Another example of the state of racing

[Linny]

DRF's Steven Crist wrote in Sunday's paper about the BC deceision re:2009 at Santa Anita and uses it to touch on several issues in racing. Well here's my bitch.

For as long as Churchill has offered this Future Pool Wager the SoCal tracks have, every year decided to run a significant 3yo race AFTER the close of betting. There was no reason to run the San Vicente (G2) at 7:13 eastern time, 1 hour and 13 minutes after the Future Pool 1 closed.
The Churchill folks have not always chosen the best weeks to hold the wager. One year Pool 3 was on Easter (or Palm Sunday) weekend when NY is dark on Sunday. They have tried to tweak it to generate interest and hanle. I am not convinced that pari-mutual futures are ideal and agree that there should be betting on at least all nominees, but why can't one of the biggest racing venues in the country, the first ever host of consecutive Breeders' Cups, get on board and help the player out?

[blackthroatedwind]

It's sort of worse, right, in that Magna and Churchill are in cahoots....and they still pull a stunt like this.

Why does the pool have to close at 6PM, or whenever, anyway? With so much wagering available on-line, certainly they could stay open until 8pm, if not midnight.

But, frankly, this pales in comparison to their insistance on not allowing more than 25 betting interests ( tote problems my ass ). They are desperately stuck in the dark ages.....like most of this game.