Left at the Gate

A Tale of Six Trees

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 15:14:00 +0000

Mike MacAdam covers horse racing and local sports for The Gazette in Schenectady. He's an excellent writer, and a really nice guy too....and I say the latter not only because he wrote so eloquently about impending changes at Saratoga, thereby saving me the trouble of having to write a post on the topic while the Head Chef and I are away on our annual summer extravaganza down at my mom's house near Sarasota, FL. In case you missed it last week, here is Mike's column (embedded here via Twitter with the hope that you'll be able to bypass the newspaper's paywall).

Under Chris Kay, @TheNYRA keeps chipping away at what makes Saratoga special. My @dgazette column: http://t.co/2Uqs2eB7XR
— Mike MacAdam (@Mike_MacAdam) June 27, 2015

This column, written after Chris Kay's remarks at the annual preview press conference last week, sums it all up perfectly, from the price gouging to the "creepy corporate Disneyspeak" defending it, to the proliferation of "pockets of exclusivity in what historically has been one of the most democratic places in the country." It's just perfect, so please give it a read. Not at all necessary for me to say much more.

But yes, as you might have guessed, I do have a little to add. It's obvious that Mike, and the aggrieved customers quoted in the column, are personally offended by such changes. And I know that all of us who have, year after year, had the privilege of attending this historic track, of which all of us are indeed "possessive," feel the same way. So please don't take it the wrong way when I say that the Head Chef and I feel even more personally affected than some others may be. And that's because the area behind the Carousel is where we have stationed ourselves for many, many years. It's bad enough that the main floor Carousel is being turned into a premium sports bar (for which one has to pay to sit at tables). But that picnic area behind it, where we have spent so many wonderful days, will now be significantly altered - and reduced - by a "Red Jacket" museum. Not sure exactly where it is, but Teresa was there and informed me that it's "very close" to where we usually sit - "a little to the south." Don't know my north from south around there, but "very close" is very close enough. (In fact, while I had relented to the Head Chef's wishes regarding going to Saratoga this summer, this news has made even her hesitant.)

And that's right, this area is being compromised for a museum. Don't want to speak for all of you, but this horseplayer, in over 35 years of Saratoga, has attended the existing National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame across the street from the track exactly once; and I don't really remember a thing about it. Seems to me this new museum will be more for the "guests" than for the horseplayers who support this whole endeavor. Not sure exactly what the point or purpose of plopping a museum in the middle of a track is....will they be charging admission? While supposedly a tribute to Saratoga legends, as Tom Noonan succinctly put it, "one suspects it is really a tribute to Chris Kay."

But what might be the most upsetting aspect of this whole sorry affair to me - more even than the price increases, infringement of popular picnic areas, and the hypocrisy of this NYRA - is the fact that six grandiose trees have been cut down in order to make way for a museum. Now, I wouldn't quite put myself in the tree-hugging category, but those magnificent, cloud-scraping trees that populate the backyard of the track are, to me, an integral part of the experience; a major, if not the major, contributor to the majesty and tranquility of the place.

Many a time have I drifted into a sedate state of meditative bliss lying back in my chair staring up at them. (True, at times while under the influence of various mind-altering drugs conducive to such a state, but still...) To take trees out of Saratoga is like removing flamingos from Hialeah, the San Gabriel mountains from the backdrop at Santa Anita, or the cries of "bloodclot" from Aqueduct.

And what makes this defilement of the sacred grounds of the Spa even more ponderous is this: before he came to NYRA, Chris Kay was the Chief Operating Officer of an environmental group, The Trust for Public Land! Its mission is "Creating Parks and Protecting Land for People."

We protect the places people care about and create close-to-home parks—particularly in and near cities.

And while the organization generally deals with larger and more urban areas than is Saratoga, the inconsistency between his mission there and his actions here are quite obvious. While at Trust for Public Land, Kay used the word "parks" as much as he presently uses the word "guest." Yet, now at NYRA, the grand park - is there another way to put it? - that constitutes the backyard of Saratoga is readily sacrificed, whether for profit or for vanity, solely at NYRA's whim; correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall any public input regarding the removal of these natural treasures. And I mean, I thought the state now owns the land??!!??

Many people feel as if Chris Kay drips with insincerity when he talks in glowing terms about our sport, whose jewel track he has come to be entrusted with. Considering and contrasting his past position with his present actions may serve to put his words now in an even harsher context. We better hope that Kay does not go on to run a racino. He may decide that his guests are better served without any pesky racetracks nearby.

Cap This

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 16:28:00 +0000

Here's the latest bit of hilarity from NYRA CEO Christopher Kay (at least before Wednesday's board meeting - with this being posted a few hours prior - which is likely to include even more yuks):

"Anyone familiar with Saratoga Race Course will understand the impact of the promotional giveaway days in influencing attendance numbers, which renders inaccurate a direct comparison to today’s gate numbers.

Two years ago, Saratoga hosted four giveaway days and recorded each “spin through the gates” by guests to secure multiple souvenirs as paid attendance. Each of these days yielded an average attendance of anywhere between 50,000 and 55,000. Contrast this to last season when the New York Racing Association discouraged spinners, resulting in an accurate promotional day count of between 25,000 and 30,000 guests during each of the four giveaway days – as opposed to totals of between 100,000 to 120,000 “phantom” guests for the entire Saratoga meet in the prior year. And data from earlier years indicated even larger discrepancies due to the counting of spinners." [Saratogian]

This coming from the man who presided over an equally - if not an even more insidious - padding of attendance numbers last summer, when season pass holders were counted as attending every day of the meet whether they were there or not. With a total of 6,370 passes sold (though not from day 1), and 40 days in the meet, you can do the math to determine what the potential exaggeration was last year. May, or may not, have been 100,000 to 120,000, but I'd guess that it wasn't tremendously far off those numbers. Of course, Kay did not allude to that little bit of accounting wizardry. This goes squarely in the category of you can't. make. this. stuff. up. And I say it's possibly even more insidious than the spinning numbers because, at the same time, this NYRA regime was trying to tell us just how transparent they are.

Kay also announced that, should American Pharoah run at Saratoga - possibly in the Jim Dandy on August 1 - attendance at Saratoga would be capped at an unspecified number.

Oh boy. Well, as you probably know by now, NYRA capped the attendance on Belmont Day at 90,000, though, as I contended in the last post, they quite obviously didn't even manage to sell that many admissions; all one needed to do was look at StubHub the morning of the race to know that was the case. (And that, by the way, was a major fail. Can you imagine if the prior regime couldn't sell out a Belmont Stakes with a Triple Crown possibility with a limit of only 90,000? As was the case last year - and as they bragged to the NYRA Board - NYRA saved money on marketing, letting the news-worthiness of the event do the advertising for them. Apparently, that publicity did not outweigh all of the terrible publicity garnered by the way they mishandled the bigger crowd in 2014.)

Now, I've seen people who were there say, 'well, I was opposed to capping the attendance, but it worked out!' Well? Of course, if one is at a big event and there are not all that many people there - say around 87,000 people in a plant which has handled as many as 120,000 (and better that year than this "big event" team handled a smaller crowd in 2014) - they're going to think 'hey, that was great!' By that logic, why don't they limit the crowd to 60,000, imagine how convenient everything would be! But, in my opinion, that's hardly the point. Big racing days draw big racing crowds, and the challenge is for management to accommodate everyone who shows up and make them as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. The attendance cap was nothing but a copout by a NYRA team that proved itself incompetent the prior year, and which was unwilling to step up to the plate to make the necessary improvements.

Horse racing has been conducted at Saratoga for some 150 years and never, at least as far as I know, has the attendance been capped. Some of those days have sucked for some people, whether from it being too crowded or too hot or too wet or too whatever. Yet the track's reputation has never emerged worse for the wear, at least in my experience. The worst day I can personally recall was the Travers in 1978 when Affirmed and Alydar converged on the old track after slugging it out through the stretch in the Belmont. Yet, it was a historic day about which I have only fond memories (other than the unfortunate circumstance of the race itself). I think that people come to Saratoga on big days with tempered expectations as to their comfort level, and with a forgiving attitude.

Harvey Pack used to warn racegoers on rainy days that "You're not going to have a good time today." Yet, how many times have any of you that have been there ever seen a single unhappy face, no matter what the conditions? And besides, over the years, with advances in technology and the wisdom of experience, the Spa has proven to be perfectly able to handle huge throngs with relative ease. The fact is that the all the seats are sold on a weekend day anyway no matter who is running, and, as I've discussed and documented here in the past, the overflow crowd is perfectly content to simply hang out in the backyard and watch the races on television. It's fine. Always. (Especially before this NYRA team started to usurp areas where people used to hang out with merchandise tents and hall of fame buildings.)

I can guarantee you that NYRA would piss off far more people should they deny them entry to see a Triple Crown winner than those who might gripe because they couldn't buy a Bud Light. (And, unlike on Belmont Stakes day, everyone is free to bring in their own swag as long as it's not in a glass bottle.) And, as far as I'm concerned, anyone who whines about an inconvenience at Saratoga is someone who we don't want there anyway. It's Saratoga. Just deal with it. We don't need these ridiculous know-nothings, who came in here bragging about their ability to stage big events - to come in and tell us that only a certain amount of people can come to the track. It's just ridiculous.

And you know what else? If, by some chance, 100,000 people descended on the track (extremely unlikely given historic attendance numbers and the geographical and logistical limitations in the area), causing the fire department if no one else to say enough is enough and turn people away, the news stories reporting that turn of events would be the absolute greatest bit of publicity this sport has experienced since just about ever!

- I've seen some great concerts lately.

Now What?

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Tue, 09 Jun 2015 20:20:00 +0000

These are my daughters, Chelsea and Kayla, at the Belmont Stakes on Saturday.

I was not there. Partly because I had such a miserable time there last year, and mostly for reasons that I'll get into later in this post. Anyway, if anyone had told me 10-15 years ago that my daughters would be at the Belmont and I wouldn't - especially with a horse going for the Triple Crown - I would surely have figured that it was part of some kind of memorial ritual for their old man!

The big question - considering how bad of a time so many people had there last year - is: did they have fun? Let's see.

Guess we'll take that as a resounding 'yes!' Along with two friends including Amanda (the Panda), pictured in the middle here, they headed to Jamaica station to catch the Long Island Railroad at around 2. They arrived at the track around an hour later with no problems. They immediately hit the bathroom, no doubt due to consuming all of their drinkables on the train (I offered help in sneaking in alcohol); and reported that the line was long but moved quickly. Apparently, they had no problem purchasing additional beverages at the track. After the races, they enjoyed the harmless, though pointless, wimpy pop of the Goo Goo Dolls, and then headed back to the LIRR. Prepared for the worst by railroad officials and by their dad, they instead walked directly onto a train with no wait, and even got seats.

The combined gross betting handle for the four of them on the day was $1.....though Kayla generously allowed NYRA to retain the $1.75 that her ticket on American Pharoah was worth at the time (it's now apparently worth around $25 on eBay; more if you include some finish line dirt [looks more like a dime bag]). Kayla is actually a fan; along with my stepdaughter Chloe, she has attended the races with the Head Chef and I on more than just a few occasions, including at Saratoga and Del Mar. They're usually good for about ten bucks a day each (generously supplied by you-know-who) based largely on paddock observation. Chelsea is not a fan, nor is Amanda (the Panda); but, based on this experience, no reason why they wouldn't go to the Belmont again, especially if a comparable wimpy pop or faux-punk band is playing. (Or, especially, Diplo, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.) Unfortunately, there were no coupons issued for free admission in the future, guess that's too complicated of a concept for NYRA.

From what I've read, theirs was a pretty typical experience. Unless I've missed something, aside from a few complaints about bathroom lines (women in the mens room again) and wifi (the girls had no issues with that), seems like everything went pretty smoothly.

That does not mean, however, that I'm here to praise NYRA for the effort. Chris Kay and his minions came into town touting their ability to stage the "big" events. On that count, they failed miserably last year; both in the execution and the aftermath. I find it pretty hysterical that the main strategy from this "big day" team was to make their biggest day significantly smaller, by capping the attendance at an alleged 90,000. To me, handling a big day at the races means being able to accommodate the largest crowd possible by anticipating the worst and having the contingencies in place to deal with an overflow. Under these controlled conditions, the task was made far easier. Sure, some credit is due; it was still a big crowd; and the music surely helped in controlling the outflow after the races, so that was a good plan. But it was also a huge copout, and the easy way out. And NYRA doesn't actually care if my girls or the other 86,998 or so paid attendees had a good time; only in the sense that they can take a PR victory lap and go before the board with their hands out for raises and bonuses.

