Gulfstream Numbers
Official Gulfstream attendance and handle numbers won’t be released until the meet ends on April 23, but track president Scott Savin told the Daily Racing Form both figures are looking good:
Attendance is up 365,000 people? That’s impressive. And implausible. For Gulfstream attendance to be up that much, the track would have to be attracting an average of 5,069 more people a day this year than they were in 2005, which they certainly weren’t doing in January and February, as Bill Finley wrote earlier this year:
As for March and April, Equibase numbers indicate that average daily attendance for those two months declined 25%, from 5,177 in 2005 to 4,157 in 2006. The one bright spot in that period is this year’s Florida Derby, which drew 11,990 people to the track. While the track wasn’t exactly packed, that number is an increase over last year’s attendance figure of 9,905.
If attendance is down, though, handle is up. Ontrack handle for last year’s Florida Derby was $1.7 million, this year’s exceeded $2.7 million. Average daily handle doesn’t seem to have increased as dramatically, but it’s up as well, and Gulfstream (again, based on the Equibase numbers) seems likely to report increased ontrack handle of approximately 15% for the meet.
So, more money from fewer people. I guess that’s one vision for the future of racing.
4/26/06 Addendum: I wasn’t too far off on the ontrack handle estimate: “Gulfstream Park … reported double-digit gains in average daily on-track handle. Wagering on Gulfstream races rose 18 percent while on-track handle was up 13 percent compared to 2005.”
