it really is a shame that this sport is so determined to continue to shoot itself in the foot. so many things they could do differently...and yet, they don't. it's really crazy.
if they would all work to put together a better product, by better scheduling of races along with post times, i just wonder what they could accomplish.

No, because then you lose the California players. Some simo facilities out there aren't even open until the 4th or 5th race of the day on an "average" day.

Just stagger the damn post times, idiots!

When I asked I was told that the reason that Monmouth isnt changing its post time which is that same as Belmonts is that they run races with less time between and only the first race is affected. True story...

Or 12:30 or 1:00

Not using their turf course very often, does have its advantages. It poured there yesterday and there were only seven scratches throughout the entire card. Anywhere else it's not unusual to have seven scratches for one race with those weather conditions.

For a 2nd tier track, I like their menu. They don't bomb you with a plethora of statebreds. Their takeout rate is high, as people here mentioned, but I usually stick with WP and Pick 4 which are comparable to anywhere else.

Yeah, it's hard.

Belmont takes a long time between races. Very long. And for the rest of us, it sort of makes it tough. We could take as long, but it's really overkill for smaller tracks. Thus we go shorter and inevitably we overlap with them. The trick is timing it.

At LAD, I put our first few races w/Belmont and just told the racing office they have no shot of handling well, so they now put our smallest fields of the day early.

That said, when I'm looking at the tote feed that indicates all of the post times, I always can't help but say to myself, "Wow, there is simply too much racing going on."

Travis, so you are almost dealing with the same problem as Monmouth. You are saving your better races for later in the day, but isn't that when tracks like Belmont are running sequances with gaurenteed pools that include stakes/graded stakes races? How can you compete with that? Not to mention the Cali tracks are starting their cards. That's why I think it's imperative for tracks like Monmouth to start their action earlier and get the money into their pools before the bigger tracks start.

The guaranteed pool stuff is sort of a non-starter. As the day progresses, tracks close (Calder, Parx etc.) and more money is available in the marketplace and as long as we're off those races (at least 12 minutes after the race, or 5-8 minutes before), we don't feel the pinch.

And for the same reasons you mentioned, when California starts to ramp-up, even more money enters the marketplace.

It's not unusual for our last four races to average 2.5-3x (or more) the handle vs. our earlier races on the card. That said, a small field kills it no matter what. And while everyone wishes it could go perfectly, delays can screw-up the best made plans at anytime.

Monmouth changed its 1st race post time to 12:45 starting Friday btw