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I have watched a fair amount of American racing and in my opinion in terms of integrity its no better or worse then European racing.Short priced favourites will get beaten in controversial cirumstances that is the nature of the beast -I’m fairly sure I’ve seen it happen in Europe.
Condemning American racing because of Suffolk Downs is like condemning English racing because of Wolverhampton.
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American Racing is dire, from the media coverage to the outrageously annoying commentators – I just can’t stand it.
Love it, honest pace, super data. Great betting product, providing you avoid their tote obviously.
American racing is no more crooked than british racing in fact i would say it is probably less so due to the prize money and inability to rape ppl on a exchange like betfair and the bullshit that ppl come off with on here just highlights in my opinion the assholes who think there product is better cause its british unable to realise that it is being drove into the ground through greed and corruption and the ppl who perpretate it get a slap on the wrists and welcomed back with open arms
I’d imagine that if you love your betting, then there’s nothing wrong with American racing as it’s all the bloody same. Eight horses spring out of the stalls, and finish in some sort of line two minutes later. Job done. Could be run at any track and have no spectators for all we viewers know.
But for anyone who watches racing for the spectacle, it offers nothing: the people factor (ecstatic trainers and owners etc.), following our favourite horses year after year, the thrill of the race: will so-and-so go in the stalls? Come out of the stalls? Decide to swerve and make for the stables in the final furliong? Fall at the last? Duck out the side of a fence? Take the wrong course? POwer up the hill to take the front runner on the line?
YOu can keep American racing.
There seems to be a train of thought that because a number of odds-on shots get beat that it’s bent.
The only thing the above proves is that the bettor’s judgement was wrong (as opposed to the UK where you could argue that lots of odds-on shots being beaten might indicate that it’s bent). They have a Tote monopoly, in order to gain financially from an odds-on loser you have to be on the winner – to the extent that the winning horse will be very short in most cases (given the strength of the pools at tracks like Indiana Downs, Arapahoe, Turf Paradise etc).
I have a number of good friends working in US racing – including trainers, work riders, hot walkers, journalists etc. and can tell you now that the vast majority of it is at least 5 times straighter than racing in the UK and Ireland.
Could be run at any track and have no spectators for all we viewers know.
Not really scientific but the few occasions I have been racing over the water I would tend to think you are not far wrong.
Think Wolves or Kempton on a dank winters afternoon and you will get an idea what it is like in terms of atmosphere.
Even more depressing is those who do go tend to watch the racing indoors on the big screens. Last time I was at Woodbine there could have been no more than half a dozen of us outside watching the racing live – it was quite surreal watching a race in near silence.
Del Mar set an attendance record in their first week of around 42,000 racegoers. Saratoga was so popular they’re extending the meeting next year by a fortnight. Keeneland on a Saturday is the place to be for everyone in Lexington. Allegedly embattled Churchill Downs had to turn racegoers away for their first ever floodlit meet in July after
too many
turned up!
$16 billion was bet on US racing in 2008/09. That kind of action doesn’t occur if something is a bit boring.
Burrough Hill, you can’t use those rather two dimensional ATR TV shots as a guide to the sport. Connections celebrate as wildly as we do. As for the alleged frigidity of US racefans, I once went to Laurel Park once with four local fanatics. As well as cheering home every winner like berserkers whilst getting seriously trolleyed, we went to a local rock bar after the nightcap and got p****d listening to Motorhead and Sabbath. Never had that happen at the sandpit. Cheltenham, yes, but the original poster mentioned Suffolk in Massachussetts.
Pimlico was packed when I was there, as was Charles Town and Sam Houston (admittedly, an Eagles tribute act inflated the attendance that evening).
Fair enough, the Americans don’t have the racecourse topographical variety, but from a punting point of view is that something to be proud of? I mean the guy who lost twenty grand on an in-running punt at Towcester, when the front runner he lumped on tired dramatically on that criminally stupid uphill final furlong is hardly singing the praises of English diversity is he?
Add nutty watering policies from the likes of that nonk up at Haydock and you’ve got Wacky Races by comparison to the States, puntingwise.
And while I’m at it, in my experience, American racegoers are a lot less, er, up themselves too. Some of the feudal, motte-and-bailey finishing school antics I’ve seen on British racecourses get right up my nose and, I would suspect, are part of the reason young people are turning away from the sport here by the youthclub load. I mean, races run to Rachmaninov at Kempton? Why not
Slipknot?
