Friday, November 14, 2008
Enough To Make You Scream
It takes a lot to make me scream. Over the years, there's been a short list:
Late-show movies so old that Gabby Hayes gets the girl.
Sandra Dee's voice.
Howard Cosell acting as though he knows horse racing.
Prince Charles in a kilt.
An intentional walk to Barry Bonds.
Horses with names thatlooklikethis.
The Sporting News without box scores.
A dentist who offers free candy.
Brian McGrath as the commissioner of racing.
And now, Peter Land.
Land, one of the newer deep thinkers at the Breeders' Cup, wrote in a recent Blood-Horse article that the pricing of tickets at Santa Anita "was clearly in line and in many cases lower than local teams like the Dodgers and the Lakers. . . "
Land is not the first racing executive to bray that canard. Churchill Downs said something similar, about the time it discovered personal seat licenses and effectively priced good seats at the Kentucky Derby out of reach for the $2 bettor. "We're cheaper than the Super Bowl! We're cheaper than the World Series!" have become industry bywords, as disingenuous as they are. The strategy seems to be, repeat the big lie often enough and everybody will believe, a concept that may have originated with that German leader who walked funny and couldn't find a good barber.
The Dodgers and the Lakers, in their present form, are those rare, wildly popular franchises that need fans less than the fans need them. For racing to put itself on the same page as the Dodgers and Lakers, in any fashion, is delusional at best. All the Dodgers and the Lakers have to do is unlock the turnstiles; racing, except for a few precious days a year, does not enjoy that luxury. Even the Breeders' Cup does not enjoy that luxury.
I don't know what it costs to go to the Super Bowl or the World Series these days, but the difference between football and baseball and horse racing is that once you've bought your ticket to a game, you'll spend nothing else except maybe the cost of a hotdog and a beer. Parking the car is a wash. A ticket to a horse race gives you a license to lose money, sometimes lots of it if your horses have a case of the slows. I get a kick out of these industry apologists who walk around saying that racing "is a great entertainment value." Don't get me wrong, I love to go to the races, and there's nothing comparable to handicapping your way to an occasional profit, but don't tell me that a high-priced Breeders' Cup ticket is a better deal than paying more to see the Dodgers or the Lakers. It's apples and oranges all the way.
Once in a while, Santa Anita opens the gates for its senior citizens. Not every day, but once in a while. I'm reminded of some recent circulation campaigns by the beleaguered Los Angeles Times that give readers a cut-rate subscription for the Thursday-through-Sunday papers. I wonder, doesn't anything happen that's worth reading about from Monday to Wednesday? It's an insult to the seniors who have the time to attend the races every day, but must pay admission most days. At Santa Anita, a weekday crowd of more than 4,000 is exceptional. Seniors drink coffee and eat hotdogs, even if most of them bet only nickels and dimes. Why not encourage more of them to come more often? In California, movie theaters admit seniors for a few dollars off. Every day. Every show. They're not told that because it's Saturday, or an Oscar-nominated film, they have to pay full price.
Sandra Dee and Howard Cosell are deceased, and Barry Bonds has retired. I've switched dentists, and when Prince Charles comes around in a kilt, I try to look the other way. But I was still short at least one fresh entry on my screaming list, and racing, bless its tortured soul, has filled the need in the nick of time.
Written by Bill Christine - Comments (9)
