day 2

absolutely gorgeous day at Saratoga. Big crowd and everything seemed to be working. The wifi  is terrific. It makes accessing the web so much faster and makes it much easier to make a bet. No longer do you have to stand in line behind an idiot who does his handicapping at the window. There have been no breakdowns in the first two days, at least in the afternoon. Have yet to see the horse van. Rosie seems to be getting good mounts and she certainly knows how to ride. The only remaining complaint I have is that the sound appears to be too low for us old fogies to hear properly.
After two days, I am showing a slight personal betting profit. In the newspaper I have only 3 winners but 7 of my top choices have finished second in two days. Stopped by the Special office today to pick up my press badge. What two nice guys the clancy boys are. They deserve all their success.

I am back. Handicapping for the Saratoga Special again this year. Thanks to Joe and Sean Clancy. I had only two winners on the opener but both keyed cold exactas and I did have the $75 winner listed third  on my picks. It is a beautiful day at the Spa and looks like a big crowd.

As usual opening day was full of problems. As usual the infield screen showing the probable payoffs malfunctioned but was working by the third race. There was no loudspeakers and the tv sound was not working. In addition, the highly touted wifi was down the entire day. On a more serious note, the FD was minutes away from cancelling the entire card because of low water pressure in the sprinkler system. So NYRA response was apparently to divert water pressure from the rest rooms to the sprinkler system. It appears that NYRA chose money over the comfort of the fans.

This is the kind of thing that happens when noone is in charge. And the state's answer is to put the control of NYRA into the hands of those whose job was to oversee it in the first place and totally failed at that task. God help racing when they are in charge.