And yeah, about that crowd, I don't believe for a single second that NYRA really sold 90,000 admissions; I think they're full of it. I looked at Ticketmaster late on Friday night, and there was still no 'Not Many Left' designation. And then, suddenly the next morning, they're sold out? Meanwhile, the prices on StubHub dropped precipitously throughout the morning, settling at around 7 bucks by 1PM (as opposed to the actual face value of more than $22, including all the Ticketmaster fees; great business when you can charge over 50% of the ticket price in fees). Not only that, the number of admissions available on StubHub was actually increasing; there were some 2600 grandstand admissions and 500 clubhouse admissions available as of 1:30, when I left to join those millions of New Yorkers who couldn't care less about the Triple Crown for a day in Manhattan (while all of the supporting stakes that I couldn't care less about were being run). Little doubt in my mind that a good portion of that inventory was NYRA's itself; I could picture Chris Kay himself sitting at his computer trying to sell them off.

As for me, I did not suffer from any FOMO; and nor do I have any regrets about not going. Maybe I'm just too old at this point in my life to deal with big crowds and drunken preppies at a dilapidated racetrack. One thing I was definitely wrong about though: I figured that even if American Pharoah won, it would be due more to the mediocrity of the competition rather than the kind of greatness I witnessed when I saw Seattle Slew and Affirmed win their Crowns from excellent vantage points right around the finish line.

However, American Pharoah's Belmont win was nothing short of spectacular. His final time of 2:26.65 was easily the fastest since Baffert's Point Given in 2001 (2:26.56). Since the "tremendous machine" stopped the clock in 2:24 in 1973, only Risen Star (2:26.40), Easy Goer (2:26.00), AP Indy (2:26.13), and the aforementioned Point Given ran faster. And, in this day and age, for a horse to complete the mile and a half by getting his final quarter in 24.32 - faster than any quarter mile of the race save for the opening one - is virtually unheard of. By comparison, it took Easy Goer and Affirmed/Alydar 25 1/5 seconds to finish the race; Empire Maker 25 3/5; Afleet Alex 24.50. (Rags to Riches/Curlin came home in 23 4/5; those horses were pretty damn good. Secretariat got home in 25, but he was just loafing.) This was truly a race for the ages, and we didn't need the track announcer to punctuate his call by yelling at the top of lungs to hammer that point home.

So now, you have your Triple Crown winner, after all these years and all the anticipation of the day when we would finally see this happen. Which leads to the inevitable question:

As for the horse, happily, the connections apparently intend to continue his three-year old campaign; though the skeptics who are expecting some kind of benign career-ending injury to soon pop up can surely be forgiven. Baffert has mentioned the Haskell at Monmouth, and the Pacific Classic at Del Mar as possible races leading up to the Breeders' Cup. That would be awesome. However, the chances of American Pharoah following in the footsteps of Seattle Slew and Affirmed, and affirming his greatness beyond this year seem remote, to be sure.

As for the industry, the buzz will persist for awhile - obviously, the longer he continues to race, the better - before it dies down and "racing" turns back to the brooding and hand-wringing that has dominated over the last several years. It's also possible that the hoopla over the Triple Crown will die down (been there, done that), and that this Crown will actually turn out to be a net negative over the next few years as far as publicity goes, as compared to what would have been had the streak started to approach 40 years. But no time for negativity right now.

As for me and my current status as a horseracing fan, bettor, and blogger (and if you care).....the truth is that I haven't been much into the racing game of late, for reasons both professional and personal. I went to Belmont a few weeks ago; it was the first time I'd been to a racetrack since last September, some eight months prior. I was actually hoping that there, a spark would light and I would rediscover the joy that made me a regular railbird for some 40 or so years. But, alas, it was not to be. Belmont Park can do that, as depressingly empty as it tends to be even, in this case, on a pleasant Sunday afternoon; and especially if one ventures inside the mostly-unused plant, where the echoes of the crowd's roar in better times has long since evaporated into the filth and grime that serves to amplify the void. Can't say if I'll be back there anytime in 2015.

I've been involved in the industry due to my involvement with TimeformUS over the last few years. They say that one shouldn't work in a field that one loves, because you may end up hating it. I wouldn't go that far, but I'm surely disillusioned. Not free to go into the details here, but let's just say that a lot of industry people talk about what the industry needs, but when it comes down to it, they're full of shit and only interested in themselves. (Though surely, that does not make horse racing unique....surely!)

And on the personal side, and without going into too long of a spiel (as I've written much of this in the past)....let's just say that I used to find this game a lot - and I mean, a LOT - more fun when it was accepted - and embraced - for what it is. And that is: a game. And a game in which at least some, if not many, of the participants are scoundrels and rascals who flaunt the rules and push the boundaries of what we consider to be acceptable, both in terms of honesty, and how they treat the animal athletes. When I first got involved, making the trips to Roosevelt and Yonkers back in the 70's, that was all OK. In fact, it was part of the appeal. Nobody I knew really wagered their money with the expectation that this was a totally honest enterprise, and any notion that we might have been scammed was met with smiles and smirks (at least the day after the latest Oscar or Frankie Martin claim won by five, or Herve won six on the night as the other drivers seemed to be pulling back on the reins). It felt like we were doing something that was more than just a little on the disreputable side, a bit dirty; and I personally found that to be rather thrilling and liberating. Racing Forms were hidden behind the counter of the local newspaper store; and the lack of any pay phones at tracks lent to the feeling that we were in our own private little den of iniquity, cut off from the more legitimate outside world. (Now we cry and whine if we lack total connectivity to the outside world for even a single minute.)

Of course, now I'm much older, so I can't expect to experience those exact feelings at this point in my life. However, it's also largely due to the internet and social media that that kind of perverse joy is gone, in my opinion. It's funny....I remember as we approached the year 1984, how we were obsessed about the notion of Big Brother watching over us to keep us all in line. And though that's still a big concern (though one wonders how much we'd know about it today were it not for Edward Snowden), it seems that we've all established our own Big Brother in the form of Twitter and other social media. Anyone who even approaches the line of what is considered to be immoral or unethical, or who is unfortunate enough to commit even the slightest misspeak, is immediately brought into line, and can easily have their careers or lives ruined immeasurably.

So, now I go on my Twitter timeline and read people bitching about which trainers are cheating with which drugs and how we should cut off their heads! (So to speak, and probably a really bad metaphor to use at this point in time.) We must have 72 hour pre-race detention and access to vet reports (snore). We read multiple live tweeting from the latest conference or seminar regarding levels of cobalt, whether or not Lasix should be banned, how many horses died last week and who/what is to blame. We read how horrible and cruel it is that a ten-year old gelding is being forced to - gasp - do what he was actually bred to do, and what he looked to me to be perfectly happy doing in winning his last three races before he was effectively ruled off the track by the ethicists who know what is best for everyone.

And we read people agonizing, insufferably in my opinion, about the ethics of the sport. If I love animals, how can I love horse racing, pondered my friend Teresa (who I hope will still be so after she reads this). If I was still going to the track, I'd have to discuss that with her at her upcoming birthday BBQ at Belmont over the hot dogs and hamburgers that she generously serves.

Now, perhaps you find it distasteful for me to be trivializing these things. But, to me, none of this is particularly serious in the scheme of things. It's just a game! Not only is all of this a bummer, it's boring too. Not that the industry should not be attempting to cut down on cheating (it will never be completely eliminated, in any endeavor involving money or politics). However, this industry needs to be spending most of its conference, seminar, and hand-wringing time on: How Do We Make This Game Relevant Again Beyond Three Races a Year (two if there's no Triple Crown possibility). As long as it's spending time on anything other than that at this point, it's a losing battle, as far as I can see.

And as far as the animals go, I wrote here about how, on the scale of cruelty to animals in this world, these horses have it pretty damn good. In fact, the vast majority of these horses receive more love, care, and respect than a significant portion of the human population. So I'm not going to repeat myself; you can read that post if you'd like. (Though I will link here with no further comment to the unfortunate tale of the late Allan the rabbit, clubbed to death with a bicycle pump by a Danish radio host in order to make a point; a very fair one in my opinion.)

Look, we are all put on this earth for a short time, and I figure we need to get as much enjoyment out of it as we can. Fortunately for us humans, we're at the top of the food chain. As the zookeeper who advised the abovementioned Danish radio host on how he clubs rabbits to death before feeding them to the snakes said: “It’s the animals who are there for us.....Not us who are there for the animals.” That's life; that's the way it is. And, after all, since video serves as proof these days, we all know for an absolute fact what would be the case if it were indeed the other way around.

Oh, wrong clip (though I couldn't help it). Here we go:

So, we can just accept this game for what it is - and after all, as I've said many times, if you've gotten past the fact that we breed this animals solely to exploit them for our own entertainment and enrichment, then you really already have - or you can agonize and moralize about it online. The preponderance of the latter has really turned me off. Maybe the answer for me is as simple as just not being on Twitter anymore.....or to unfollow all of my racing friends and peeps (but then I'd feel bad!). In any event, the fact is that I was due for a long, long break from this, so maybe it's really just that. Used to regularly take at least a couple of months off every year, but that went by the wayside for many years since I started this blog in January of 2005; not to mention my recent involvement with TimeformUS, in which play becomes work. So, perhaps it's just fatigue. And part of it is definitely my distaste for the current cynical corporate know-nothings running my favorite NY tracks. They'll be out of here at some point relatively soon! Right? Right??

The Head Chef and I will be venturing out to our favorite spot in Southern-most California this August, so perhaps a couple of days at Del Mar will do the trick (assuming I can tear myself away from the spectacular beaches). In fact, we'll be there on the day of the Pacific Classic, so, if all goes well, maybe seeing the latest Triple Crown champion will bring me back in full force. If he's not retired by then.

Casinos Losers Looking For a Do-Over

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 17:02:00 +0000

Here is the letter sent to Gaming Commission Chairman Mark Gearan, respectfully requesting that the state re-open the casino bidding process. It was composed by an attorney writing "on behalf of several clients" who participated, unsuccessfully (obviously), in the NYS casino selection process last year.

hodgson russ.pdf

It reads a lot more like a formal legal petition to a court of law than a friendly missive, complete with sections and subsections, footnotes, legal citations, and repeated mentions of ominous phrases like "arbitrary and capricious."

So, one can surely surmise where this is likely headed after the Gaming Commission either issues a polite declination or ignores it altogether. After all, this attorney is not one who spends her time saying "pretty please," and I do not think she was engaged simply to write a letter. Michelle Merola is a partner at Hodgson Russ LLP, a prominent name in gaming law. And, on their website, she is described as a government-disputes lawyer with extensive experience litigating civil and criminal matters in a variety of federal jurisdictions as well as New York State.

A significant portion of her practice is dedicated to defending corporations and individuals in government investigations, audits, and administrative proceedings related to tax, environmental, fraud, and health care matters. She also regularly challenges agency determinations in New York State courts through Article 78 proceedings.

We've discussed Article 78, in detail, in the distant past; and it is the means by which the Finger Lakes racetrack/racino is challenging the license recommendation to the Lago facility in Tyre, a lawsuit in which Hodgson Russ and Ms. Merola are also involved.

In addition to being an accomplished litigator, Ms. Merola is also apparently more than just a bit of a masochist.

For the reasons set forth below, the Commission should decline to issue any licenses based on the current recommendations and direct the Location Board to start the entire process anew...

Oh, man. Can you imagine going through this again, from scratch? Another round of cheesy presentations of bucolic ponds, designer gardens, and happy families golfing and eating and drinking and laughing and frolicking through the grass or snow and doing everything and anything other than the only reason why they are being lured there in the first place? Six more months of Kevin Law and Stu Rabinowitz? I think I'd rather be strapped to a chair a la Alex in A Clockwork Orange and be forced to watch the video of Happy for as long as it took Senate Republicans to allow a vote on Loretta Lynch. (Well, maybe not quite, but....) Besides, by the time a second round would be over, the casino bubble may already be shattered to smithereens and we may be on to the next big thing, like......oh I dunno, maybe reading books, or going to the movies. Or the track.

Well, this would seem like a desperate shot in the dark, except that I'd imagine that Ms. Merola has better things to do than to sign up with a lost cause. The letter delves into the language of the enabling legislation, and attempts to show how the process evolved in a way that violated the "very specific statutory requirements set therein." It refers to the weighting percentages that the legislation quite specifically directed the Location Board to utilize - 70% for "economic activity and business development factors," 20% to "local impact and siting factors," and 10% to "workforce and enhancement factors" - about which Ms. Merola makes two main points: 1) The board, in fact, strayed from that "required scoring;" and 2) the board added a new criteria after the applications were in.

