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Monday, May 10, 2010

Monday Quick Notes

Rob Whitely of Liberation Farm has a plan. He wrote it up on Paulick. It's a decent read.

A funny: NYRA has been doing a decent job with bettors of late (although we at HANA wish they would make the updates to the Equibase scratches page a daily fixture) through some of Dan Silver's work. However, with trainers there seems to be a bit of a flummox. From Jay Hovdey's blog:

If there needs to be one, the alternative to the Vanity is the $250,000 Odgen Phipps Handicap at Belmont Park on June 12 at a mile and one-sixteenth. It would be great if Zenyatta were nominated to both events, if only to watch the racing secretaries agonize over the weight she would carry. To his credit, Shirreffs at least tested the waters.

"I called the racing office back there to ask about stalls," said the trainer of the unbeaten, two-time champion and Breeders' Cup Classic winner. And what was the reaction? They'd send a limo, arrange a jet, suite at the Garden City, box at Yankee Stadium?

"I was told the application was available on-line," Shirreffs replied.

At least that's nice to know.


Speaking of Zenyatta, she is promoting baseball now. h/t to the Paulick Report.



A look at the difference between Betfair and NA racing from a HANA member here. A couple of good comments.

Lastly, there has been plenty of talk about getting younger folks out to the track. We have a few younger members here at HANA, but they are more bettors than fans I guess - hooked on the puzzle of handicapping a fair amount. Some racing ads tailored to the younger set try to be cool, but they end up being anything but. This one, however, made some of us laugh. It was pretty well done. What do you think?



h/t to VFTRG.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is not funny. It is an actual promotion! Look in the background. It is Harrah's Chester infield tote board. This is what happens when a gaming company takes over racing! They dont have a clue!

A Harrah's senior manager told me recently..."why are we even bothering with racing. With racing we have to work twice as hard and in the end we hold 3-4 % after paying the horsemen, the breeders, the unions and everyone else. With slots we hold over 90 % and dont even have to market seriously to fill the place.

That thought process creates a mentality!

I know it was meant to be humerous but we on the inside are looking at it a bit differently!

EZbreeze said...

Nope, not funny. Violence, people getting hurt. Not funny.