Railbird 2004–2019

Archive for 2007

The Quiet Season

The Thanksgiving weekend stakes flurry over, racing enters its annual quiet season and I’m taking the chance to catch up on some reading, refresh my handicapping, and pursue a couple of other little projects. Things will be quiet around Railbird until Santa Anita opens, Aqueduct returns on New Year’s Day, and the first stirrings of Derby fever arrive with Gulfstream racing. Happy holidays, everyone …

Posted in Miscellany on November 25, 2007

Saturday Odds and Ends

– You know it’s a slow season when Bill Finley handicaps with psychics after dreaming of Argentina: “For just $10, I was able to chat with a CaliforniaPsychics.com psychic named LeBaron. Nice fella. Seemed to know his stuff” (ESPN).
– Matt Hegarty explains NYC OTB finances (DRF).
– After a year off due to injury, troubled jockey Pat Valenzeula returned to riding in New Mexico last week. This weekend, P Val heads to Hollywood (LA Daily News).
– Speaking of comebacks, undefeated Withers winner Divine Park, out with an injury since May, is being pointed to the December 26 Malibu at Santa Anita (Blood-Horse).

Posted in Aqueduct on November 17, 2007

Moneytrack

I just finished reading “Moneyball,” by Michael Lewis, the surprisingly engrossing story of how the Oakland A’s used statistical data to build a winning team. Like a lot of other racing fans, I have an overlapping interest in baseball stats, and I find it fascinating to follow another sport also afflicted with a sclerotic power structure, dominated by people who believe they know everything about their fans and how to put on the show or market their data. The result, a collective failure of imagination leading to a management culture more interested in brand caretaking than innovation, opens up intriguing little niches, exploitable market inefficiencies. In the late-1990s in baseball, the inefficiency was in statistical analysis; in the mid-2000s in racing, the inefficiency is in technology, which no one has quite figured out yet.

What the industry also hasn’t figured out is the benefit of making charts and statistics widely, easily, and freely available. Baseball has been pushed along by the growth of fantasy games, as well as the game’s stats nerds, and the obsessive and intelligent analysis of baseball data in both pursuits can be credited with — I think it’s fair to argue — keeping the sport in the mainstream even during during dark days such as the 1994 strike and the ongoing steroids scandal. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to conclude that racing could be similarly buoyed if it removed the hassle of finding any information at all about races run more than a week ago.

Related: Over on Handride, Patrick picks up on the news that Intel is producing chips that will substantially improve online video quality, sees a glorious opportunity for the industry.

Posted in Racing & Technology on November 15, 2007

That’s Not Pigeon Shit

You’ll see in this mendacious ad produced for Capital Play, one of the New York racing franchise bidders and the group that pushed the story of the $1.6 billion IRS claims against NYRA. It’s Capital Play’s lobbying strategy:

I’m not such a naïf to be shocked that an organization bidding for a franchise worth billions would wallow in muck, but I am appalled that one would be so desperate it would throw away all credibility by resorting to such brazen untruths and hoary clichés its advertising is almost a parody of a smear campaign.
[Hat tip to Bennett Liebman’s Racing and Gaming Today.]
More: The Thoroughbred Times reports on the 30-second spot and where it’s airing around the state, mentions that a franchise announcement could come before Thanksgiving.

Posted in NY Racing Issues on November 14, 2007

Suffolk Closes Up

Good news from a resurgent Suffolk Downs: The track closed out its 100-day meet on Saturday, the first under owner Richard Fields, reporting big gains for the first time in several years. Average daily attendance was up 22 percent, on-track handle up 14 percent. “By every standard, it’s been a spectacular year for Suffolk Downs,” said Fields (Boston Herald). One of the meet’s high points was the MassCap, brought back after two-year hiatus and won by Brass Hat in front of a cheering crowd of more than 19,000. Meet titles went to perennial leading trainer John Rigattieri and rider Tammi Piermarini, who won the first Suffolk riding title of her career, although she’s often been near the top of the jockey standings in her 20 years riding at the track.

At Aqueduct: Todd Pletcher’s Big A mini-slump ended Sunday when 1-2 favorite Spanky Fischbein caught Piquante Cat in the final yards of the New York Stallion Great White Way, winning by half a length. The trainer had been 0-for-15 at the meet.

Posted in Suffolk Downs on November 12, 2007