WOW,

I've intentionally waited a couple of days to truly digest this latest round of enhancement before commenting.

In keeping with the spirit of a long range marketing plan to broaden racings fan base before the current crop of "us" end up in walkers or in a jar on the mantle, NYRA in all their infinite wisdom has discontinued the 30 plus year tradition of hosting an open house.

Brilliant:
Does anyone have a clue as to how many of those giveaway spinners and 6:00 AM waiting in line for a picnic table folks were first introduced to the Spa and racing at an open house? I would venture to say quite a few, it certainly would make an interesting marketing survey. Too bad our head enhancers are more concerned with revenue from hotel taxes.

I'll admit to never attending the freebie introduction day held the Sunday before opening day. As much as I love the Spa and its traditions I'm gambler interested in the bottom line and all the chaos that entails.

I'm old enough to remember my parents and other adults discussing in the late 60's and early 70's if Saratoga would remain viable? Yes before OTB's weekends at Aqueduct and Belmont drew in excess of 40,000 fans routinely while a Travers Day at the Spa was lucky to have 20,000 folks on hand. My first venture to the Spa for the 1973 Whitney to see the great Secretariat the first triple crown winner in 25 years saw a record crowd of 30,119 on track that day.

The evaluation of the Spa started with the 1978 Travers and the spectacular rivalry between Affirmed and Alydar which drew an unheard of crowd of 50,000 plus.
They were parking cars at the harness track and the old Spa was jammed packed. Through the 80's the atmosphere changed, I'm sure the marketing and introduction to the product was "enhanced" by the open house. You never saw baby carriages, little kids, families with coolers and groups in mass in the back yard before.
In the late 70's early 80's there was a gang of us early 20 somethings who hung at the top of the stretch; we brought our coolers, sandwiches etc... Other than Travers day I never recall anyone going early to reserve a table, we put 2 or 3 picnic tables together when we got there, weekdays we nearly had the area to ourselves.

The tidal wave of popularity grew and grew until what has become a party in the park for the non gambling fans who have built the attendance figures that clueless and company now have to cook the books to maintain as they ring the lemon dry to extract every drop of short sighted revenue that they can.

The discontinuing of the open house because it cost money is a tremendous mistake in the long term. The taking down of trees and other guest enhancements to the Old Spa; No comment because it certainly would not ENHANCE my normally shy persona on the T-graph board!!!

Frank D.