I've realized that lately my dislike of NYRA, The New York Racing Association, which has been festering for years, comes to a roaring boil when we get to the Saratoga meetings. And not because I find myself paying an arm and a leg to go there and get a seat. No plans to go there in the near future. I'm already spending less.
My longtime racing companion Johnny M. passed away on Belmont Day in 2025 at 82. I had Sovereignty, and he would have too. I miss him a lot.
We went there every year for over 20 years, initially buying three reserved seats for the two of us—which years ago weren't very much—because the seats are too close together. We kept the third seat between us for binoculars and the Racing Forms.
I don't remember the year, but at some point, perhaps under Christopher Kay's leadership, (eventually disgraced and fired for having NYRA stable staff be his landscapers for his home.), prime location picnic tables became reserved seats, and the prices went up sky high. The joke became NYRA was looking to plant more trees to create shade for tables they can charge more for. I reduced the seat purchase to two, and suffered with the cramped discomfort.
The size of those seats remains, but the prices are now insane, $25 and up for one seat. Okay, $7 General Admission included, but really?
You can see from the telecasts that the seats are mostly empty. If NYRA wants to make the place more appealing to sit in—and likely just as expensive—then they should rip out the old seats, create more room for patrons that are not naked anorexic shells of themselves. Cup holders, anyone?
Eventually, Johnny M. and myself migrated to buying a table for two in the Fourstardave sports bar. More room to sit in, a table to write on, and food and beverage service if we wanted it. A win.
I don't remember what we paid in 2024, our last year at Saratoga, for the two Fourstardave seats, but I'm seeing now they go for over $30 a piece, and hit $40+ depending on the day of the week. Insane. Does anyone have any money left to bet with?
There's a $135 buffet! in the Easy Goer room (for one), the most unappealing venue to eat in. Only Joey Chestnut of Nathan's Hot Dog eating fame could make a $135 buffet pay on 9-race card and not get sick. There are all sorts of Tiffany prices everywhere. You'd think NYRA was selling tickets to New York Yankee games behind home plate. or horseshoe seats at the Metropolitan Opera..
From telecasts, it seems the crowd that does comes in, snags a free picnic table, or piles onto the apron to watch the races. Ground level is the worst possible way to see the races, but for $7 you can be a railbird.
Everyone is wringing their hands and bemoaning the decline of racing interest. The prices aren't what contributes to it, but hey do make it cost prohibitive to go to the races and view them in a little style—like having a seat that you can sit in all day. What a concept. If I buy an expensive ticket to a Broadway show I get a seat, not something separately priced.
There's nothing wrong with the racing "product" provided by NYRA. Purses are the best compared to any track. DelMar makes a big deal of being the Saratoga of the West Coast. The stands and building look great, but the purses pale to New York.
Today's NYRA Saratoga card is 9 races, with a $200,000 Black Type feature and other races for purses that total $803,000. Delmar, is only presenting 8 races whose purses total $414,000. No Black Type features.
NYRA has a first class online betting app that shows an ongoing, probable payout for exacta wagering, a must have feature for people like myself who only bet win and exactas. However, I've yet to sign up for NYRA bets. I no longer that often.
NYRA bets also provided AI selections based on so-called value found in the odds. This is called their Waigr feature. Get it? Wager spelled with an ai. Cute, right? If you like taking advice from something whose logic is unknown to you, go ahead. There is never anything, or anyone who doesn't have an opinion on the winner at the track. In short, information is never lacking. Lacking is people who bet.
Much was made of the youthful crowd at Monmouth's Haskell the other weekend. Despite the rain and the delays, everyone hung in there drinking beer and having a good time. But they weren't necessarily betting. Per capita betting was way down.
Racing is driven by handle, the amount of money bet. The latest, and most controversial of the wagering is the proliferation of so-called CAWs, Computer Assisted Wagering, by a nameless force that pumps significant dollars into a pool that can result in sudden, post time odds drops and truncated payoffs.
CAWs, if they do it right, can't lose. They get a 10% rebate on their betting handle. If they bet $100,000 and break even on bets, they still get a 10% rebate, $10,000. Found money.
Of course, who the CAWs are is a mystery. Bettors are always anonymous, like the people who own the land and buildings in Manhattan. No household names there.