With regard to the first point, she uses the board's own words against it....words taken from the Final Report issued by the Location Board.

The Board considered these summaries, its experts’ observations, additional facts and observations the Board obtained through its public hearings and dialogues with its experts and subsequent analyses prepared by such experts at the direction of the Board, in making determinations and reaching conclusions about the Applicants’ ability to advance the objectives of economic activity and business development, local impact and siting and workforce enhancement. The Board did not create numerical scores with regard to the criteria, but reached its conclusions based on a qualitative judgment after careful consideration of all these factors in determining which Applicants would best achieve the objectives of the Act, giving a qualitative weight to categories of factors as the legislature directed in PML section 1320.

"Here," Ms. Merola writes, "[the board] acknowledged that it chose to rely exclusively on a qualitative evaluation, rather than employing the quantitative weighing required by the Act, or scoring the applications in a manner consistent with general procurement practice."

The second point involves "additional criteria" that the board added after the proposals were due. Specifically, Ms. Merola objects to the added notion that the proposals should address which "would best provide economic assistance to disadvantaged areas of the State."

For example, the Location Board considered which proposals would best provide economic assistance to disadvantaged areas of the State.

Oh, the Horror!

This factor, crucial to a decision about what location to select for an applicant's proposal, was not disclosed prior to the submission of applications and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And, not only did the Location Board utilize a previously unarticulated factor in its evaluation, but it apparently elevated that factor above all others. In fact, all of the successful applications share the distinction of being sited in the most disadvantaged areas of the State.

OK, well, here I must diverge from my usual role as neutral and dispassioned observer. Let's, for a moment, forget the formal letter of the law, and talk about common sense (for whatever that may be worth). I think everybody, all along, realized that one of, if not the most important, goal of Governor Cuomo in limiting the first round of casinos to upstate New York was indeed to provide assistance to areas of the state that are struggling financially. In fact, the very first line of the RFA reads as follows:

Dear Applicant: New York Governor Cuomo has made reviving Upstate New York's long-stagnant economy a priority of his administration.

Get the point? It's true, we must acknowledge, that the legislature did not do a good job of articulating this in the language of the enabling law. Indeed, the section describing the 70% weight to economic activity does not specify anything about helping distressed areas. But it was surely no secret. That's what the governor spoke about when he went to the Catskills the day after the referendum was approved (a speech which was cited critically by critics when attention turned to Orange County). And it was surely well known to the bidders when they made their oral presentations to the board, as evidenced by all of the segments in their slick videos which were devoted to tear-jerking tales of economic distress and chronic unemployment. The notion that, had the criteria been stated clearly in the RFA, that the bidders may have chosen different sites is hogwash. The only thing that would have perhaps - mabye - been different is that the Orange County bidders may not have bothered; but I rather doubt that. The "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in bidding costs was just pocket change to them, and well worth taking a shot, even a long one, at the riches that a casino location within an hour of NYC would have brought. And again, they all knew what the implied, if not properly stated, purpose of this exercise was.

So, personally, I would stick to the first point; they're not going to find much sympathy with this one. In fact, the idea of a company like Genting whining because "the successful applications share the distinction of being sited in the most disadvantaged areas of the State" is rather distasteful, to say the very least. Based on the crocodile tears for the poor that we saw at the presentations, one might think that the losers would magnanimously be toasting the board for doing the proper thing.

The letter makes some final points; it points to the inconsistency between the board's refusal to recommend a location in Orange County due to the threat of cannibalization, but selecting Lago despite the huge threat of such to neighboring facilities such as the Finger Lakes (based largely on a report commissioned by the Finger Lakes) and Vernon Downs (both exacerbated by the fact that the tax rates on the existing racinos are significantly higher than those for the casinos to which they would lose customers). It simply and succinctly points out that the winning bidders' projections of revenues to the state lagged behind those of many of the losers; thus ignoring the legislation's directive to maximize revenue to the state. And finally, it notes the conflict of interest inherent in its outside consultant who had previously worked for five of the applicants, including all three winners.

Again, I wouldn't expect anything to come out of this letter; but we might very well expect it to proceed to the legal arena once the Commission turns its collective noses up at the thought of a do-over. Perhaps I'll follow up in my next post, which you can probably expect sometime around Thanksgiving.

(Just kidding.)

(Maybe.)

Until that time....Let's Go Rangers!!

Tyre Casino Opponents Heading Back to Court

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 14:00:00 +0000

As all eyes were on the Gaming Facility Location Board as they voted unanimously to re-entertain the notion of a casino in what is considered to be the "true" Southern Tier region, casino opponents in Tyre are gearing up for another attempt to stop the Lago Casino which was recommended for a license for the region instead. Despite the fact that Wilmorite has not yet been issued a license by the Gaming Commission (and apparently don't yet own the land), it is already building a retention pond in an area away from the main road. Casino opponents are keeping an eye on the proceedings with a drone, and I received this photo along with a note declaring that Wilmorite is already "destroying some nice woodland and farmland."

As you may recall, the casino opponents suffered a resounding defeat in court when they first filed their Article 78 proceeding against the process by which the Town Board conducted the required environmental review (SEQRA). I wrote here about the SEQRA process and some of the objections as to how it was conducted in Tyre; about the lawsuit here; and about the verdict, in vivid detail and with an appropriate amount of dismay, here.

Now, CasinoFreeTyre is back with an appeal to the New York State Court of Appeals, with some new legal help and a motion bolstered with new arguments, a multitude of case citations, and a bit of swagger. It's a good read as far as these things go, so I've embedded it below for those of you who are interested. For those of you who aren't, the opening paragraph, reprinted below the document, pretty much sums up the substance and spirit of the document.

Tyre Article 78 Appeal

At the dawn of the SEQRA era, State and local officials rushed through approval of the Carrier Dome at Syracuse University on the strength of a negative declaration of environmental significance. This Court rejected such an obvious violation of SEQRA's mandates, and in doing so, created the "hard look" standard now embodied in the SEQRA procedures. See H.O.M.E.S. v. New York State Urban Dev Corp., 69 A.D.2d 222 (4th Dep't 1979). Now before this Court is a similarly rushed review, for a project of even greater scale than the Carrier Dome - a half-billion-dollar, 450,000-plus sq. ft. hotel and casino with 3,300 parking spaces, and related infrastructure - on the strength of a review notable for its acknowledgment of multiple significant potential adverse impacts, but absent any consideration of those impacts. If Wilmorite's Lago Casino can pass muster with solely a negative declaration, then this Court should simply declare H.O.M.E.S. overturned and SEQRA repealed.

(Of course, the Carrier Dome was ultimately built.) Briefly, for those of you not inclined to dig back into the past posts linked to above, the Town Board, in Part 2 of the SEQRA forms, identified ten items as likely to result in "significant adverse environmental impacts," but then proceeded to gloss over each and every one in summarily dismissing them as concerns in Part 3. The plaintiffs assert that the Board "failed to take a hard look at the relevant areas of environmental concern, failed to discuss what, if any, mitigation was contemplated to ensure the impact areas it identified as potentially significant would not be, never reviewed the criteria for determining environmental significance, and did not provide any basis for its determination whatsoever." Again, further details on their complaints, as well as how this SEQRA process is totally stacked in favor of the "lead agency" conducting it (in this case the Town Board), - which is free to interpret the issues in a way that favors their agenda - in this post.

A few points from the injunction:

- Particular emphasis is placed on the proximity of the casino site to the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, a "critical environmental resource," which is situated "in the middle of one of the busiest bird migration routes on the Atlantic Flyway." It's home to six bald eagle nests; and includes habitats for several other endangered species, including the pied-billed grebe.

Cute little guy, eh?

- The attorney for the Town Board openly admitted that the board failed to provide the required elaboration on Part 3. She provided her own text a full month later, and it was sent to SEQRA-related agencies as an attachment to Part 3, even though it was never adopted by the Town Board; not to mention subject to public comment. The document cites a past case in which the court declares that "post hoc rationalizations are not permitted."

- The item of potential environmental impact that I've been most incredulous about is the one regarding community character; the fact that the Town Board could so casually dismiss the notion that a giant casino would profoundly affect the character of a tiny rural town. The motion cites some past cases in which the court agreed with the plaintiffs in that regard, and notes:

The Casino Project Negative Declaration is as dubious as those annulled in the cases cited above - although those were for smaller projects. The two-year construction of an approximately $450 million casino complex, with significant parking for vehicles and a more than 287,500 sq. ft. building footprint, holding over 450,000 sq. ft. of total space, on an 85-acre parcel of farmland in a rural, agricultural community, will have an "undeniable impact" on the aesthetics of the area.

- The plaintiffs conclude that since they have demonstrated a "blatant failure" of the town to comply with SEQRA, they are "likely to succeed on the merits of this appeal;" and they request a preliminary injunction to halt construction that would cause them "irreparable harm." They hope that the case will be heard no later than early next month. We obviously wish them well.

- Meanwhile, Jeff Gural/Tioga Downs is, thus far, the only party participating in the re-opened bidding for a casino in the southern part of the Southern Tier. Still, Gural is going to have to sweeten his proposal, which was rejected in part because it was small in comparison to Lago; especially considering that he would only be adding on to an existing facility. Guess that cuts both ways, and the fact that he could be up and running in a matter of months did not outweigh size in the minds of the Location Board members. So, Gural is really piling on those amenities!

The new proposal will feature more amenities: a second restaurant, a miniature golf course, batting cages and a climbing wall. [Albany Times-Union]

Oh yeah, that should really do it!

Look, the problem with this whole thing is obvious to me, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with a putt-putt course and how many extra tens of thousands Gural is willing to throw in here. He's a polarizing guy to be sure, and I know a lot of people who will brook no dissent as to him being an evil man. I don't necessarily agree; I think he's an interesting guy and more complex than the villain he's made out to be. But here, he's tipped the process into the realm of the unacceptable and absurd. When he was passed over for a license, Gural stomped his feet and whined quite loudly that he spent $600,000 or $800,000 or whatever the real figure was on supporting the governor's referendum and how dare he be rewarded like this. So, what does the governor do; the same governor who has publicly pledged that he wouldn't interfere in this process? And who has decried the influence of money in politics? He writes to the board, asking them to reconsider, and they dutifully go along. Now, Gural is awkwardly pandering to the board, and this promises to become a cat and mouse game of how little he can add on and still convince the board to recommend a license for him (if that decision has not already been made for them).

Wow, talk about appearance! We always lament about how people in this state are able to buy influence and favor behind closed doors, but this is playing out right out in public. Wah wah Andrew, I spent all this money to support you, so I want my license. Oh OK Jeff, sorry, I'll tell my buddies on the board to give you one, don't worry, sorry that this happened. I mean, I think that they just can't give this guy a license under these circumstances. Can you imagine all the foot-stomping we'll have from the entitled in the future if Gural is ultimately rewarded for this kind of behavior with a casino? And I'd like to produce the negative campaign ad should Cuomo ever decide to run for some kind of higher office. Man.

- Opposition to Nassau OTB's plans to build their slots parlor at the old Fortunoff store in Westbury is gathering momentum. Here's yet another absolutely incredulous development that just does not reflect well on the governor and the process that he helped create. You just can't go through months of a process that went out of its way to accommodate public comment (if not, as the Tyre casino opponents and spurned applicants know, to accommodate all of the interested parties), and then allow an entity like OTB to summarily and unilaterally declare and decide that they're going to build a casino - or a slots parlor or whatever you want to call it, it's all really the same - wherever they want. You just can't. And remember, this slots parlor was not even subject to the referendum vote - the governor's casino law provided for them even if the referendum went down. So the residents of Westbury have had absolutely no say in this at any point in the process. Man.

Odds and Ends, Briefly (Kind Of)

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Mon, 05 Jan 2015 12:57:00 +0000

Greetings from the spectacularly beautiful island nation of Grenada! As I'd mentioned, the Head Chef and I are away on vacation to mark a special occasion, and we still have several more days to go. Once again, a happy, healthy and safe new year to all. Just checking in with a few thoughts while I have a wireless connection, but will endeavor to be uncharacteristically succinct so I can get back to doing not much of anything at all..

