Free Programs - The Runners Are Also Clueless

Just some observations based on yesterday's Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park as it relates to the lack of making your product more accessible. Obviously the people in the t-bred industry can be just as clueless as we.

I am a person who plays the runners about three times a year (actually three races called the the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont), so I don't go buy past performance programs for the runners; I use the free past performance programs provided specifically for the triple crown races. Being I heard all the hype of Rachel Alexandra, I decided to see if I could get a copy of the past performances for the Haskell Invitational to make a wager; not a totally unreasonable expectation being Monmouth Park is owned by the NJSEA which provides free programs for the big races days at the Meadowlands.

I was wrong. Monmouth Park website? Nope, not there. Check Equibase, they offer past performances for one feature race a week. I guess it was not that big a race as it was not available there. Checking all the sites I could, think of and searching the Internet, I could not find the past performances for the Haskell. Well, being someone that doesn't make a wager without a program, I decided to skip the race.

The bottom line is even the runners don't have the common sense to offer free programs to those that want to wager on their product. As I have mentioned before, offer a no frills past performance program on the Internet and for those that want more information, make a more sophisticated program available for purchase. Free past performances should be offered for all racing cards but to not make a program available on your biggest day (after all, you just added $250,000 to your million dollar race to attract Rachel Alexandra) is plain stupidity. Forget about my wager on the Haskell, what about those simulcast players over the Internet who play their favorite racetracks who may have been enticed by the quality card at Monmouth Park if they saw a program? A perfect opportunity to stimulate wagering on their card (and to introduce horseplayers to their product) was lost.

With all the wagering opportunities available you would think racetracks would try to make their product more enticing to wager on as possible. Offering free programs is a great way to do so. One day, the racetracks (runners and others) will realize it.

Back to our beloved standardbreds. It's Hambo Week!