A great day for the sport.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Dahoss

It's Saratoga also. The million dollar question is how to make it happen at more places. How do we convince everyone else what a great time our sport is to watch and participate in? How can we show them they are missing out if they aren't there?

I don't have the answer but it feels like educating them about the game further can only help. Horses racing longer, so people actually can follow a horses career for more than a few months will help.

I think racing, at least on the weekends, needs to be more of a social event at the track. I don't mean "society," but social in that it's a place to hang out, and not solely for wagering. A day at the track is a long one and for the casual race fan, it's nice to be able to get up, walk around and look at things besides the tote board.

I don't know about other tracks, but the food options at Aqueduct and Belmont are awful. A six or eight-hour day out of the city when all you can order are bad burgers, fries and chicken fingers is a bit of a bummer.

My uncle, in his late 60s, spent his whole life in Pennsylvania, and he told me when he was younger, Penn National was so crowded on weekends that if you didn't arrive an hour before the first race, you'd be parking a mile from the track and walking. He also said they often had bands, etc. so the afternoon was as much about entertainment as it was gambling.

It may require racing associations to accept that the big gamblers are still likely to wager from their living rooms, but there is still value in casual fans, who may not be as valuable for gambling dollars, but who will spend money on concessions, souvenirs, and put money into the economy through their consumerism. And, of course, they'll still gamble.

What I love about racing (besides the fact that yes, horses are pretty) is that it's a far more interactive sport than any other. The gambling is the point- it makes the fan an active, not passive, viewer. But that's something that takes a while to discover and I think tracks need to take the effort to bring people who want an entertaining afternoon first, and trust they'll discover the fun in gambling eventually.