Governor Cuomo lost his dad on the same day that he was inaugurated for his second term. I wasn't much into state politics when Mario was governor, so, by far, I remember him most for his 1984 convention speech, and his flirtation with a presidential run. His far less articulate son will never be the keynote speaker at a Democratic convention, and likely will never be anointed as the party's presidential candidate at one. He has however done a graceful job of balancing his comments in the wake of the Eric Garner grand jury decision, the protests that it spurred, and the tragic and senseless cop killings that neither the protestors nor the mayor had anything to do with. I could go on a bit here....but I'm on vacation, remember? Having said that, one can surely understand why police officers would be inflamed by the mayor and police commissioner's deference towards Al Sharpton, who built his career by inflaming racial tensions with spectacular accusations when- and wherever he could get his then-fat face in front of a camera (at a time when that didn't come as easily as it does today). Our buddy and longtime reader jk posted an article from the Post about the Reverend's involvement with bidders for the Aqueduct casino.

- The governor's letter to the Location Board asking it to reopen the bidding for a casino in the real Southern Tier has the potential to open up a can of worms. Ulster County Executive Michael Hein wants the board to re-consider a license for the Nevele.

On a Tuesday letter to the Gaming Commission and its siting board, Hein, a strong supporter of the Nevele plan, wrote: “It is my strong belief, motivated by legislative intent and fairness, that the new round of applications includes the Catskills/Hudson Valley Region, not just the Eastern Southern Tier/Finger Lakes Region.” [Daily Freeman]

The Nevele was the only unsuccessful bidder in the Catskills/Hudson Valley region that was singled out in the board's final report; it noted that their financing was not complete. Hein noted that, back in the day, competition in the Catskills "was not a detriment, but rather fostered broad commercial success among a network of resorts." I imagine that Mohegan Sun and Louis Cappelli, rejected in their bid at the Concord, would share these sentiments as well.

This article, which I found at the Ithaca Journal site, is chock full of information about the tracks that are likely to be negatively affected by the controversial casino in Tyre; the non-Southern Tier selection in the Southern Tier region. Could go on extensively about it if I wasn't....you know. It's worth a read if you're interested in the subject. In summary though: Finger Lakes is screwed. In another example of something that those who wrote this law and created the gerrymandered Southern Tier region obviously didn't think about: Finger Lakes, only 27 miles from where Lago is supposed to be built, will not have purses supported by the Lago casino at 2013 levels because it is in Region 6. But Tioga Downs, which is nearly two hours away, will receive purse support because it's in the same Southern Tier region. Go figure that one out. Estimates as to how much business Finger Lakes will lose range from 21% (the study commissioned by Lago) to 50% (the track's estimate). Guess we can figure the real damage will be somewhere in between.

- Business is brisk for commercial real estate developers in Schenectady now that casino gambling is coming there.

Among those looking to benefit are property owners on a stretch of Erie Boulevard west of the casino site that has a hodge-podge of businesses and buildings, some of which are run-down, empty or not fully utilized. [Biz Journals]

All well and good....but these folks are presuming that the casino customers are going to stray outside the gaming floor that the Rivers Casino will be doing their best to keep them at. So, that's one of the many assumptions about these casinos that we'll just have to wait and see how they turn out.

- Nassau OTB has settled on the old Fortunoff's building on Old Country Road in Westbury for its VLT parlor. Those of you from my generation who grew up at the NY harness tracks know that Roosevelt was right there, so the location is more than just a bit ironic. It's also infuriating to some residents of the area.

Some local residents told Fox 5 it doesn't belong there and that they fear increased traffic and crime. The issue has even taken to social media with a Facebook page called Stop the Casino at Fortunoff. It has more than 1,700 likes. [MYFOXNY]

That all sounds quite familiar from the recent casino bidding. What is quite different though is that these residents didn't have a chance to express their concerns directly to the decision makers like those in the cities and towns targeted for casinos did (for whatever that was worth for those in Tyre). So, you can't blame those opposed to this gambling facility for being outraged.

- And finally, I noticed this photo essay in the Times.

Thoroughbred horse racing provides one of the great American spectacles: the magnificently chiseled athletes, the elemental contest of speed and power, the libidinal rush of personal fortunes won or lost by the margins of a split second. The photographer Theo Zierock, who spent last winter shooting Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, found none of that. What he found instead was a decaying building populated by lonely old men.

Well, first of all, I have to presume that "last winter" means a year ago. So, in addition to its appearance at this time being totally random, there have been improvements made to the facility since then; so that it's a bit less of a dump now than it was then. More importantly, it seems to me that if the photographer Theo Zierock really wanted to take photos of magnificently chiseled athletes, the elemental contest of speed and power, and the libidinal rush of personal fortunes won or lost by the margins of a split second rather than of lonely old men, he surely could have done so.

I myself have not been to the Big A since it opened in the fall; and, believe it or not, I can honestly say from this paradise that I don't miss it at all. I wouldn't call it a boycott. I just don't want to go there.

When I first started writing this blog ten years ago this month, this was one of my favorite times of the year to go to the track in NY. Forget the dismal inner track racing; I'd get there at 4 PM and spend the rest of the afternoon/early evening betting on races from Gulfstream, Fair Grounds, Oaklawn, Santa Anita, and just about whatever else was offered. Can't say how many other people were there in the back rooms of the second floor of the clubhouse; but the atmosphere was crackling. It was hardcore, but in a comfortable, if not elegant, setting. Over the last decade, with the continued deterioration of the plant - particularly in my second floor hangout, where the only attention paid was the unfortunate decision to install those horrible desk units, which totally changed the ambiance for the worse- combined with the ease of wagering at home, it has become a place where I don’t particularly want to spend the afternoon. I can't really remember the last time I walked in and wasn't wondering, within an hour, why the hell I was there.

I know, it's been prettied-and-cleaned up. But a prettied-and-cleaned-up dump is still a dump. And the old haunts on the second floor is the pleasantly functional Longshots bar that they now want even NYRA Rewards members to pay $5 to enter. I find that I just don’t want to pay that. It's not that the five bucks is gonna make me broke. I just don't want to pay it. Nor do I want to pay for overpriced food and drink. I'm just not interested in being an ATM for these guys in their pursuit of the mythical "profitable without slots" holy grail.

As we've noted, this whole notion of being "profitable without slots" is just a number on a piece of paper that means nothing in the real world. NYRA is dependent on slots revenue to support the purses that they use to compete with other slots states, and to promote their "big days," scheduled to be even bigger this year (oh joy). The slots revenue earmarked for capital projects allows NYRA to modernize their facilities in ways that facilitate increased revenue, mutuel and otherwise. And it no doubt helps to lessen the occurrence of maintenance and repair problems/emergencies that they'd have to pay for out of their operating expenses. So the idea that a number on an income statement means that NYRA could truly be profitable without slots is a fictional one. However, it is a number that will earn Chris Kay more bonuses and be highlighted on his resume when he moves on to his next gig. I do think that Kay is earnest about wanting horse racing to prosper in New York. But we also know that this is merely a step in his corporate career, and success, even if defined on his own terms, would be quite the feather in the cap.

None of the above is to belittle the pursuit of a NYRA that is able to prosper without the miserable machines next door, even though the political pressure to do so seems to have eased, at least for now. The last regime wanted to move in that direction organically, by replacing the void left by NYC OTB. This regime is doing so by trying to bleed the money from its customers. Speak to you again soon.

Cuomo Seeks A Do-Over

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Wed, 31 Dec 2014 15:46:00 +0000

When the Gaming Facility Location Board announced their three casino license recommendations a couple of weeks ago, we acknowledged that the process appeared to have been independent of outside influence - particularly that from the office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo - and admitted that we were wrong to predict and insist that that would not be the case.

But now, instead of interfering with the board's deliberations and decisions behind closed doors while the process was ongoing, the governor is doing so right out in the open, asking it to reconvene and reconsider its refusal to issue a license to the Southern Tier....the "true" Southern Tier, that is.

"The Binghamton area is tied for the region with the highest unemployment rate in upstate New York, and stands to benefit greatly from new jobs and economic development in the region," the letter states. Cuomo wrote that he wants the siting board to consider issuing a new request for application "to seek a qualified applicant to submit a new bid" for the fourth license in the "true Southern Tier." [Albany Times Union]

The governor is trying to get a do-over. You know. A do-over. You remember. When the whiny and entitled kid in the street or playground pick-up game would demand that a play that didn't go his/her way be re-played. "I wasn't ready!" "I called time out!" "The ball hit the wire!" "A car was coming!" "Sally farted in my face!"

In this case, the lead crybaby was Jeff Gural...though, to be fair, he was leading a chorus of complaints from not only those in the Southern Tier who felt they were bypassed unfairly and unwisely, but from those who questioned the decision from around the state as well. And we don't at all disagree with those cries. The decision to award the Southern Tier region license to a location well north of it - one which is already filled with gambling options; and in a little rural town where opposition to a casino is adamant - was a baffling one, no doubt.

But the problem is this: Cuomo's letter to the board comes not long after Gural, acting like the entitled crybaby that some consider him to be, ranted and raved like....well....an entitled crybaby.

""Um, I was asked to help get the law passed. I spent about $800,000 of my own money to get Proposition One passed, only to get put out of business. I mean, I, I think it’s a joke to be honest with you."
.......
"And what really pisses me off is the governor asked me to spend $800,000 of my money to pass Local Law 1, Proposition One? What was that all about? I mean—why would—the whole thing is sickening to be honest with you." [Capital New York]

So, for the governor to react shortly thereafter by appealing to the board - which is made up of a co-chairman of his first gubernatorial campaign, another former campaign aide who he later appointed to chair a state agency, two gentlemen who he appointed to their current co-chairmanships of a regional economic development council, and another whose wife, a current Westchester District Attorney, he once appointed to head a prominent ethics committee - to let the crybaby get his way, seems rather inappropriate. Though hardly atypical or surprising. Sure, Cuomo's letter couches his intentions in an effort to "excite national competition by interested parties that submit even better applications than the first round." But nobody really believes that any parties other than Gural and Tioga Downs would be interested in a region in which no outside companies were interested even before Atlantic City casinos started going broke, making it increasingly apparent that the northeast is over-saturated with gambling facilities. Nor that this is anything other than a direct effort to set things right with a person who actively supported one of his key initiatives with his mouth and his money.

The governor, having sat out the casino selection process, contrary to every bone in his body and perhaps due to federal investigations into the Moreland Commission which we have good reason to believe are underway, can no longer help himself. If the board's recommendations served to quash your belief that there were no stated or implied understandings whatsoever when the NYGA agreed at the last minute to not oppose the casino referendum, these developments should serve to make you think again, as I have. And, again, none of this is to mean that, strictly on the facts on the ground, Cuomo is wrong to ask the board to reconsider what would indeed appear to be a questionable omission. It's just that the way it has come about, and considering these persons involved, as well as the history of inside dealing behind closed doors that Albany, and this administration in particular, is notorious for, makes it all seem quite unseemly. To put it one way. Though equally quite typical.

- The Head Chef and I are currently down in Florida; and, as we are marking a special celebration as the calendar turns to 2015, we will be headed towards climes even further south of here on New Year's Day for an extended vacation. So, I'm thinking that you likely won't be hearing from me for a bit! A Happy, Healthy, and Safe New Year to all, and thanks, as always, for your readership and support.

Expected Reactions in an Unexpected Place

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Tue, 23 Dec 2014 14:58:00 +0000

The language in the reactions we heard last week regarding the selection of the Lago Resort & Casino in Tyre was the kind that we thought we might be hearing from aggrieved casino supporters in the Catskills had licenses been issued to Orange County applicants instead.

"Something's wrong," Broome County Executive Debbie Preston said. "It's a slap in the face to the people of Broome County and the people of the Southern Tier." [PressConnects]

.......

State Sen. Catharine Young, R-Olean, called the news "a punch in the gut to the Southern Tier." [Syracuse.com]

.......

"To not pick a Southern Tier location — Seneca County, in all due respect, is not in the Southern Tier," [Sen. Tom] Libous said. "I'm extremely upset. I'm very, very disappointed." [PressConnects]

.......

A day after the casino vote last year, Cuomo showed up in Binghamton and applauded the addition of new licenses as he stood in front of a podium with a sign that read: "Funding for Schools ... Jobs for the Southern Tier." [PressConnects Editorial]

Well, no casino jobs for the Southern Tier; at least what those living in that part of the state would consider to be the Southern Tier. As in....the actual southern tier. The above-referred-to editorial continues:

As Cuomo said at the time: "We're losing over a billion dollars to the neighboring casinos — New Jersey has casinos, Pennsylvania has casinos, Connecticut has casinos."

Cuomo was right.

If a Binghamton resident decides to go to a full-service casino, that gambler likely drives 76 miles south in Pennsylvania to the Mohegan Sun casino in Wilkes-Barre. After all, Turning Stone Resort and Casino is 87 miles north. Others in New York are even farther away.

