot of heat off the racing industry by the ignorant and PETA types. The average person learned how sophisticated and caring treatment of the race horse can be. I want "the average person" who is only superficially aware of horse racing to be on the industry's side, and not listening to PETA tell them what racing is.

So if they have a Facebook page with a famous horse snarfing the bubbles in it's bath and looking disgustingly cute, I don't care.

[Merlinsky]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

Look at the stuff those weirdos were saying on the Zenyatta website. Those people were crazy.

Were?