Calder Race Course Should Close Immediately If Not Sooner
 

I preface this message by saying I have been a frequent customer of South Florida racing for the past 20+ years. That being said it is embarrassing to see the deterioration of South Florida racing and more specifically Calder Race Course (the racing product, the facilities, and the management) over the past few years (well since the onset of the casino on site).

The “tip of the iceberg” occurred this Sunday in the 3rd race. For those of you who did not watch the race there was an approximately 5 minute inquiry following the running of the race where the #2 was put up after the unofficial winner (the #4) was disqualified and placed 2nd. Soon thereafter the race was declared “official”. As happens on occasion there was a tote delay in displaying the mutual payoffs. After 15 minutes nothing posted. 30 minutes, not posted and everything at the track is still “on hold”. About 45 minutes after the race is declared official they post on the TV screens “race 3 will be refunded”.

So what this means:
• All of the tickets that have been “losers” (the race was “official”) for the past 45 minutes and sitting in trashcans, etc are now refunded?
• All of the winning tickets are no longer winners / pushes?
• Despite posting that ALL bets will be refunded (the pick 6 STARTED in race 3) they gave the pick 6 players winning bets in the race (the all, and note this is a jackpot bet which defeats the purpose of the all) and the bet was not cancelled (all other horizontal wagers starting in the race were cancelled).

I can see a number of other alternatives, but “giving up” on figuring out on how to return the true returns to the gamblers was not one of them?
• Spend all the time you need (weeks if necessary) to figure out the true returns on the race (paper, abacus, etc).
• If the rules suggest you can’t move forward with the running of the following race until the prior race is paid off then cancel bets on all subsequent races. Run the races for purse money only and take care of the horsemen (or if you don’t want to run the races don’t run another race until the payoffs are made). How can either the customers or the management be confident that the same issue would not recur in races 4, 5, etc less than an hour later?

Steve, I know you have connections in South Florida. I would love for you to get someone from Calder / Churchill on the show and get an explanation on the root cause of what occurred yesterday and how they came to the decision they did. Bottom line is that once again the “customer taking it in the shorts”.

It has been a strange summer for me having multiple race track options. For the past 2 months I have been attending both Calder and Gulfstream. Unfortunately Calder just made my decision for me as I won’t be attending that track again. Think I also need to consider Expressbet as a viable alternative to Twinspires.

Racing product was horrible there even before Gs started competing against them...gotta be some of the smallest and shortest priced fields in the country

Looks like it was because the had to abide by the law. From Mike Welsch's Twitter @DRFWelsch feed from Sunday:

"Just learned the tote machines could not be locked for 56 seconds after 3rd race went of at CRC, by law all money had to be refunded. "

In 2013, they can't figure out which bets were made after the bell? Amazing.

I went to Calder last year Kentucky Derby week. It was serious depressing. I went up to the Clubhouse for relief. Can someone say Cocoon? You know what I mean if you've seen the movie.

A bunch of old people were doing somersaults from the diving board into the pool?

Thanks ajphilly, that partially explains the root cause but still leaves me a few open questions regarding the actions of the host track.

If there was any doubt that the end result was going to be a refund of all bets then why was nothing stated by the track to "hold all tickets"? Why make the race official or at least at the same time state what was being investigated so that folks did not throw their tickets away if there was any possibility that the bets would be refunded. Nothing was stated for 45 minutes until the decision was posted.

If by law all money was to be refunded why was the pick 6 not refunded which started in said race. Why were all picks considered winners (this is not a refund). I would rather have my money back and play the pick 5.

If this would have occurred in a NYRA track there would be a revolt.

So if one was doing a "cross it off" track list they should hit Tampa before Calder?

Yes, not even close.

If a tree falls in the forest...

Absolutely.

Calder is done. Just a matter of when, not if.

Ever see Secretariat in the Belmont? That's how close Calder is to second.

Calder can't close fast enough.