Of course, not everybody up in the Finger Lakes region is thrilled about the decision either....especially those in Tyre who have been trying to block the construction of a casino there. The CasinoFreeTyre group, unsuccessful thus far with their legal actions, will try again; this time, asserting that the developers' plans grew larger between the time that they were, controversially, approved by the Town Board, and the time that they were formally submitted to the Gaming Commission. That may sound like a technicality.....but recall that a judge ruled in the previous lawsuit that the town was not required to post the SEQRA forms on their website because it didn't have a high speed connection. So maybe technicality is a language the court will better understand than it did common sense.

And the horsemen at the Finger Lakes warned that a casino in Tyre could put the track out of business.

If actions are not taken by state officials to protect purse account levels and avoid a drop in state tax rates paid by the state, Brown said "racing at Finger Lakes will be gone in two to three years." He said 90% of his 500 members could not stay in business if purse levels drop below the $20 million or so mark they've been running in recent years. [Bloodhorse]

Kevin Law, the chairperson of the Location Board, told reporters that the decision was between Lago and nothing....prompting Jeff Gural to call that the stupidest statement I've ever heard anybody make in my whole life. And, in that interview, Gural again demonstrated the sense of entitlement that he had about this process.

"I finished the garage. I spent a quarter of a million dollars on Winterfest, thinking I would get the license. And I got screwed." [PressConnects]

In an absolutely delicious bit of irony, Gural is conducting a joint press conference on Tuesday morning along with Traditions at the Glen, the other unsuccessful applicant in the so-called Southern Tier region. There - and I am writing this before the press conference whereas you are likely reading this afterwards - he and Traditions are reportedly set to announce a joint effort to win the 4th casino license which was expected to be awarded in the Catskills/Hudson Valley region, but which was withheld by the Board. You may recall that Gural had previously scoffed at the notion of a cooperative effort with his competitor when it had been raised by Traditions CEO Bill Walsh a few months ago.

"We don't see any kind of partnership down the road at all with Traditions, and I think that our chances of getting the license are pretty excellent," said Gural.
...........
"Truthfully, I think if (Traditions owner Bill Walsh) won the bid, he would go broke," said Gural. "I told him that. I don't think that there are enough customers for both of us." [WBNG]

Well, as Gural most colorfully informed us last week, he's wealthy and is in no danger of going broke himself. Unexpected developments often bring unexpected bedfellows. And I guess Gural has changed his mind about there not being enough customers to go around.

Location Board Gets Two out of Three (Not Four) Almost Right

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 14:20:00 +0000

The Gaming Facility Location Board has spoken, and no, their decision did not favor the politically connected bidders as I'd anticipated would be the case. If there was a backroom deal with members of the New York Gaming Association in the weeks preceding the referendum vote in November, 2013, it was obviously scrapped and left on the editing room floor. Jeff Gural, the owner of Tioga Downs, and James Featherstonhaugh of Saratoga Raceway and Casino are both left without their coveted casino licenses. Instead of sticking to the script of intervention, influence, and interference which is well worn in Albany, particularly with the sitting governor of New York, the board did their job earnestly and independently, so it seems. I'm happy to admit that I was wrong, though I will offer no apologies for the nature of my suspicions.

That said, I don't think that the location board got this all right. And they surely showed zero sense of drama! They led off with the most anticipated aspect of their decision, revealing right off the bat that there would be only three license recommendations, with none of them awarded to an Orange County bidder. Which, as you may recall, wasn't really the idea in the first place. Not sure what the point of that entire Orange County exercise was, other than to cause a lot of angst and a lot of wasted time, effort, and money on the part of those who mounted bids for a facility there (including money that was directed to well-connected lobbyists and to politicians' campaign funds).

It also appeared as if the board didn't succeed in keeping their decision entirely to themselves. Trading in the stock of Empire Resorts, set now, pending final licensing by the Gaming Commission, to be the operator of the Montreign casino at the old Concord resort in Thompson, NY in Sullivan County, was frenetic in the days leading up to the decision. The stock (NYNY, and I still don't understand how they got that symbol!), flirting around 6 1/2 on Dec 12, rallied to 8 on Tuesday on heavy volume. (It soared to 9 after the announcement before selling, and perhaps some buyers' remorse, took hold and drove it down to 7.13 by the end of Wednesday's trading session.) And I was surprised on Wednesday morning to see that I was now being followed on Twitter by Galesi Group, who teamed with Rush Street Gaming on the winning bid for the Rivers Casino and Resort in Schenectady. Perhaps that didn't mean anything, and I don't mean to be presumptuous enough to think that anyone there or anywhere really cares about what I write or think; but I wouldn't think that the folks at Galesi would be curious to see what anyone had to say on Twitter if they didn't think they were going to be selected.

The third license, awarded to Wilmorite for their Lago Resort and Casino in Tyre, is where I think this board really went off the track, ethically and logistically. We'll get to that in a moment.

The recommendation for Montreign is surely no surprise, even to those who weren't trading NYNY stock, given its location in the Catskills, an area which has been practically begging for casino gambling for decades. It's a lavish proposal with all of those amenities which we're told will attract gamblers to travel to upstate NY from NYC and beyond; an unproven concept which has no precedent here. Just go their homepage, roll over the letters as instructed to see all of the nonsense intended to dazzle and distract from the facility's true purpose - to get people onto the gaming floor and keep them there as long as possible.

I have some mixed feelings about their selection. Of all of the regions that were considered, the Catskills is surely the one which warranted a casino given its history as a faded resort area, the enthusiastic support there, and the long effort to bring this to fruition. So, even as someone who opposes the whole idea of expanding gaming in the state, it's hard to argue with this location. And it's great news for the horsemen at Monticello, who recently concluded a deal with management which depended on Empire getting the casino. It guarantees the existence of the racetrack for the next nine years, and grants the horsemen, in lieu of a share of casino revenues, equity in the company (which they may wish they had when the stock was at 9 yesterday).

On the other hand, Mohegan Sun's proposal for a casino on an adjacent slice of the Concord property seemed slightly less cynical and insincere than most of the others in the state; and may have provided more wide-ranging benefits in the region. The company's CEO, Mitchell Grossinger Etess, has family roots in the area, and may really have cared about revitalizing it instead of just paying lip service to the idea in order to line his own pockets. His proposal would have included a revival of Grossinger's (which the Etess family used to operate), as well as commercial development in the city of Monticello. (Etess said afterwards that he is "happy for Sullivan and wish Montreign the best of luck.”) In its explanation of its decision, the board did not specify any negatives about the Mohegan Sun proposal (as opposed to the Nevele, which it noted had not completed its financing); only that Montreign is "a more comprehensive and well-measured proposal."

Schenectady was also no surprise; indeed, the rumors that it was the leading candidate had been swirling for weeks. It fits the bill in that it's a city that has struggled financially (though already in the process of a revitalization); and the location, along the riverfront on a long-abandoned industrial site, seems a logical one; it doesn't sit squarely in a residential area like others will or would have. However, the sentiment was hardly unanimous in favor of the casino; there was opposition to the proposal there. Didn't cover it much here, and, in fact, when I did, I got yelled at by someone from the group for belittling the notion that the casino would prey on students at Union College (from which I graduated a really long time ago). Indeed, the school again expressed concerns after the decision.

Personally, while acknowledging the proximity of the campus to where the facility will be and the potential to lure students, I still think that the casino presents more profound problems than preying on students whose parents are spending $60,000 a year to send them there; I'd be more concerned about the community college myself. The Stop the Schenectady Casino group, seeming resigned to the decision on its website, outlined some of those concerns, particularly those of problem gaming, and the need to "protect the Historic Stockade neighborhood from an increase in traffic that will almost surely reduce the quality of life in the neighborhood, and threaten the integrity of its historic structures." (Preserving that neighborhood was the original goal of this group before they pivoted to the casino.)

That brings us to Tyre. Along with East Greenbush, where Saratoga harness' proposal, led in part in a most arrogant posture by Morgan Hook of the lobbying firm SKDKnickerbocker, was most rightfully denied in the face of the fierce opposition there (though the board would only acknowledge that "the level of public support....was significantly less" than the other proposals), Tyre was where I heard the most from residents terrified at the prospect of a casino destroying the nature of their residential area. I feel terrible for the people there who will be affected. Imagine living your life in a quiet area, minding your own business, and some millionaire dude comes along to plop a 24 hour casino right next door. I wrote extensively about Tyre in this post, and here I'll once again post the Google Maps satellite views - one closer and one wider - of the rural area where this casino would be built.

The red sign post is where the Dawley family lives, and, should this casino indeed be built, their lives and those of their neighbors will surely never be the same. The residents have mounted court challenges which have thus far been entirely futile. They've targeted the environmental review process (SEQRA) which, as we detailed here, is designed to be manipulated by the "lead agency" - in this case, the town itself - to fit its agenda. The Town Board members simply declared that the casino would have no significant environmental impact on community character, and - poof - it became so. One need only to look at the above photos to realize that that assertion is nonsensical and self-serving. So, we hope that the community will endeavor to carry on their legal challenge. It seems unconscionable that the location board would allow a casino to be constructed there.

And that's besides the fact that this award to the Southern Tier region is not actually in the southern tier of the state, as we discussed here. Despite the fact that Governor Cuomo again reiterated yesterday that these casinos will act as a "magnet" to lure New York City residents to Upstate destinations, I can virtually assure you that no one - and I mean nobody - from the city is going to be traveling up to Tyre to gamble, I don't care how many scenic lakes there may be. (And in fact, I highly doubt they would have traveled to one at Tioga Downs either....and it surely remains to be seen if they do so to the Catskills or Schenectady). It's been estimated that as much as 80% of the business in Tyre will simply be gamblers relocated from Turning Stone or Vernon Downs or the Finger Lakes; and though that's a self-serving estimate by Turning Stone, it makes far more sense to me than the idea of a family trip from Manhattan.

As you might imagine, Tioga Downs' owner Jeff Gural is not very happy about this.

“I’m totally shocked. I really am. I didn’t think that, first of all, I didn't think that they belonged in the competition, they’re not in the Southern Tier..

“The governor came to Binghamton and announced this and promised the people of the Southern Tier a casino....Um, I was asked to help get the law passed. I spent about $800,000 of my own money to get Proposition One passed, only to get put out of business. I mean, I, I think it’s a joke to be honest with you." [Capital New York]

Note here that the amount that Gural spent to get the referendum passed has suddenly gone up from $600,000! And here we see the sense the entitlement that Gural, and surely also Feathers, had about this. And he went on, and on, and on....

“It will hurt me at Vernon. But, I don't give a shit about me, I’m wealthy."
....
"It’ll hurt me at Vernon eventually. I wouldn't be surprised if Finger Lakes closes. This is a devastating impact on the racinos in the state that have provided millions of dollars to the state and our thanks is this idiotic decision? It’s a disgrace. No fracking and no casinos? Why don’t you just tell them they should all move someplace else?”
....
“I mean I was concerned, to be honest, that they had a committee of people who knew nothing about the industry, and that’s what you get, you know? I think they’re well-intentioned, but how, they certainly screwed Turning Stone and they put Finger Lakes out of business. They probably put Vernon Down out of business. So basically, they put two casinos out of business and screwed the third one.”
.....
"And what really pisses me off is the governor asked me to spend $800,000 of my money to pass Local Law 1, Proposition One? What was that all about? I mean—why would—the whole thing is sickening to be honest with you."

The reference to fracking is with respect to Cuomo's announcement that he will ban the practice in the state; curious that he would make that long-anticipated decision on the same day as this one! Not sure which one he was trying to distract attention from! (Of course, I'm sure there are some, if not many, in the Southern Tier who believe that yesterday's developments saved them from the ill effects of gambling, air pollution, and contamination of the water supply.) In making the fracking announcement, Dr. Howard A. Zucker, the acting state health commissioner, noted that his review boiled down to a simple question: Would he want his family to live in a community where fracking was taking place? [NY Times] That's obviously not the approach that the location board took in deciding to site a casino in the residential town of Tyre.

It's Show (and Tell) Time for Location Board

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Tue, 16 Dec 2014 05:28:00 +0000

It's a busy time of year, so sorry again for the sparse posting of late, as the announcement of the Location Board's recommendations in the casino sweepstakes fast approaches.

