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I seriously don't understand why some of you assholes are even on here. It obvious you don't give 2 fucks about harness racing. Every post you make is negative against the sport. Take your negative comments & crawl back in your hole. Worthless fucks are what you are. You are part of the problem in harness racing. If you dislike harness racing so why even pay attention to what's going? WTF
There is enough blame for everyone. The truth is, there is not enough public interest in harness racing ina competitive environment to support it as an entity. Please don't tell me about all the gypsies and thieves. Racing has always had these characters. In the 1970's, racing had numerous scandals, investigations and arrests. And not low level participants. Some of the biggest names like, Herve. There were owners and race fixers that went to prison. There were riots at the racetrack. There were bookmakers and shylarks everywhere. Though all that, the industry survived and thrived. Why? Because it was the only legal gambling game in town. Now that people have choices with their gambling dollar, racing has shrunk every day. Very few people care about harness racing. If Roosevelt Raceway was dog track, there would have been 50,000 in attendance for the International Bow Wow. Gambling and night racing is what put harness racing on the map. Please don't tell me, ..." if they would advertise and market..." All throughout the 1990's, when racing was loosing patrons everyday to other forms of gambling, All the major tracks ran TV commercials, newspaper ads, radio, bus and subway advertising radio... It di very little to attract new patrons. Today, you would probably spend 100x or more on customer acquisition then, it would return . So yea, horsemen contributed to the down fall , States withdrew funding when the parimutuel became almost nothing, resulting in unpoliced and corrupt judges. But there was the same level of incompetence thievery 50 years ago. The greatest difference is, we had no choice. Today we have choices and people are not choosing racing.For more proof, look at Scioto Downs. When they were the only harness track operating and competing with C level t-bred tracks they handled 4-5x their average handle. But, once the people had choices, they chose other tracks. And, for the sake of purse accounts, I hope casinos come back strong but, what will that do to erode the harness fan base? Blaming one group will do nothing more than erode the entire group. An entirely new mission statement and business plan is needed.