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Originally Posted by Cannon Shell
I think it would be great but there is no way we could come close to doing what HK does. First of all the scope of racing here makes it impossible to even do it at one track, let alone across the board. We simply dont have the money and the structure of racing is not suited to their rules. All the vets there work for the Jockey Club and the penalities are far more severe, including jail time for intentional violations. That is a far greater deterient than cameras. The problem I have with the cameras is who exactly will be watching all the film? Plus identifing the horses on tape will be close to impossible. I honestly dont think there are tons of bettors sitting on the sidelines waiting for stricter rules.
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I think there are a ton of bettors who have walked away from the sport due to their belief that the trainers with the best vets and the best drugs are winning all the races. They see some of the so-called "super trainers" moving horses up 5-10 lengths overnight off a claim. I hear people complain about this all the time. Some of these fans will still come out once in a while and bet small, but they don't take it seriously any more. Some fans have given up racing entirely because of the integrity issue.
I don't see why they couldn't implement a system similar to Hong Kong at the major US tracks. If they had to cut the purses by 5% to pay for it, then so be it.
I heard that in Asia, every horse can be identified when training in the morning. Each horse has his own unique identification number on his saddle cloth and the trainer's name is also on the saddle cloth. I think they should do that here.