(I’m only half kidding…
)Not really interested in the day to day racing, but ever since the Sunday Silence/Easy Goer races [sorry, I sound like a worn record the way I go on about them but please, anyone who hasn’t seen them check them out on utube] I love the big events. And for anyone interested in reading about American racing check out Jane Smiley books.
Great post from Max. I’d also recommend checking out http://www.nationalsteeplechase.com if you want a taste of jumping statesside.
In particular watch the video link to National Day to see a variety of races from a couple of meetings – certainly disproves the identikit racecourse concept.
Regarding the crowds, it depends where you go and when.
Simply, there is too much pressure from work for most people to go racing midweek (even in the evening) as many clerical/bluecollar jobs here start at 7.30AM or even earlier and kids have far longer lasting after school activities than kids do in the UK. It is a different culture. So midweek racing even at big tracks is quiet.
Weekend racing at the tracks I have worked at has always been popular. True at most tracks attendance is not what it was. But families are coming out more and more because it is inexpensive. However, we need to move them on from just playing $2 show wagers all day!
The point about Commentators is also unfair. Larry Collmus and John G Dooley are every bit as good as anyone in the UK. However, I think the best two announcers here are Australian, Peter Berry and Robert Geller. Not to take anything away from Mark Johnson, (whose skills I greatly admire) but I think any of those four would have been a better pick for CD. There is also some good rising talent who have been exposed to other styles of racecalling coming along.
The problem here is there are so many mediocre and bad commentators and it is difficult to make tracks realize the value of a good racecaller. Some of us are trying to change that (people seem to have liked my calls this year, by and large) but without a central agency like Racetech in the USA, it is difficult to raise the level across the board and kick out the many incompetent, dull and often uninformative racecallers that litter the USA.
Rant over!!!
Craig
Like Craig says it’s a different culture over there. Take the example of my friend in Indiana. She has a training license, a few stalls on the backstretch and is sending out the odd winner every now and then and is only 19. Would that be allowed to happen over here with all the costs of setting up etc?
If you know what you’re doing in the US you’ll go far – better than the current culture we have.
Too many British folk pay attention to what the Americans do. If there was a cup of piss with a American tumbler half this country would drink it before a pint of fine British ale.
Britain has it all mates. Godolphin know it and so do i. Why do you think all their good stuff is based over here and not in America ?
We have hurdles, jumps, sprints, cross country, miles …the lot of it. Every course different. and trainers can travel up and down the country without having to get on an aeroplane.
I’m not bashing the yanks but Britain has the best horse racing in the world. From motorway fast guineas, the splendour of Ascot and the fog descending on Kempton as a gang of jockeys go hell for leather during those crisp autumns.
People who bum up American racing and talk down British racing are the same bleeders who prefer Frasier to Steptoe and Son.
The only thing that annoys me about British racing is losing a bet, be it ante post or otherwise.
Different culture is putting it mildly. I had the good fortune to meet a New York based racing fanatic who came over for a Cheltenham meeting and attended a preview where I was on the panel. We subsequently kept in touch and he arranged several subsequent racing trips to the UK in company with three friends, who included a trainer based at Acqueduct.
Over the years, I’ve spent an afternoon with them at Exeter, Salisbury and Wincanton. And on all three occasions, despite having flown the Atlantic, rented a flat in London for a week and travelled to the races by train, they spent the entire time in the racecourse restaurant, watched the races on TV and bet on the Tote.
I tried and tried to get them down to the paddock, to stand by the last fence, to go to the winners enclosure, the have a bet in the ring – hopeless. They were immovable. Totally mad in my view, but immovable all the same.
Americans eh …….. (is there a shaking head in disbelief picture I can put in here?)
AP
Guys, I thought this thread was about American Racing not Americans themselves.
I know a lot of Americans who love to go racing in the UK and watch the races, bet with the bookies and so on.
The culture I was referring too was the fact many Americans have less leisure time than Europeans, that is all.
Craig
Britain has it all mates. Godolphin know it and so do i.
Why do you think all their good stuff is based over here and not in America ?
All their good stuff??? I believe the British stable of 190+ has nine Group I winners compared to the US stable of twenty-one horses’ eight Grade I winners. Take out all their US stats for the past two years, and Godolphin sucks big time. The US stable is what has been keeping the boat from hitting the iceberg, and I say that as a Godolphin fan.
As for American racing, I’ve heard quite a few American fans say that they’d rather watch grass grow than Euro racing.
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