Paulick Report: The death of horse racing has been greatly exaggerated

A great piece over at the Paulick Report this morning discussing the state of the sport of horse racing in this country.

My feeling for the past couple of years has been that the core of the sport is actually in better shape than most would believe. There are problems within the game that need fixing, that can't be denied. At the same time, there are a lot of positives that the industry can build on if they could only take the time to recognize them.

over 1 year ago Matt Gardner 2 comments 0 recs |

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

That is postive thinking

….and I hope he’s right. But I know from my expereice that attendance is way down at Hollywood Park since I moved to LA in 2001. Some years are worse than others, but it seems like every time I go they’ve shuttered off another portion of the place.

Santa Anita is better in that regard, but I’ve even been there before and wondered where the hell everyone was.

by LAEagle on Jul 29, 2010 12:53 AM EDT reply actions

It's the double edged sword...

attendance is down everywhere, and because the way that horse racing is set up in terms of pari-mutuel take, on-track betting is everything. But when you look at the big picture, total handle, horse racing isn’t on a death spiral. The major problem is a track like Hollywood takes 15% take on win bets made On-track, but only something like 3% for 5% when it’s off-track….with the shift in betting from on-track to off-track, the economic structure is killing tracks right now. New York si a perfect example of this. NY has huge daily handles but the industry is in shambles because they aren’t getting enough of a cut from the out of state betting.

"A bad day at the track is better than a good day at the office."

by Matt Gardner on Jul 29, 2010 1:57 AM EDT up reply actions

Network Bar

And Down The Stretch They Come -

Losing photo finishes since... forever.