- I've been seeing Steve Cauthen's name the last couple of days; as the rider of Affirmed, he generally comes up once the hopes of a Triple Crown are quashed. (And by the way, given the heroic way that Curlin and Street Sense both ran just two weeks after the Derby, can we please have a moratorium on the calls to stretch the series out?)
But now, here's Cauthen again. Bloodhorse.com reports that the one-time "Kid" has joined the Capital Play team. The announcement came at a press conference where the company discussed ideas to promote the Belmont in non-Triple Crown years.
“In Australia, for example, when the Melbourne Cup is coming up, you cannot get flights to Melbourne--they’re booked months out,” O’ Farrell said. “The cooperation there between the racing industry and the tourism industry is something we can learn from, the way they work together to generate excitement around racing events.”But the Melbourne Cup is the Derby of Australia - and then some. It's a Public Holiday for Melbourne and the surrounding suburbs! So once again I think the company is being unrealistic in expecting that their experience in Australia would necessarily apply here.
8 Comments:
Lets be real here, Capital Play has nothing to do with Australian racing. The Victoria Jockey Club runs the meet at Flemington and the Melbourne Cup. Capital Play would like you to think they are horse racing but in reality they are legal bookmakers that take action on any action they can get their hands on. So even if the Melbourne Cup was able to get 150 million people there, Capital Play would have nothing to do with it! I think someone needs to call Capital Play out and to explain what tracks they really run.
Excellent call on CP, all they bring to the table is money, but unfortunately money is the only thing the politicos are seeking.
Incorrect,if you study their NY Board and affiliates.
They are connected right through Aust & NY racing backbones,but
obviously,as in case of other bidders, many personnel would be in the wings, waiting for a decision to be made.
I feel they are mainly selling the Australianracing model concept, which most of their people seem to have hands on, experiencein.
Lets face it, if they're sucessful I'm sure they would have to pick of Australian racing personnel at their call.
Last post is just plain incorrect. They are connected to Australian racing in the exact manner that New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation is connected. No more; no less.
Their implications that they are more involved than as a bookie is misleading at best, fraudulent at worst.
Why have a couple of anonymous bloggers recently sought, to run only negative on Capital Play only, without productive input? I for one, am now examining them, more than Excelsior.
Common sense says all the bidders have their on/offline personnel, pursuing their agendas.
Interesting the ups & downs of 4 bidders in the media since this game started. Only one I see recently, cranking O2 , is Capital Play. Maybe they're trying harder, because they have to.
Being an expensive and encumbering exercise, all bidders have now incorporated across the board, a vastly frustrated interwoven interim, racing spectrum.
Therefore, I would assume now, most of the bidders would inherit, internal powerbase frictions giving way perhaps, to agnostic annoyances, after NY state's, continual procrastinations…
No, I don't know more than most other faithful racing NY'rs on this subject, I just read anything than the media / NY state, pitch at us from the left field and honestly hope, but not convinced, that all 4 bidders, still wish to entertain the full distance.
Capital Play is not even a regular bookmaker. They only have five customers. Big program bettors who pool their money and bet at the last minute depending on the odds. From what I can tell they don't have any experience at running race tracks. It would be like me saying I can produce a Broadway play because I was a ticket taker at the theater.
On top of having no experience, O'Farrell has only recently come out of bankruptcy. No offense to anyone who has had financial problems (myself included) but I think recent financial stability is one of the criteria for being picked as the franchisee.
Gentlemen, go take a look at the experience the CP team brings to the table.Over a 100 years of racing experience and it covers all the facets of racing.
Success in this venture will be realised by a team not one man.
I agree with the comment CP is the only one with O2 and they will win this franchise if it is based on fair practices.
The other 2 bidders all have ties to the present Gov.
And by the way what experience does Wynn have, he is excelsiors big wig , give him the franchise and watch the racetracks fail in 2 years and get turned into giant Wynn casinos.
NY should be careful what it wishes for.
The criticisms of Capital Play don't really make sense to me given what I have seen of the bid process. First of all - their bid is the highest: not a big deal to me personally, but if Spitzer says he wants whats best for the State then thats the most money, and with their development goals is the most jobs too. Plus they don't want to close Aqueduct which is important to the people around there. But from my point of view as someone who likes horseracing I trust CP more than anyone else - I think that it will be fun to go to the tracks again. I think there will be bigger, more diverse crowds - and they'll be younger and more sustainable. And those guys really seem to like the horses and treat the people better... I am not sure the Aussie model will translate as well as they think - there are a lot of other options here. I also think that it will be a 2-4 year process, not happen overnight. All the bidders are in it for themselves of course, this is a business, but CP wants to bring horse racing in NY back more than anyone else. And yeah, they did the OTB thing in Aus. but those guys ran the tracks too.
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