My Last Belmont

[Sightseek]

Originally Posted by Stickhorse

Great day of racing which I was happy to see via my computer and TV

Thank you Belmont for you crowd management!

Hopefully you don't wrestle the Breeder's Cup from Santa Anita for a good long time.

Biggest crowd I have encountered at Santa Anita was 60,000 and it did take us 45 minutes to get to the freeway nothing like this nightmare:

http://tracking.si.com/2014/06/07/be...n-parking-lot/

The last time Belmont had the BC, it went perfectly smooth. You can't compare a Triple Crown on the line and the BC equally.

[GenuineRisk]

Originally Posted by Sightseek

The last time Belmont had the BC, it went perfectly smooth. You can't compare a Triple Crown on the line and the BC equally.

That's true. I spent three hours in the cluster*ck that was Saturday night, but I was also at the last Breeders' Cup at Belmont and that was a pretty smooth day. Though I drove out with a friend, and we bolted as soon as the Classic was over and were out in five minutes. I don't know what the train situation was like.

If I can continue to vent about the trains this weekend- NYRA is saying the whole thing wasn't their fault it's the LIRR's and the LIRR is saying wah wah wah everyone wanted to leave at the same time wah wah wah.

You know why everyone leaves at the same time, LIRR? Because you don't give out a schedule of when trains are departing; you just say you're running them until 9, which gets everyone panicked about making sure they're out by then. If you would actually schedule them, the same way you schedule the out bound trains in the morning/afternoon, and schedule them until 10, there'd probably be less of a huge pileup of people between 7 and 8.

And NYRA, you could help by keeping betting windows open and food concessions running for awhile after the last race so people are tempted to stay a bit longer. I'd much rather sit, eat something and continue to lose money betting on other tracks for a couple of hours than stand for the same amount of time in the dark and the humidity, hungry and thirsty because the lines were too long earlier in the day to get anything to eat.

[tanner12oz]

another good one was having all of the portajohns banded shut on Friday..after being stuck in NYC traffic for 3 freaking hours I had to piss like crazy when we pulled in...I saw an oasis of portajohns in the lots and made a beeline for them...my oasis of toilets turned into a mirage when they were all sealed with zip ties...I ended up going behind the public toilets in the middle of the parking lot...

[GenuineRisk]

Forbes has a good article about the customer service issues:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/teresage.../1752-1784-504

(The link is going to scroll down to a comment, but scroll back up for the article)

I hadn't even thought about the cell phone signal because I'm accustomed to the cell phone signal at Belmont always being crappy.

[Linny]

Lack of lighting in parking lots was a mess. The place is usually closed well before sundown but when the last race was ending as the sun was setting there was no hope of everyone getting out before dark. Non regulars and even those used to parking in other lots were out there for hours.

When I was on Hempstead Tpke at about 10pm, there were people all over the place. One guy approached every car with "livery" or taxi plates. He and his friend were dressed up nicely, probably escapees from the LIRR who were stranded. I got the impression that Nassau Cty police had lost control of the traffic.

I read a TDN blog mentioning trying to attract new fans with great stakes racing but to the uninitiated, the difference between Close Hatches and Princess of Sylmar and a pair of 10k claimers is non existent. Meanwhile they bring in newbies and the trash barrels are over run by 2pm, the bathroom lines are eternal, the food lines are worse and then you discover that there is no food.

Regarding trash, I have one bit of free advice: Place big plastic filled boxes about for recyclable bottles and cans only. Enterprising people will (as they do nightly at Saratoga) gather them up for return. If the gathering had gone on during raceday the place would have been tidier and the trash cans which were mainly filled with bottles and cans would have been available for real trash.

[PatCummings]

You would think that with the average Saturday at Belmont getting 50,000 people, it would be really simple to handle double the crowd once every few years.

Or not.

They better expand that press box to keep the savages from killing each other because they just can't hold as many writers as they should. Tables were stacked tighter than anything I'd seen before. And there was at least almost one fight that I witnessed...cooler heads prevailed (all sarcasm aside - this really happened).

It's worth noting that the same crowding you may have experienced in some parts of the track was similar to some in the press box.

I get it - we want people to have the best experience possible at the races. What would everyone have been saying if California Chrome had won and they still had to deal with these issues? 100,000 on site, but revisionist history would have 300,000 saying they were there to witness it (and happily deal with the headaches).

If NYRA makes wholesale changes to refurb Belmont to be able to better handle a Triple Crown chance - guess what - the full exec team should be fired.

Surely, there are small things that could be done to increase some comforts, but whining about a singular experience is like being in the middle of a forest and standing right in front of one tree and complaining about the fact that this single tree is in your way. Step back and look at the big picture and just think about it all for a few minutes.

As the progressive racing entrepreneur Andrew Rideout @thoroughbredAR tweeted this weekend -

"Nobody comes racing. Empty grandstands. The sport is dying"
"Too many people here. OMG. Stop everything. The sport is dying"
See a pattern?

[jms62]

Originally Posted by PatCummings

You would think that with the average Saturday at Belmont getting 50,000 people, it would be really simple to handle double the crowd once every few years.

Or not.

They better expand that press box to keep the savages from killing each other because they just can't hold as many writers as they should. Tables were stacked tighter than anything I'd seen before. And there was at least almost one fight that I witnessed...cooler heads prevailed (all sarcasm aside - this really happened).

It's worth noting that the same crowding you may have experienced in some parts of the track was similar to some in the press box.

I get it - we want people to have the best experience possible at the races. What would everyone have been saying if California Chrome had won and they still had to deal with these issues? 100,000 on site, but revisionist history would have 300,000 saying they were there to witness it (and happily deal with the headaches).

If NYRA makes wholesale changes to refurb Belmont to be able to better handle a Triple Crown chance - guess what - the full exec team should be fired.

Surely, there are small things that could be done to increase some comforts, but whining about a singular experience is like being in the middle of a forest and standing right in front of one tree and complaining about the fact that this single tree is in your way. Step back and look at the big picture and just think about it all for a few minutes.

As the progressive racing entrepreneur Andrew Rideout @thoroughbredAR tweeted this weekend -

"Nobody comes racing. Empty grandstands. The sport is dying"
"Too many people here. OMG. Stop everything. The sport is dying"
See a pattern?

I do see the pattern that someone from the racing industry is blaming the customer when they complain about the expierence. Happens all the time. No changes just excuses and blaming the victim.