As the past week went on and a cluster of tracks bickered with Churchill Downs while it blacked out a significant chunk of the North American simulcast menu, it would have been easy for the horse racing fan to raise his voice and express the familiar complaint about how racetracks treat their customers worse than any other sport does.
And how wrong that would have been. The simulcast blackout imposed by Churchill at Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie and about a dozen other tracks reaffirms that horse racing is of age in today's sports. And boy, doesn't that make you feel good?
Labor unrest might come to hockey next year, which could lead to the second work stoppage for that sport since 1994. Baseball, since canceling the World Series in 1994 because of a work stoppage, appears to have its house passably in order for the time being. Sadly, it's taken the coming drug-testing procedure and a constant steroid controversy to prove it.
My, it is great company horse racing keeps these days. And it will not change.
Churchill and Magna Entertainment Corp. are still seeking to acquire racetracks, even after the tit-for-tat rate they were adding tracks to their corporate portfolios slowed. They acquired more tracks to justify taking their stock to the major exchanges, where traders only are interested if revenues grow. And racing's two giant corporations get revenue from blocks of simulcast product and the ability to set the price that other tracks will pay.
That's why the Southern Racing Cooperative was created a little more than three years ago. Taking the lead from a group of tracks that banded together in the Mid-Atlantic, a number of independently owned tracks banded together to bargain against what they regarded as unfair simulcast pricing.
It was a good move, put together by Steve Sexton, then-general manager at the then-independently owned Lone Star. Those kinds of moves made Sexton attractive enough for Churchill to eventually hire as its chief executive. The next guy who comes up with a good idea for the little guys could get his chance to climb the corporate ladder.
That's business. That's horse racing, and Lone Star is just a part of it.
Even though the blackout ended when Lone Star opted out of the bargaining group, the door is open for more blackouts someday. The stated reason Lone Star pulled out was "a conflict of interest could arise in future contract negotiations between the [Churchill] group and [Lone Star's] ownership, Magna Entertainment."
The gambler has to look out for himself. And some of the ones at Lone Star had bet into a Pick 6 at Hollywood Park one day only to come back the next time to see a black screen when there was a carryover of more than $90,000.
That's enough to make someone go back home and open an Internet betting account. That's illegal in this state, but that doesn't stop everyone from doing it.
If a gambler doesn't already keep his receipts, he should now, and show them to track operators the next time he gets locked out of a Pick 6 he helped build. He has to cover his own backside, the place where horse racing hopes he keeps reaching to grab his billfold.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/horse_racing/7317249.htm
And how wrong that would have been. The simulcast blackout imposed by Churchill at Lone Star Park at Grand Prairie and about a dozen other tracks reaffirms that horse racing is of age in today's sports. And boy, doesn't that make you feel good?
Labor unrest might come to hockey next year, which could lead to the second work stoppage for that sport since 1994. Baseball, since canceling the World Series in 1994 because of a work stoppage, appears to have its house passably in order for the time being. Sadly, it's taken the coming drug-testing procedure and a constant steroid controversy to prove it.
My, it is great company horse racing keeps these days. And it will not change.
Churchill and Magna Entertainment Corp. are still seeking to acquire racetracks, even after the tit-for-tat rate they were adding tracks to their corporate portfolios slowed. They acquired more tracks to justify taking their stock to the major exchanges, where traders only are interested if revenues grow. And racing's two giant corporations get revenue from blocks of simulcast product and the ability to set the price that other tracks will pay.
That's why the Southern Racing Cooperative was created a little more than three years ago. Taking the lead from a group of tracks that banded together in the Mid-Atlantic, a number of independently owned tracks banded together to bargain against what they regarded as unfair simulcast pricing.
It was a good move, put together by Steve Sexton, then-general manager at the then-independently owned Lone Star. Those kinds of moves made Sexton attractive enough for Churchill to eventually hire as its chief executive. The next guy who comes up with a good idea for the little guys could get his chance to climb the corporate ladder.
That's business. That's horse racing, and Lone Star is just a part of it.
Even though the blackout ended when Lone Star opted out of the bargaining group, the door is open for more blackouts someday. The stated reason Lone Star pulled out was "a conflict of interest could arise in future contract negotiations between the [Churchill] group and [Lone Star's] ownership, Magna Entertainment."
The gambler has to look out for himself. And some of the ones at Lone Star had bet into a Pick 6 at Hollywood Park one day only to come back the next time to see a black screen when there was a carryover of more than $90,000.
That's enough to make someone go back home and open an Internet betting account. That's illegal in this state, but that doesn't stop everyone from doing it.
If a gambler doesn't already keep his receipts, he should now, and show them to track operators the next time he gets locked out of a Pick 6 he helped build. He has to cover his own backside, the place where horse racing hopes he keeps reaching to grab his billfold.
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/sports/horse_racing/7317249.htm
