PRX up Cotillion to $1 million; Adds to PA Derby Day card
 

The recently finalized stakes package, 26 stakes worth $5.3 million, includes a $250,000 bump to the Cotillion for 3-year-old fillies. Now a Grade 1 race for the first time, the $1 million Cotillion will be part of a blockbuster four-stakes package on Sept. 22 that also includes the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby, the $300,000 Gallant Bob for 3-year-old sprinters, and the $75,000 Alphabet Soup at 1 1/16 miles on turf for Pennsylvania-breds.

http://www.drf.com/news/parx-racing-...mped-1-million

I appreciate the news, but no amount of purse increase will make it worthwhile to bet in a state with some of the highest takeout rates in the nation.

A great day of racing at the Parx. Thank you Smarty Jones.

Funny though how they moved the Cotillion to a grade 1, but left the PA Derby as a grade 2.

apparently the GSC didn't feel the pa derby had had sufficient top horses running to bump it up. i'd think that 50k bonus they're offering is an attempt by parx to change that.

They would be better off offering the 50k to members of the graded stakes committee.

true. i feel they'd have been better off adding to the bonus and putting a little less toward the cotillion....but your idea does sound like a good one.

A better idea would be work with other tracks and develop a bonus structure so that the best horses would be encouraged to run in the TC races then the Haskell, Travers and PA Derby. Hell you could add the TC prep races and have a series for 3 yo's with points being earned toward a end of the year bonus. Supposedly there was a plan floated about having the Haskell, Travers and PA Derby be a second season TC of sorts but nothing ever came of it.

Doesn't this fall outside the 2 week period they run on the turf at Parx. :rolleyes:

The turf currently looks like someone has been tossing grenades on it. I was at Parx briefly today and while watching a race at Will Rogers Downs with a degenerate friend, he pointed out how much better the turf course looked at WRD than Parx.

Of course WRD has no turf course...

i really and truly wish that tracks would work together more to come up with a more cohesive schedule of racing. i feel that it would help the product as a whole. too often tracks look at other tracks as competition, rather than recognizing they should be working together to create a stronger sport, and look at other forms of entertainment as the real competition.

True. You would think that the east coast tracks could at least work together to make some sense of graded stakes at the very least. SOmetimes they react on their own and adjust schedules but a wholescale approach would make a lot more sense and would lead to better racing overall. Of course if the top horses werent all concentrated in just a few barns things would be a lot more competitive as well.

Presque Isle Downs has just reduced the trifecta take to 25 from 26 percent, 25 percent from 29 percent for the superfecta, and 23 percent from 26 percent in the Pick 3, Pick 4, and Pick 6 wagering this meet.

At least one Casino rich track in this state is willing to merely try to rob the bettor instead of outright rape him or her. Bravo.

Not to de-rail, but worthy of mention -

Canterbury Park reduced their takeout on P3 and P4 wagers to 14% for the meet - rolling P3's and 2 P4's each race day

They can't even come together to stagger the start times of their own races so they don't overlap with other tracks. Now you want them to come together to schedule/re-schedule what is most likely each tracks signature event? Don't get me wrong, it's a great idea. There are so many things that the sport could do with creating an entire series for 3 year olds that goes for most of the year. Unfortunately this sport we love lacks common sense most of the time.

I agree, but some strides have been made recently (on the post time front).

However, it's a little shocking that Monmouth has opted to keep their 12:50 PM EDT post time even after Belmont moved theirs up to 12:50 as well. That should really help their handle on races 1-4.

Listening to Steves show last week he had a Monomouth exec stating that he welecomes the improvement of NYRA product since it is his biggest simulcast generator. And then they can't do something as basic as moving a start time forward or back 5-10 minutes?

I think it would make sense for Monmouth to move up the opener to 12:15. They would probably have better luck bumping heads versus Parx for 45 minutes versus going head to head against Belmont. That start would also enable them to start their early pick 4, even before Belmont runs their opener.

Exactly.

Now, it's not a completely fair comparison because this year was Mother's Day. But, if you compare their handle from the 2nd day of the 2011 meet to the 2nd day of the 2012 meet, they were down 40% despite having a 80% increase in on-track attendance and a 13% increase in on-track handle.

Belmont was down 4% from the same date, prior year on Sunday with a 400k Pick 6 pool last year. But, if you compare Mother's Day to Mother's Day handle, they were up 14%.

Maximizing handle for a place like Monmouth should really be simple. Stay the hell away from Belmont.

I agree. Most racetrack operators can learn a lesson from the GM at Tampa Bay Downs. His work on their takeout aside, he is absolutely masterful when it comes to having perfect post times. He might have a field sit at the gate for a minute or two to let another race go official or simply to get more in the pool. He will short post some crappier races to get more for a larger field and/or turf race. Most importantly, his first post is not static. The Tampa guys on the board can attest to it better than me, but it seemed like it could range from 12:27 to 12:40 depending on what he knew he'd encounter later in the day.

This idea might be a bit radical, but if you were en exec at Monmouth, would you consider front loading the cards there? You would think that more players would take a good look and more importantly play an early pick 4 sequance when there is very limited options. Verus having this sequance late in the day and it getting lost, going against tracks like Belmont, Churchill with their Graded races and guaranteed pools.

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