However, the action will really just be getting started once Kevin Law tells us who the winners and losers are (and it's subject to one's interpretation as to whether the winners are the winners or the losers) some time shortly after 2 PM on Wednesday. The reactions from the developers and the communities will surely span the full gamut of emotions ranging from euphoria to rage, and either, or both, will likely be heard and felt from winners and losers alike. Some will appeal directly to Governor Cuomo, questioning how the results comport with the spirit of the casino law. Some of the bitterness could spill into the legal arena.

Then the Gaming Commission will begin their process of assessing each of the recommended candidate's licensability, with the help of the State Police. As I've pointed out, recent history suggests that the ultimate result could differ from what these gentlemen come up with on Wednesday; I'd rate the chances at around 25% that that turns out to be the case. That phase will be another chance for the meddling governor to meddle. This location board is one thing. Despite the fact that it's comprised entirely of men with past ties to the governor - some more so than others - they seem to be earnest about their task, and we can only hope that the two members, at least, who I'd surmise are certainly on Cuomo's contacts list haven't been getting gubernatorial texts in the middle of the night. But the Gaming Commission is Cuomo's commission. If, for some reason, he has a strong opinion against any of these development teams, it's hard to believe that this commission will proceed contrary to his wishes.

Regardless of whether or not that's the case, you can be sure that not all of the losing developers are just going to slink away. One can expect a plentiful helping of mud to be slung towards those winning teams in whom the others may sense some vulnerabilities with respect to their licensability.

And, of course, once everything is worked out, we shall see just how fast they get built, how many good jobs they really create, how much business they bring to (or suck from) surrounding communities, how their results stack up against their projections, how many local customers declare bankruptcy or lose their homes.

But it will all start on Wednesday. The Public Notification issued by Gaming Commission would qualify, I believe, as being cryptic:

MEETING AGENDA

1. Call to Order

2. Consideration of Meeting Minutes for December 9, 2014

3. Consideration of Recommendations of Gaming Facility Applicants for Gaming Commission Licensure

4. Adjourn

So, let the licensure-ing begin! You'll be able to watch the proceedings live via the Gaming Commission homepage; I'm sure they'll be a direct link right here somewhere come game time if it's still not there now. And of course, Twitter will be the place to be for those of us who just have to experience the world in real time. Unfortunately, I expect to be otherwise occupied, and I'm fine with finding out an hour later (though not much more than that!). But I'm sure that you can get live updates here, amongst many other places.

I guess I should try to squeeze in some picks, which I will endeavor to do at some point on Tuesday. But seriously, other than my original suspicions towards those who I consider to be politically favored, I have no idea at this point. And I don't think anyone else really does either. "There are a million rumors running around, but nobody knows anything." So said Thomas Wilmot, hoping to build the Lago Resort and Casino in Tyre (one of the scenarios which would definitely spur a flurry of legal action). We've heard the rumor about Schenectady having an inside track; this above-linked-to article on Syracuse.com refers to the belief that the Catskills will get two licenses after and despite all the angst over Orange County. That's what everyone assumed would be the case when this started.

I don't know where any such rumors would be coming from though. I wonder, as I write this as midnight approaches on Monday, whether the location board itself knows definitively what they're going to announce.

- In the meantime, VLT's are coming to Long Island, likely before any of these casinos are up and running (with the possible exception of Tioga Downs, where Gural says he can have casino table games up in six months). As you may recall, Governor Cuomo inserted a provision that provided for VLT parlors whether the casino referendum passed or not. Since it did, we get both, oh goodie! Both Nassau and Suffolk OTB have plans for 1,000 machine facilities; "slots in a box" as the Times article refers to them. One thing to be said about that: it at least dispenses the hypocrisy about some of the window dressing that we've seen in the casino proposals. No idyllic gardens or ponds here; just a bunch of machines catering to mindless gambling......to the tune of some $150 million in net profits a year expected at the Nassau facility.

One thing's for sure: whatever Cuomo's motivation was for supporting these smaller VLT parlors - a bone for Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, a hedge against the referendum being defeated, or simply a further effort to bleed more out of the gambling stone - one can be sure that he wasn't thinking about the fortunes of the racing industry. While Yonkers could lose a very small piece of its action (GM Bob Galterio did note during his FIOS interview that they've managed to maintain a number of customers from Long Island even after Resorts World opened), one would think that the Big A racino would surely stand to lose out the most. And for NYRA, it's a potential double whammy: Any reduction in Resorts World action would negatively effect payments for purses and infrastructure.....while the new slots parlors will be new competition for Long Island OTB dollars that presently go to racing. [UPDATE: Reader Dan points out that the NYRA horsemen will get a portion of this slots revenue. Mr. Hegarty reported last year that it's 2.75% to horsemen and .5% to breeders.)

Is Schenectady Casino in the Bag?

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Sat, 06 Dec 2014 17:00:00 +0000

Hi. Hope everyone had a great holiday!

As I'm sure you know by now, the next meeting of the location board, scheduled for December 17, is expected to produce the announcement of its recommendations as to who to license for up to four casinos in the state. And let's emphasize again that these will be exactly that: recommendations to the Gaming Commission, which will ultimately decide whether or not to issue the licenses accordingly. It's not an insignificant point, considering that the last two big decision processes of this sort that we've covered here over ten years of being Left at the Gate ended with a twist: Governor Paterson himself selected AEG to get the Big A racino, but it ended up with Genting; and, an Ad Hoc Committee selected Excelsior Racing to get the racing franchise in 2006, but Governor Spitzer ultimately went back to NYRA (a longer and more complex story to be sure).

In a concerted push for the Hard Rock proposal in Rensselaer, just outside of Albany at the Amtrak station, mayor Dan Dwyer and some 30 other elected officials gathered at the site on Wednesday to announce their support.

What impact the announcements will have on the selection process is unknown, said McDonald, of Cohoes, and a fellow Democrat, state Sen. Neil Breslin of Bethlehem.

With time running out, the group deemed it worth making the public effort within sight of the state Capitol. They brought in for support Democratic Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy of Albany and three retired state lawmakers: Republicans Roy J. McDonald, who represented Saratoga in the state Senate, and Bob Reilly of Colonie, who served in the Assembly, and Democrat Jack McEneny, who was an Albany assemblyman. [Albany Times Union]

Additionally, Mayor Dwyer announced the completion of the previously-contemplated deal with Albany to pay the city $1.1 million annually from gaming revenue, and commit to job opportunities for residents. Dwyer had previously insisted on exclusivity, which was thwarted when Albany Mayor Sheehan reached a similar, yet different, agreement with the Capital View project in East Greenbush.

Rensselaer's payments will come for the city's annual $5 million to $5.7 million host community payment, while the payment for East Greenbush would be made by the casino developer. The money from Rensselaer would go to the city's general fund. The East Greenbush developer would pay Capitalize Albany, the city's economic development wing.

This above-linked-to Times Union piece serves to support those loud whispers we've been hearing that Schenectady has the inside track on this thing, and portrays this as a last ditch effort to persuade the Gaming Commission that Hard Rock is the best option. Columnist Chris Churchill, writing for the same paper, goes further, writing that the notion that this is in the bag for Schenectady is "widespread amont insiders."

That suggests the deal between Albany and Rensselaer, officially announced Wednesday, could be a Hail Mary by a casino team that's desperate and realizing it's not going to win.

Or maybe, just maybe, the deal is a response to a whispered message from someone in state government that sounded something like this: "Listen, we want to give this to you. But you need to bolster your local support before we can."

As troubling as it would be for the integrity of the gaming commission's process, the second scenario seems as likely as the first. And that would mean Schenectady doesn't have the casino competition wrapped up after all.

To me, the developers of the proposed Rivers Casino and Resort, on the shores of the Mohawk River in Schenectady, bring precisely the kind of concerns that has the potential, however slight one may believe it to be, to cause the kind of licensing issues that could lead to the type of twist we mentioned above. Rush Street has received negative publicity over its involvement in the development of casino-type games aimed at kids; and has been the subject of intense criticism by the UNITE Here union over its labor practices. And Och-Ziff Capital Management, who would solely provide the funding, is a subsidiary of a company being investigated by the SEC for investments said to prop up the brutal reign of Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe. [Ooops, they are actually the Hard Rock funding arm, sorry for the mixup.]

Churchill also criticizes Och-Ziff Capital for not being willing to make the payments to Albany itself, as Capital View is proposing for East Greenbush, rather than have it taken out of casino revenues that may otherwise flow to the city of Rensselaer.

Och-Ziff isn't even donating to the other newly announced sweetener of the proverbial pot: a pledge of $500,000 to build a dock for the Half Moon, the financially troubled replica ship. That money would come from the city of Rensselaer, along with casino partners Flaum Management and Capital District OTB.

Not Getting the Memo on Cuomo

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Mon, 24 Nov 2014 14:08:00 +0000

It seems as if not everyone has gotten the memo that the governor is not involved in the casino selection process. Last week, it was reported that Republican Senator James Steward had written to Cuomo (copying in the location board) to advocate on behalf of Howe Caverns, referring to the casino law's intent of creating jobs and funding for schools.

“It is clear that no other site better fulfills these strict criteria, no other will another have a more profound regional impact, than the Howe Caverns Resort and Casino,” Seward wrote in the letter dated Nov. 14. “It is projected to deliver 20 percent more revenue to the Schoharie County budget, create 3,000 construction jobs and nearly 2,000 permanent positions.” [Capital New York]

I've considered Howe Caverns to be an interesting longshot. Though its revenue projections come in below that of the other three Capital District applicants, it enjoys wide community support in a region that was devastated by Hurricane Irene. And, as Senator Steward also noted, it is located far enough from Saratoga to not pose much of a threat at all to the racino there. Remember that the state collects a higher tax rate on the existing VLT parlors than it will on casinos, so it's certainly in the state's interest to try and prevent cannibalization there.

As if that wasn't enough, Governor Cuomo received some additional reading material last week; this from two lawmakers supporting the Hard Rock casino in Rensselaer.

"We believe that opportunities for employment and tourism will extend to both sides of the river in Albany and Rensselaer Counties," the letter states. " ... Issues such as transportation, job training and employment are critical to our constituency and will be of utmost importance with regard to this project." [Albany Times Union]

And why exactly was this letter addressed to the uninvolved Governor of New York?

"At the end of the day ... the members of the (Gaming) Commission are appointed by the Legislature, yes, but also by the governor," [Assemblyman John] McDonald [of Cohoes] said in an interview.

Indeed. And the Gaming Commission, which ostensibly made the selections to the location board, happened to pick five gentleman who all have varying degrees of ties to Cuomo; two of them, in particular, held key posiitons on Cuomo's 2010 campaign team. So, you can't blame these legislators for sending their letters the governor's way.

Mentioned in the article about Rensselaer are a "flurry of rumors" regarding the Capital District license, which are apparently pointing towards Schenectady. I recently read a quote from Rennselaer mayor Dan Dwyer to that effect. If those rumors turn out to be true (and I can't really imagine where they'd be coming from), the license award would be going to Rush Street Gaming despite a concerted effort by the Unite HERE union to discredit the company on grounds of unfair and mean-spirited labor practices. And there has also been bad publicity regarding the company's involvement in gaming apps marketed to kids. (Rush Street is also involved with Saratoga harness in their Newburgh bid.) Should the location board select this project despite those concerns, you can expect the union to keep the heat on as the Gaming Commission considers the issue of the company's licensability.

We're told that the location board will indeed make their announcement at their next meeting, whenever that might be. I'll believe that when I see it. These guys have a lot to consider; that's an understatement to be sure. One thing that I'll repeat here.....and perhaps there's no need, because, hopefully, the location board members have, at some point, visited all of the proposed casino sites; though if they have, they must have done so quietly. If they haven't, then I don't see how they can be getting the whole picture. The trip that the Head Chef and I took up to Ellenville, home of the proposed Nevele casino, a couple of weeks ago really opened my eyes. It's one thing to read and hear about how the Catskills proponents are concerned about a casino in Orange County. It's another thing to take the trip up there and pass by, one by one, the signposts for towns with proposed casino sites off Route 17 on the way from NYC and the Catskills region.....and yes, that includes Newburgh, despite what Saratoga harness wants you to believe.

Similarly, I don't see how one can fully appreciate the concerns of the residents of East Greenbush that live near the proposed site there without seeing the surroundings for oneself, as I did; and I'm sure that goes for places like Tyre and Tuxedo as well. If the board is having trouble making a decision and/or coming to a consensus, then I'd recommend that they take a couple of days off from their day jobs and do their due diligence, if they haven't already done so. As they should have.

