In addition to all of those things...the real reason racing has declined is because the states and municipalities that govern every race track, raped those races tracks, the horse owners, and their bettors of return on investment, using racing as a cash cow to milk, tax, ..until the "udder runs dry". There is no national interest, no national rules on drugs, drug use, no uniformity in wagers, betting formats, take out, suspensions nothing. Nothing about racing is uniform anywhere. To each his own. I got mine, now you get yours if you can. Can't even get the only two TV channels devoted to racing cannot even agree to coexist

Throw all that into the mix, and now surface changes...racino's etc etc...The product is on a steady national decline and lacks any interest of the common man.

Barbaro was the closest thing racing had to National interest. Regardless of the reason why.

The only thing that can save the industry longterm, is an official league of racing so to speak, an NBA or NFL type of ruling body, but the states will never give up their little cash cows, but will have to if they all go bankrupt and sell the property the current reside on...(in real dollars, not tax positioning such as NYRA).

Poly is good in my opinion, but it's only a very very small piece of the problem. All those that wine about betting on it are not trying hard enough.

NC Tony



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/06/2007 11:57PM by NoCarolinaTony.