[barb craven]

There has been a great deal of chatter lately about the
trailing off of players due to various reasons. At the moment,
payout at some tracks is the hot topic.

I want to talk for a moment about attracting new people to the
enjoyment of the game.

For the past year and a bit I have belonged to a social group
on line who can discuss any thing that interests them. One
person in Toronto started a new site called ‘And They're Off’
and posted some pictures of some of our better tracks and some videos
of some interesting races. It piqued my interest, and I joined that group.
It turned out that he was fascinated by horse racing, but knew absolutely
nothing about it, and was afraid to go and see by himself. For a while we
were the only two in the group. We talked for a bit and I told him some of
the things I was doing, and how I came to be handicapping
Woodbine using RDSS. He started asking me a lot of questions, which to my surprise,
I found I could answer.

Before long other people were joining the group and all had a love
of horses or wanted to know more about the sport in general.

We arranged to all meet up at Woodbine last fall and even Ted
came along. He and I brought our computers and spent most of
the time answering questions, although we did go down to watch
the horses in the paddock a couple of times and outside to watch
the races themselves. The group was enthralled. No one bet tht day
except Ted and myself.

Since then we meet every couple of months at Woodbine.
Others have been attracted to come and now several of them
have enough confidence to start doing some betting. One in
particular cleaned up when we met last month.

There is another site that a lot of us belong to and a racing
forum has been started over there in the last two months.
That one has attracted a constant Standard Bred bettor and a
former jockey who comes from a family of jockeys, who still
breeds horses here in Ontario.

Next weekend the two groups are coming together to meet at
Woodbine on the Sunday as there are three Stakes races. I
expect that there won’t be one person who doesn’t put down a
few dollars.

Up until now, I have been the resident guru so-to-speak. Me
with my limited knowledge. With the advent of more
knowledgeable members, the group as a whole is starting to
branch out to other tracks and keep an eye out for some of the
more important races and post replays. The members that can’t come
to a particular meet want a detailed account of
verything that went on upon our return.

I will be visiting my sister next week and she is insisting
that we go from her place to Woodbine so she too can see for
herself what this is all about.

I think, imho, that small grassroot things like this can keep
the interest in the sport alive in today’s atmosphere.