Tony-- I feel strongly both ways.

On Saturday we sat in the Ten Palms dining room, open for the first time that day, and once they get the kinks out (2 hours after ordering for the food to hit the table) it will be one of the best places anywhere to spend a day at the races. It's a very nice setup, with a great view-- much lower elevation than the one at Belmont, more like if a smaller dining room was set at the second floor of that facility. And the walls-- and bar area-- have lots of bigger than usual TVs with the simulcast tracks.

Most of the ractrack is devoted to a huge race book/simulcast facility, at ground level beneathneath the grandstand, and they did a great job with that as well.

Having said that:

1-- The new parimutuel ticket machines they use are friggin horrible, and the tellers hate them. They spit out the tickets laterally, but not hard enough to completely clear the machine, and what they slide onto is at the same height as where they come out-- they have no place to go, and absolutely have to jam. If you play a lot of $1 tickets, the teller has to keep reaching in to clear them and slide them over manually. Sure enough, late in the day I jammed one of them.

2-- The racetracks that are success stories today in terms of attendance, as opposed to off site handle (Del Mar and Saratoga), are ones that take advantage of nice weather and good racing, and the fans come in droves TO SIT OUTSIDE. Gulfstream has both the weather and the racing, and only 900 outside seats. It makes absolutely no sense. If you have a computer and a phone account, there is nothing you can do at the racebook you can't do at home.

3-- In the what-were-they-thinking category-- they have a very big screen set up on the front of the building, facing the parking lot. I guess they want to make sure you can sit in your car with your cell phone, watch the races, and bet through your rebate account.

I'm going down again this weekend for the Donn, I might have further thoughts next week.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/2006 01:11PM by TGJB.