The image to the left is telling in several ways. CAWs are thought to be pariahs. But NYRA bathrooms are clean. They are one of the few places you can find a free seat.
Handle funds the game. And the handle is a function of how much is bet, and NYRA doesn't care where that handle comes from. David O'Rourke explains that they have slowed down the CAW intake by lowering the volume of CAW bets that can be made per second, and supposedly kept out of certain pools. To the bettors, CAW activity is only apparent when the odds drop like an elevator with a cut cable.
The "newly imagined" Belmont is set to open September 18. I remember when a newly imagined Belmont was the one they rebuilt in 1968, the year I took to racing.
The promotional material for the "newly imagined place" is stunning. Suites, box seats, concierge betting. Never will so many amenities have been created and used by so few, on days other than the Belmont Stakes.
Amenities is what the place needed. All recently built ballparks have boxes, suites, and high priced seating packages. To attract the Breeders' Cup NYRA needed a new infrastructure.
On a few occasions I was treated to a meal in the Trustees Room at Belmont. A nice enough place to eat, but very dated in how it allowed you to view the races.
If you're unfamiliar with "Cart Talk", it is a delightful segment on Fox sports telecasts with Jonathon in a golf cart buzzing around the backstretch with a jockey, trainer, or a race track executive for a round of is basically softball questions.
Jonathon is a past winner of one of those high-end handicapping contests that has propelled him into a racing analyst at the desk with the other Fox/NYRA presenters.
He is informative and not afraid to pick the favorite. His X handle is "@UTBIGHAIR" which is understandable when you know that if he's not in New York he is based in Texas, and sports a head full of wiry hair.
My criticism of all those people who tell you about "value" and present overloaded horizontal tickets, that you likely have little chance of winning, is that they do not design a bet with what is lively and creative. They offer no Exacta advice, almost zero Trifecta advice, and certainly no rolling Daily Double advice. Everything is a Pick 4,5,6 ticket, with enough permutations, even with so-called singles in a race, and even at 50¢ bets, that can work its way up to significant change. Add to the likelihood you're going to get blown out on one of your legs early in your selections, and there are still races to bet. What do you do now? Only a few will ever go to the race track and leave early when they're losing.
NYRA is rightly proud of being the site of the 2027 Breeders' Cup races. But the Breeders' Cup people rent out the track. Any pricing for attendance and food is controlled by them.
So the Belmont Stakes is a guaranteed "marquee day." But NYRA knows that's not enough snob appeal. They need more "marquee days" and will designate them when they fill a card with Grade 1 races. Opening Day will certainly be a "marquee day."
And then? Belmont sits in Nassau County, just over the Queens, NYC border. It is not accessible by subway, like the now closed Aqueduct. Belmont will carry the load year round when they are not at Saratoga. Nuclear winter will be at Belmont.
How many people will come? Yet to be seen. But I know that when Belmont was open if they got 5,000 people on a regular weekend, and 2-3,000 on a weekday, they were getting a crowd. Will that continue? You betcha.
Saratoga is a vacation destination for downstaters, and a day trip for area residents. The track draws from New York, up and downstate, and people from Connecticut and New England. The demographic is decidedly white. If you hear Spanish you're overhearing the jockeys.
NYRA Bets is promoting its app with a commercial occasionally seen during the racing telecasts of three Gen-A's doing what we know they do best—scroll a smart phone. The female in the middle gets excited because her bet wins, and NYRA Bets is then giving her a free bet. At least NYRA is promoting what makes the place go round: betting.
I'm keen to get to the "newly imagined" Belmont and see what they imagined. My plan is to go soon after the opening, hopefully when I can get a seat "with a back" for free, and only have to pay whatever general admission they might be charging.
I want to give myself a self-guided tour ahead of descending on the place with the remaining friends from what was once the four of us—The Assembled—but is now only three of us.
I've yet to get a handle on pricing, and what kind of seating might be available for "non-marquee" days. I live in Nassau County, so getting there is not a problem.
Gone are the days when I went to the races over 30 times a year. But hopefully, NYRA will price themselves attractively, and I can go more than twice a year. I'd love to be there more often.
The remaining three of us are all Senior Citizens. Discount, NYRA? Cup holders? Come on guys.
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