Freehold was a planned failure

[slimjones]

Penn gaming wanted freehold to fail.  The property is worth much more as real estate than it is as a track.  Why else would you keep a dinosaur race secretary that hates her job and didn’t do one thing to promote racing or make anyone want to race there.  They haven’t put $1 into the track in years. it’s got history but it’s an embarrassment to the sport. Penn is evil and will do it to more tracks next. 

[Sunmoon 1219]

Closing up 4 more race cards the heritage group is there taking inventory for the upcoming auction .

[KING HAKU]

Penn gaming wanted freehold to fail.  The property is worth much more as real estate than it is as a track.  Why else would you keep a dinosaur race secretary that hates her job and didn’t do one thing to promote racing or make anyone want to race there.  They haven’t put $1 into the track in years. it’s got history but it’s an embarrassment to the sport. Penn is evil and will do it to more tracks next.

Fuck off...Karen has done a great job!

[Sunmoon 1219]

Is Karen that older redhead that Howard introduced us to on our visit . She must have looked good like the track back in the day .

[2beblunt]

Karen, she good people

[seen2much]

It is hard to believe that the people running could be so incompetent. There is no doubt that Freehold was set up for failure...in my opinion.

[bello]

Of course it was orchestrated. Remember Roosevelt Raceway? The owners turned a beautiful track into a shithole.

That last year they left garbage strewn all over the parking lot to the point it smelled like a garbage dump.

Not Karens fault. If public, see what Howard Bruno's golden parachute is. Let the place go to shit for obvious reasons. And the dumbass horsemen just let it happen.

[Grandstand Handicapper]

A 25 year plan to fail? Come on, they could have forced failure a long time ago. Penwood wanted a presence in NJ and that's what they bought. They wanted more content to distribute/another outlet for their content, and they hoped they would be in line for whatever may come to NJ. After a period of time when they saw no benefit, they stopped trying to succeed and let the track die a natural death. The sports betting however was their hopes for a starting point and food in the door. I have to admit, I am surprised they didn't try harder with that line of business, but the horse racing line of business was so poor that it couldn't even be a loss-leader type. In the end it wasn't worth it to keep the racing going. This may have been intentional, but not for 25 years.

[bello]

Who said 25 years. And what you just described is a plan to fail. Come on man...Sports betting. They opened one window to bet sports. Yeah right. Nice plan for success.

[BigMFan]

Freehold was a dump 30 years ago and nothing has been updated since then.  The horses suck.  Howard Bruno collects a check and has done absolutely nothing to at least make it a little better.  Clown should have been fired after the unfortunate starting gate incident 10 years prior.  Better off closing the place down at this point.

[OldRockman]

Penn gaming wanted freehold to fail.  The property is worth much more as real estate than it is as a track.  Why else would you keep a dinosaur race secretary that hates her job and didn’t do one thing to promote racing or make anyone want to race there.  They haven’t put $1 into the track in years. it’s got history but it’s an embarrassment to the sport. Penn is evil and will do it to more tracks next.

You're right about the Penn Gaming part but putting any blame for this on Karen, the race secretary just shows your ignorance. She has done a fantastic job with what shes had to work with and deserves praise, certainly not derogatory remarks from ignorant asswipes that want to blsme the race secretary for failure.

[dougie]

OldRockman, you are so correct. Karen did the best that she could as the deck was stacked against her. I think all of us agree that Penn Gaming saw a chance to dump this historic track and make a "big score". Just what Freehold and Route 9 need.....another shopping center and more $800,000 condos.

[kantseeback]

Freehold was a dump 30 years ago and nothing has been updated since then.  The horses suck.  Howard Bruno collects a check and has done absolutely nothing to at least make it a little better.  Clown should have been fired after the unfortunate starting gate incident 10 years prior.  Better off closing the place down at this point.

I agree that the race facility was a dump back then, but the racehorse quality was top notch as well as the driver colony. Many horses went back and forth racing at Freehold and the swamp when the swamp was the mecca.

[Sunmoon 1219]

2 weeks padlocked forget about it

[Kenny]

Racing is a losing business.  Decoupling would result in the rapid closure of many tracks. In most cases there are more profitable uses for the land than a racetrack.