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Originally Posted by phystech
It wasn't too long ago that most of us owning horses in Maryland said the exact same thing when we heard Magna was buying out Joe.
"Geez, no one can screw things up worse than Joe has." Well, we were wrong.
IMO, it's is going to take a true lover of horse racing and a person with real deep pockets to get involved. If their goal is to make their money by using racing as a tool to get slots, then we'll remain in big trouble.
If, and that's a big if, slots in MD ever get up and running, a racetrack owner who knows how to run the business can prosper from racing in MD. Slots revenue will help the purses. Grants from slots revenue will be in place to help fund facility renewals.
It is also going to take some willingness on behalf of the horsemen to work with the track owner on developing a new business plan so that we all can prosper.
So, you are smack dead on that the pieces of the puzzle are sitting there and it is going to take a smart and focused individual or group to put those pieces together. It can work!!
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I hope it does work. I usually am down there for a week or so a year and always a make a point to get over to whatever track is open. I was at Pimlico last May (post Preakness) and it's tough to see how far back PIM has slid back and how the overall attitude on track was pretty depressed.
Personally, I had a decent day at the windows, spent the afternoon out on the apron boxes drinking cold ones, but you could tell the overall attitude was damp across the board. Hard to blame folks.