Casino Selections Hurdle Towards New Year

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 13:18:00 +0000

We're told that the Gaming Facility Location Board is "closing in" on their decision on where, and to whom, to recommend the issuance of up to four casino licenses; but it won't come at Friday's closed door meeting. "We expect to be able to make a decision at our next meeting,” Kevin Law wrote to Gaming Commission Mark Gearan. But we don't yet know exactly when that meeting will be....mid-December is the target. However, once you get to that time of year, the holidays loom and people have the tendency to put things off until the new year. I would not at all be shocked if that happens here.

The longer this thing goes on, the more it veers off the ambitious timetable that had been set by Governor Cuomo, who had one time actually envisioned casino money starting to flow by the early months of 2015. And the more it veers off course, the more I start to believe that maybe.....just possibly.....the outcome will not be what I've always believed to be one that was pre-ordained in the days/weeks leading up to the casino referendum vote. That was when the New York Gaming Association flipped its stance and agreed to not oppose the referendum after flipping its stance to one of opposition. The thinking here all along has been that then-NYGA president James Featherstonhaugh, along with Jeff Gural and, perhaps, Genting (who has had a complicated history with the governor, but who surely had the money and the means to influence the vote's outcome) would have the inside track via a closed-door deal with the governor. That may still indeed end up being the case. But if it does, these guys are sure doing a convincing job of going through the motions!

Tom Noonan was nice enough to drop by last week and point out that with a grand jury looking into allegations that Cuomo interfered with the investigations of the Moreland Commission, the governor and his staff would have to be a clueless and arrogant fool to interfere with a competitive procurement. Especially considering the scandal over the selection of the Aqueduct racino. That's surely a very fair point. However, one might have thought that, with US Attorney Preet Bharara squarely focused on the matter, Cuomo would have had to have been a clueless and arrogant fool to tamper with that investigation by orchestrating a coordinated response by Moreland participants willing to say that there was no interference. Maybe Bharara's furious reaction to that action gave the governor pause about his meddling behavior. Still, these casinos are his baby, and it's extremely difficult to believe that he's not actively monitoring the deliberations. And that his preferences have or will not be expressed to a board which includes people with whom he has worked closely in the past.

But in any event, and no matter what Cuomo is or is not doing, the longer this thing drags on, you gotta believe that Gural and Feathers are shitting their pants. Surely they must have felt, at the very least, entitled to a license when this process started. But now, it all seems to be up for grabs....seemingly at least. And both of them have some serious issues with their bids. For Gural, it's the fact that his revenue and employment projections are incremental to what his Tioga Downs racino is producing now; it's the only existing racino bidding to expand into a casino. That was the point of the ad attacking the Tioga bid that Lago ran, even if it didn't have the facts straight. You may recall at the oral presentation, Gural was called out on his projection of 1200 jobs, and sheepishly admitted that only 900 of those positions would be new ("we're allowed to present it like that").

As for Feathers, he picked up his stake in Saratoga, a place where there was some staunch opposition to expanding his existing racino, and landed in the middle of a residential area in East Greenbush, where the opposition is stauncher still. In my opinion, an award to his Capital View casino there would belie any claim that the process is legitimate. And his Newburgh bid relies on a notion that it would "complement and not compete" with a Catskills casino which, as I pointed out in this post, is a bunch of unadulterated hogwash. I would hope that the location board members took that same drive that I did up towards the Catskills to visit each of the sites (don't know if they've actually done so, as they certainly should have by now); then they would have seen the arrogant lie behind the Newburgh narrative for themselves.

Don't Expect Much From NYRA "Re-Privatization"

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 14:06:00 +0000

Gary Pretlow, the chairman of the Assembly Racing Committee, feels that NYRA is not "ready to go on their own" as of yet.

The warnings by Pretlow and the hesitation by his Senate committee counterpart to give a green light now to any of NYRA's still-developing plans signal some potential bumps for next year's scheduled end of state oversight of NYRA.

Though NYRA uses the term "re-privatization" to describe the scheduled end next fall of the state's control of its operations, Pretlow made clear he will oppose any effort that might arise to make NYRA a truly private corporation.

"It remains a franchise under the state of New York and nothing else is really acceptable," Pretlow said. [Bloodhorse]

I think that last point is something that was conveniently overlooked when we heard talk about re-privatization meaning a New York Racing Association that was owned and operated by Churchill Downs or Frank Stronach. The 2008 franchise agreement runs through 2033 and quite explicitly states that the New NYRA "is the not-for profit racing corporation incorporated pursuant to Section 402 of the Not-For-Profit Corporation Law of the State of New York." So, it would require a lot of legislative effort, at the very least, to effect a change as drastic as NYRA becoming part of an out-of-state for-profit entity. It's not going to happen. I think that for all of the talk and speculation about the "re-privatization" of NYRA, it could be largely a non-event.

In fact, I think this whole state takeover thing just about qualifies as a non-event itself. The fact is that NYRA was already under state control. The Franchise Oversight Board was established in the franchise agreement to oversee the operations, and should NYRA not satisfy a list of Performance Standards that were written vaguely enough ("NYRA shall use its best reasonable efforts to maximize attendance..") to give it wide discretion, the FOB can threaten a revocation of the franchise. It was that threat which forced NYRA to reorganize its board to Cuomo's wishes in the first place. And though we read about how the new board is "dominated by Cuomo appointees," it consists of largely familiar faces. Nothing really drastic has occurred here.

Of course, that's not to say that things are not different than they might have been had the so-called takeover not transpired. Surely, the old NYRA board would have gone in a different direction in choosing a new CEO, and he - or she (ha) - would have brought in a different executive team.
And while they would have faced the same issues - pressure to improve the financials separate from VLT money, the general decline in national handle, the future of Aqueduct (punted by this board), safety and medication issues, and a big wad of VLT cash with which to install much needed capital improvements - a different team may very well have taken a different approach. Perhaps it would have focused on filling the void left by NYC OTB to fill its financial coffers instead of bleeding its customers for extra cash; or declined to be as hostile to the press and as non-transparent as this regime as proven to be. (And a half hour session with customers at 10 AM on a Sunday morning at Aqueduct doesn't really change the latter.)

However, structurally and functionally as a corporation, I'd guess that things won't be all that much different when the three year period ends as it would have been if the governor hadn't been interested in staging his brief political show in reaction to the 2011-12 spate of breakdowns at Aqueduct and the takeout "scandal" which was portrayed as "robbing" bettors of millions of dollars. The franchise agreement will remain in place, and NYRA will still be subject to the Franchise Oversight Board and the performance standards set forth. It will almost be like nothing ever happened.

Number of Casino Awards Going South?

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 13:23:00 +0000

An editorial last week in the Binghamton-based Press & Sun-Bulletin wants to know exactly how Tyre, NY - where Wilmorite is seeking to build their Lago Resort & Casino despite concerted opposition in the town - got involved in the competition for the Southern Tier license in the first place.

The rub here is that — as stupid and suspicious as it sounds — the state for casino licensing purposes has chosen to define the "Southern Tier" to include Seneca County, taking the Tier all the way north to Lake Ontario.

Why? you might ask. What were they thinking?

All definitions of the Southern Tier of New York state say Tier counties roughly run along the northern border of Pennsylvania. Empire State Development, the state's chief economic development agency, defines the Southern Tier as Broome, Chemung, Chenango, Delaware, Schuyler, Steuben, Tioga and Tompkins counties.

Darned if we know what went on.

Indeed, here's the map of the regions, with what the Gaming Commission deems to be the "Eastern Southern Tier" shaded in pink.

Tioga and Broome are in the southern portion along the PA border, enclosed in blue; while Tyre is not only in Seneca to the north, but towards the northern portion of it, off the NYS Thruway. Tyre's inclusion for this purpose is, according to the editorial, a "gerrymandered" definition of the region. And should Wilmorite be granted a license there, it would mean "zero employment and zero economic benefits to our area — the true Southern Tier."

Gov. Andrew Cuomo visited Binghamton on Nov. 6, 2013 — the day after the casino amendment passed handily, with 57 percent of the vote, and received overwhelming support from Southern Tier counties....The governor spoke behind a podium reading: "Funding for Schools ... Jobs for the Southern Tier."

We're asking the state and, specifically, Cuomo to hold true to that promise.

Hmm, seems as if the governor was quite busy blowing a lot of hot air all around the state on Nov 6, 2013. That was the same day that the governor visited Sullivan County in a similarly triumphant mode, declaring how the coming casinos would "fundamentally change the economy of the Catskills." To those in the southern Southern Tier who agree with this editorial page's exhortation that "we need that casino," Tyre is their spoiler equivalent of Orange County.

Except that I'd be a lot more worried if I was a casino proponent in the Catskills than one in Binghamton. The Tyre casino has serious issues, from the staunch community opposition to the possible cannibalization of the Turning Stone casino, as well as of the Finger Lakes and Vernon Downs racetracks. The project generated some bad publicity last week when it published an ad which included falsely understated projections for a casino at Tioga Downs (while, as this article points out, raising a legitimate question of exactly how much additional revenue an expanded facility there would generate.) Besides, as we've discussed, Tyre is a little rural town that is just totally inappropriate for a casino. I'd be pretty shocked if they get a license there. (And only a tiny bit less so if it doesn't go to Gural.)

But folks in the Catskills, already apoplectic at the prospect at a casino in Orange County, must be further rattled by the increasing speculation that the location board will recommend only three licenses, with only one going either there or somewhere in Orange County.

After New York voters approved four upstate casinos last November, four Atlantic City casinos have closed, gambling profits plunged from Connecticut to Mississippi, and new casinos opened or were greenlighted in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts....That increasingly unsettled, crowded market has casino developers and gambling opponents alike speculating that state regulators may award three licenses instead of the four authorized in the 2013 referendum. [Times Herald-Record]

Should that be the case (and assuming that each region would get one....which does not necessarily have to be so), I would have to believe that the Catskills/Hudson Valley license would go to an operator in the Catskills (probably the Montreign/Adelaar project at The Concord). It just has never seemed possible to me that the Catskills would get completely shut out here; I've been thinking in terms of one for Adelaar (the only developer who said they'd still build should a license go to Orange County), and one perhaps in Newburgh. If the board is getting concerned about competition, the Catskills region is further isolated at least from the present racino at Yonkers and a future one at the Meadowlands than are the Orange County locations further south. (As well as from Philly, about to add a second casino.) However, on the other hand, if the board is instead thinking in terms of trying to get the jump on the Meadowlands, then maybe they are indeed thinking about an Orange location. In that case, they could be tempted by the big prize - Genting's outlandish and outrageous proposal at Tuxedo, complete with its $380 million bribe. Though, having said that, I don't believe Genting will get a license there.....they're messing with environmental groups and that project therefore carries the threat of being tied up in the courts for years.

So, we await the location board's next meeting on Friday. I think it's 50/50, at best, that the announcement comes at that time.

Still Waiting...

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 23:25:00 +0000

A bit of wishful thinking? Or some clever (and prescient) advance planning?

We don't know yet. And we won't until at least November 21. That's all we were told after the closed door meeting of the Gaming Facility Location Board that took place in Manhattan on Monday. And while Gaming Commission spokesperson Lee Park said that the board is "on track to make a decision this month," he added that a final decision is not guaranteed to be announced at that time.

Well, even a November 21 announcement would actually be past the "early fall" target that would make this process truly "on track" with respect to the original plans. One can surely be cynical and say that the decision was never going to happen before the election, that the board is procrastinating to make it seem that the license awards are not already pre-ordained and 'in the bag;' that they are waiting for advice and/or approval from Larry Schwartz or Regina Calcaterra from the governor's office (if not from the governor himself); or that they are merely now devising a narrative to make the decision seem as if it is really based on the merits rather than on politics and the wishes of Andrew Cuomo.

Given the history of this administration, all of that, and any similar conspiracy-type theories, would be absolutely 1,000% fair to believe.

However, we'd prefer to think that these gentlemen are doing their job in earnest, meticulously weeding through the thousands of pages of documents, taking into full consideration all of the comments received at the hearings and in writing, weighing what the true intent of the casino-enabling law dictates, and simply struggling to come to a fair consensus. (Before, the cynic quite fairly would believe, they run it by the second floor for approval.) But whatever the case, we continue to wait.

The Head Chef and I were up in Ellenville, home of the once-thriving and now dormant Nevele resort, this past weekend to visit some friends. We drove up the Palisades and Route 6 to Route 17, the road which I once traversed many times en route to a Sunday afternoon of racing at Monticello (when it was the only Sunday game around). Post time was 2:30 PM, and many of the regular NY drivers would be on hand. But now, it's a ragged road which still promises to become Route 86; and I'd surmise that the traffic which once clogged it on late Sunday afternoons is no longer such a problem.

