Greetings from New Orleans

[Mitch44]

Mick:
Thanks for the compliant but we all have our moments E.g. yesterday I had $7 on a horse at GP that paid $75 to win. Had one of those $1 EX with the top 2 low odds horses and they came in 3rd & 4th. Just couldn't see the place horse at all in the race.


One of those Bradshaw EX.'s ha ha ha Played nothing but longshots & 25 races at FG and GP,trying to hone that skill for 2019. 25 races isn't a recipe for success but its a recipe for what works and what doesn't or a learning curve. A fun day that ended up -$15. Objective is to get ready for contests in 2019. The Monkey will have to be at his best then,he's training up to it.


Take what the racings Gods give us Mick as Bradshaw would say.


Mitch44

[mick]

I'm back home in Nashville (after putting more than a thousand miles on my wife's new car) and I've had time to think about my New Orleans experience. That city has always been its own strange self but the Fair Grounds Race Course is an example of what thoroughbred racing has become in recent years with casinos and especially slots.

It's a fine facility. Churchill Downs, Inc. has put a lot of money into it. The grandstands, the dining room, the paddock area, other physical structures, even the tractors and equipment they were using to prepare the track, all completely renovated or new. It's impressive. What's jarring, however, are the slots.

The main entrance takes you into the casino, a big, dark space filled with those things (more than 600, I looked it up) and their noise and lights. And of course, there were the patrons, hundreds of them, feeding money into them. But that's not all.

In addition, CDI, d/b/a Fair Grounds OTB and Casinos, has twelve other locations throughout New Orleans and Louisiana with over 800 video poker machines and other amusements. No wonder CDI wanted to be in Louisiana.

As a long-time horseplayer, I appreciate a well operated and maintained track. And most of my recent trips have been to places like Keeneland and Saratoga that don't have casinos/slots. (Oaklawn Park has a casino but you don't go through it to get to the track.) So this was a heavy dose of today's racing reality. I've known about it in the abstract but at the Fair Grounds, it hits you right in the face.

What do I think about it? Of course, as a horseplayer, I would prefer that all that slot machine money was in the betting pools, but that isn't going to happen. Fortunately, I enjoy the spectacle of racing and don't require constant betting action. And years ago, thankfully, I realized I wasn't good enough at the game to give up my day job. So, I just have to deal with it and fondly remember the good old days when the pools were full of "uninformed money" and 9-2 winners jumped off the page for me.

Will slots kill racing? Probably not. Certainly not in my lifetime. The racing lobby is rich and powerful and racing itself employs too many people. State legislatures won't let that happen. Still, there's no arguing that slots have changed our game.

[Brian Chamberlain]

Mick, I hope you're right. Horse racing is not attracting enough younger bettors and has fallen far since the times of "Guys and Dolls" when tracks were a huge draw. I plan to visit Fair Grounds in late April, thanks for the report.

Brian

[Mitch44]

WOW Mick she trusted you with that new car? ha ha ha

Over 12 other locations is impressive and more than any I've heard about for others.

Having to go through the casino coming and going is designed to get you coming and going. How many never make it to the track or lose their track winnings on the way out?

Casino's whether liked or disliked are now the backbone of many tracks who would have closed long ago without them.

It's about discipline and money management, key ingredients in the recipe or leave broke.

Mick after your excursion you'll always be there again when making a bet on the FG, cherish the experience.

Mitch44