Breeders Crown Recap and a Big Raspberry

No sense to repeat what was already written so here is Standardbred Canada's recap of all the racing activity from last night.  As for my selections, a few winners (albeit too short in price), a couple of trifecta boxes and a superfecta box.  Not exactly my most shining performance.  Alas, there is always next year.

While Breeders Crown day was successful, the day before was not so good.  I needed to be somewhere on Saturday, so I wanted to play the races the day before via advance wagering (I was going to be out of state and NJAW doesn't allow NJ residents to use the system if out of state).  After all, Breeders Crown day is standardbred racing's day to shine so there must be advance wagering; after all, doesn't the thoroughbred's triple crown events and Breeders Cup have advance wagering?  The Hambletonian?  So I logged in on Friday to make my wagers...

To my surprise, NJAW and the Meadowlands didn't offer advance wagering on the Crown.  Well, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised as I e-mailed their customer service department on Monday to ask if there was going to be advance wagering and I got no response one way or the other (not very good customer service) so that should have been my first warning.  Here is harness racing's day to shine and NJAW, owned by the fine people who own the Meadowlands and Freehold didn't offer advance wagering on the biggest day of  harness racing in the North America?  Catskill OTB in New York was offering advance wagering so it could have been done (but who wants to pay the onerous 5%+ rake OTB takes out of winning bets).

How can we have harness tracks and ADWs not offering advance wagering on the Breeders Crown races; especially the harness tracks?  I am not saying handle would have increased by a million or so if there was advance wagering, but it is a real problem when harness tracks and ADWs don't offer advance wagering.  First of all, how much was it going to cost tracks and ADWs to offer advance wagering?  Tellers would be working anyway at racetracks, and how much does it cost to add advance wagering to the wagering menu at an ADW?  It is not like they had to bounce a lucrative video feed to offer advance wagering on Friday.

The second problem with not offering advance wagering is marketing.  When you offer advance wagering, you are telling gamblers, including thoroughbred players, "This is a big deal".  Maybe, you would have attracted some additional gamblers to cross breeds to play the Crown races in addition to getting wagering dollars from standardbred players who would not be able to play the races the day of the event.  It is not like adding a line to the wagering calendar these wagering outlets put out would have cost anything. 

While we are talking about marketing, a raspberry to NJAW.  On your home page, could you have mentioned the Breeders Crown?  Sent out an email telling your customers that you were offering wagering on the Breeders Crown?  You have no problem promoting the thoroughbred events, but you can't do this for one day of harness racing?  It would be one thing for a Twin Spires, owned by Churchill Downs to do this but for NJAW, owned by harness track operators not to do this is inexcusable.  By not publicizing this to your ADW  customers, you are telling them, the Breeders Crown is just another night of harness racing.

Hopefully, the Hambletonian Society, owner of the Breeders Crown, and the United States Trotting Association can 'strongly' encourage harness tracks and encourage ADWs to offer advance wagering on future Breeders Crowns.  There is no reason this should have happened this year.  It shouldn't happen next year.