Yet another track that is dead to me

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by 10 pnt move up

Racing has no one to blame for the situation you have outlined, anyone could have seen this coming way before the first slot machine was installed.

Reading all the information it sounds like a sound business decision, if track revenue really is meaningless and this is just a means to an end who cares about track takeout related dynamics. They want slots and if thats the bottom line then cant blame them.

Sucks though to be an actual player who bets real money.

Why should someone do that?

A lot of people saw this coming years ago but most people thought because of the Derby they were a racing company and would always take care of racing. When I relocated to KY, Churchill Downs was by far the most horseman friendly track in the country. Every year from 2005 on they got worse and worse. The track surface budget was cut, maintenance on the backside was cut, services were cut, a lot of veteran employees were let go and clueless people hired to replace them. The most horseman unfriendly thing they ever did was buying youbet and spend virtually every non-Derby marketing dollar driving live handle to Twinspires where bets made via the ADW they only had to give us less than 50% of our on track take. (something like 3% rather than 7%)
They took away the press box and made it the mansion and made the Derby press watch on a TV or from a viewing stand with a bad view and little room. Yeah they are making a little more money but didnt exactly make any friends in the media with that move.

They put up a $12 million dollar TV screen despite their own execs being quoted last week as saying racing was in a depression and they raised the take to make up $8 million. Shareholders are a convenient excuse every time they want to cut something related to racing or raise prices. That isnt saying that they are making poor, big picture moves because it is painfully obvious that they dont intend to try to maximize any racing property outside of Oaks and Derby.

It is a bit childish for us in the industry to feel betrayed because without racing CDI doesnt have slot parlors in S Florida or New Orleans. Most people in the industry have approx zero sense of loyalty. Owners fire trainers at the drop of a hat to run to the latest juice guy. Trainers steal owners off of other trainers lying on their death beds. Most of your help would jump ship if the guy in the next barn paid $50 a week more. Fact is that casinos and slot parlors were coming whether we like it or not, whether we were on board or not. CDI is really no different than Penn National gaming, Greenwood, Harrah's or Gov Cuomo. Everyone of them wants to squeeze racing by the neck till it croaks.

Personally I have had enough. I'm going to stable at Monmouth in the late Spring, summer and into the fall and somewhere in Florida in the winter with perhaps a handful staying at the training center in S jersey as well or maybe Aqueduct. I will do the best I can for the remaining years the game has at tracks that at least make some attempt to make racing the centerpiece. Hopefully we can get 20 more years out of it.