On the way up 17, it was perfectly clear exactly what all the angst up in Sullivan and Ulster counties over possible casinos in Orange County is all about. We passed right by signposts for Woodbury, South Blooming Grove, and Montgomery; all proposed casino sites. No doubt that there's little reason to see why potential customers would want to continue on to the Nevele or the Concord; and perfectly understandable why the Catskills developers wouldn't want to build in that case (or, in the case of Empire Resorts' Adelaar/Montreign project, significantly scale back).

Jimmy Feathers and Saratoga harness, however, would have you believe that their Hudson Valley Casino in Newburgh wouldn't present the same problem because it's located north of Route 17. It will "complement, not compete," they say. But we passed two big signposts for Newburgh as well; one when getting onto Route 17, and one where that road intersects with Route 84. The latter intersection is, according to Google Maps, 22.6 miles and 24 minutes (without traffic) from Newburgh. But from there to the Nevele, it's 27 miles/31 minutes. And to the Concord (and yes, Google Maps, we know that both resorts are "reported closed"), it's 29.2 miles/29 minutes).

So, I know that the argument from the Newburgh developers is that it's a completely different driving route there, and that the location therefore won't detract from the Catskills locations. Gamblers will already have decided to visit one, or the other. But I guess it depends on how one is going. Anyone on Route 17 or 84 who sees the sign for Newburgh and consults with their GPS when they get to that intersection will see that that city is the closer location. Who's to say they just won't turn off there even if they originally intended to head to the Catskills? And if you're on the Thruway, maybe deciding where to go, when you get to the turnoff for Route 17 at Harriman, you're more than an hour from either the Nevele or the Concord.....but just 47 minutes from Newburgh. So, I think it's fair to say that, as with most everything we've heard from this group with respect to their East Greenbush proposal, Feathers and his cronies are simply full of it. Actually, I'm struggling to make their point make any sense even as I write this. Because it really doesn't.

- We were told that downtown Ellenville has seen some economic relief thanks to The Shadowland Theater, right in town. It presents a full slate of live theater over the spring/summer/early fall months. The productions this past season were quite well-reviewed and well-attended; Stephanie Zimbalist starred in one; Judd Hirsch has appeared there in the past. The theater has spawned, I'm informed, the opening of several restaurants in town. That's the kind of more wholesome economic revival that I'm sure everyone would prefer to see. Of course, the bad times in the town and the region require more than a few eating spots. A casino located outside of downtown will surely create jobs for now (while sucking money out of the pockets of local gambling residents); but whether patrons will venture into downtown (beyond walking distance in the winter months at least) is surely an open question....regardless of what a newly-issued, industry-commissioned report may say. We know that Resorts World hasn't done much for surrounding businesses in Ozone Park other than the pawn shops...and there's not even a hotel there. The Nevele proposal touts an unspecified number of "great restaurants" on site.

There hasn't been a whole lot of buzz about the Nevele - which may be a good thing for proponents, as most buzz we've heard about other projects involves communities aghast at the thought of a casino in their midst. Even in Ellenville, there was a billboard on Route 209 at the edge of town, but I didn't notice any lawn signs either for or against.

The question of whether this panel opts for the Catskills or Orange....or, possibly both (which would presumably preclude the Nevele and Mohegan Sun, both of which have said they won't build with a casino in Orange)....or, quite conceivably, only one in one of the counties.....is probably the most vexing one for them. It didn't have to be this way. And when Governor Cuomo made his triumphant appearance in Sullivan County the day after the referendum was approved, there was no reason to think it would be. This board's job would have been a whole lot easier if it weren't. Why the governor made the call to include Orange, we don't exactly know. Maybe we'll learn more about his intentions on November 21 or afterwards (the cynics would say).

- Mohegan Sun, one of the two bidders at the old Concord site, has added a sweetener to its proposal.

We will certainly want to welcome back to the Catskills those who themselves, or through their parents and grandparents, have such fond associations with the Catskills in its heyday, but more critical will be ensuring generations of new visitors. To that end, and to promote the new concentration of gaming and entertainment amenities at the Concord, we are pledging to dedicate a portion of our gross gaming revenue annually - 0 .5% - to a new marketing and tourism fund to focus on the Catskills and Hudson Valley region as a gaming and entertainment region, and we will encourage others to participate to maximize the program and its impact.

That actually is a continuation of a theme, as Mohegan Sun's proposal already includes a revival of the Grossinger's resort, and development in downtown Monticello. They have also begun "moving dirt," and have advanced their projected opening date from June, 2016, to March of that year (barring any unforeseen weather events), "or sooner." Still, that's a long way from Cuomo's original hope that casino money would start flowing into the state coffers early next year. That was even more unrealistic than expecting the location board to have made a decision by now. Of course, should the decision not go Mohegan Sun's way, that dirt will stop moving pretty fast. I bet they won't even put it back where they found it.

Yonkers to France: Sensationnel!

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 19:11:00 +0000

Quite a successful beginning to the Yonkers-France experiment on Sunday morning. Five full-field mile and a quarter trotting races attracted European handle, through the French betting conglomerate PMU, of nearly 1.4 million Euros. That is well above and beyond the projected 1 million Euros, and it translates to around $1.75 million USD. As we mentioned in this post, the 13 race card on Yonkers Trot/Int'l Preview night did a little over $1.1 million. So...sensationnel! Not only that, I'm told that there were some transmission kinks in the first race that kept the handle down on that race, and that $2 million is a possibility for this weekend. The results had something for everyone - couple of favorites (with nice returns for exacta-wheelers) a medium 9-1 shot, and a bomb.

Domestic handle exceeded expectations too. Horsemen were concerned about how the card would measure up against the Tuesday night session that the Sunday card replaced; but the nearly half million bucks wagered in the U.S. was, again as I'm informed by an informative source, comparable to a "bad Tuesday night." (And that's with no triples in the first two races.)

So, let's assume that the cut of the overseas handle that is due to Yonkers made it a pretty good Tuesday night on a Sunday morning/afternoon. And, again, the big potential here is in commingled betting pools. That's a whole new world....literally. Not only would the track and horsemen get their direct share of the total wagering, one would have to expect that more domestic bettors would be attracted by pools with the kind of liquidity that we just don't see in harness racing (or in most thoroughbred racing outside of the major markets, for that matter). And as far as the early post time here in order to better coincide with prime European time, maybe 11 AM on Sunday isn't such a bad time after all; especially once the football season is over. Might be a good time for holidays as well; we've spoken in the past how NYRA and other tracks run stakes races late on days such as Memorial Day and the 4th of July, when they might very well be better off starting around 11 and finishing up by 3 or 4 so that people can go home and have their BBQs.

Can't really say enough about this collaborative effort between horsemen and track management. Here's a situation in which the racing is well-supported by VLT's, yet the parties have joined forces to work towards increasing handle in an innovative and creative way. I'm not aware of any other similar initiative at a racetracks with slots subsidies. With the coming of more saturation of the casinos market, and the states' inevitable clawback of slots money earmarked for racing, seems to me that other tracks would be well-advised to take a hard look at what Yonkers is doing.

Another, though different, example of horsemen and track management working together has taken place at Monticello. You may recall that we wrote earlier this year about the dispute regarding the provision in the casino law which caps VLT slots revenue to purses at 2013 levels which led to the horsemen blocking the simulcast signal. The horsemen later discontinued their action, and the two sides got down to some good faith bargaining which resulted in an extremely creative solution. Should Empire Resorts, the track owner, get a casino license for their Adelaar project at the Concord, it will guarantee that racing will continue at Monticello for nine years. The horsemen will receive one million shares in the company stock (NYNY...how did they manage to get the NYNY ticker symbol?) and a warrant which gives them the option to purchase an additional 300,000 shares under certain conditions related to company projections and share price. Over the life of the contract, the horsemen are free to sell the shares, with the proceeds going to the purse fund. Obviously, they will have a strong interest in the share price faring well....though if the shares decline below a certain price, the horsemen are still guaranteed a lump sum payment at the end of the contract term.

So, the horsemen will indeed get more money based on the performance of the casino, though indirectly via the stock price and not based on any direct percentage of casino revenues; and management doesn't have to pay anything out of their pockets unless the casino underperforms (or if other factors contribute to a decline in the share price). So, no precedent is set as far as paying money out to racing from casino revenues; but a precedent is set in terms of horsemen getting purse money above and beyond the limit set by the casino law. Monticello horsemen association president Alan Schwartz praised and thanked his members for their sacrifice - as should all NY horsemen of either breed!

I want to thank each and every member of the Association for the sacrifices they made during the several long months of pain, when it wasn't clear if we would live to see another day of racing. Because of the courage the Monticello horsemen displayed in overwhelmingly supporting the Board, we have achieved a much better future than Albany provided us. In addition to our legal and accounting team, special thanks go out to Peter Gerry, who volunteered his time, effort and expertise during the delicate and extremely complex negotiations involving the acquisition of the stock and warrants, so as to ensure that a genuine economic benefit was actually realized.....While we were sometimes criticized for the stances we took, the financial reward now finally achieved for our horsemen was our only goal. It would not have been necessary if legislation was more thoughtfully considered in the first instance.

So, although a far more adversarial situation than at Yonkers, here again is an example of horsemen, track management, and the Gaming Commission (credited by Empire with helping to mediate the dispute) cooperating in coming up with a plan - one of sheer survival for horsemen in this case as opposed to that of further prosperity at Yonkers.

Four More Years

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 17:34:00 +0000

Kicked me like you kicked before
I can't even feel the pain no more.

As much as we'd like to put the lamentable events of last week's Election Day behind us, we'd be remiss if we didn't have a word about our Governor Re-Elect. Andrew Cuomo's victory was decidedly unemphatic.

The Buffalo News said that Cuomo's vote total may be the lowest for the winner of a governor's race in New York since Franklin Roosevelt in 1930. [Democrat & Chronicle]

His 54% share of the ballots cast by the measly turnout was eight points lower than in 2010; nine points below that of his father's re-election total. Amazingly, Cuomo lost in 46 of the 57 counties outside of New York City; and that to a bland and vastly outspent candidate, on the defensive throughout, with cookie-cutter conservative views that are clearly out of line with the demographics of the state. It's fair to wonder just how close the race could have been with the Republicans had a more polished and credible candidate.

Democrats of the more liberal persuasion, who already felt betrayed by the governor's active facilitation of the arrangement in the Senate that allowed the minority Republicans to cling to power and block passage of measures dear to their hearts, are left battered by that party's ascension to what is now an uncontested majority in the chamber. This governor, who agreed to work enthusiastically for a Democratic majority in exchange for the support of the Working Families Party, did absolutely nothing of the sort. He made exactly one personal appearance on behalf of one candidate, and was less than effusive and expansive with his words. His other "endorsements" came via statements released - over a weekend! - while he was traveling in Puerto Rico; an action so cynically half-hearted that, like Steve Berman said on that Enimem record, "It would be better if you gave me nothing at all."

Now, given Cuomo's poor showing outside of NYC - including, specifically, the counties in which the three upstate candidates he "endorsed" were running - one surely can't say whether more full-throated endorsements would have turned the tide for the Democrats. However, the governor made passage of all ten planks of the Women's Equality Act as the central theme of his campaign, even creating the Women's Equality Party in the process. (Some felt that his emphasis on the latter party was attempted payback to the similarly-acronymed Working Families Party for cornering him as they did; but the latter attracted well more than enough votes to keep its ballot line, though it will drop a notch below the Green Party.) Cuomo surely was well aware that the only hope of passing the Women's Equality Act in its entirety was to have the Democrats control the Senate. But we never heard him make that exhortation on the campaign trail. "Let me be clear - you must turn out and vote for [Democratic Senate candidate] if we want to achieve full equality for women!"

We never heard anything like that. Perhaps - just maybe (or maybe not) - that could have made a difference in SD-46, which elected Democrat Cecilia Tkaczyk in 2012; or in SD-3 in Suffolk County, where Cuomo and Astorino ran neck and neck. He broke his promise to the WFP, and by not working energetically (if much at all) towards a Democratic Senate, he was, in fact, dooming the law to failure. To me, that renders his entire campaign - especially those feel-good ads with his girlfriend and daughters - as being insincere and hypocritical. Instead, he can now continue to talk about "working with Democrats and Republicans," and maintain the kind of centrist approach that is conducive to national politics; that at the expense of progressive causes which will now have to wait.

And, as a result and perhaps worst of all, we'll now have to spend the next two years looking at the empty smiles of Dean Skelos, the poster boy for the term "empty suit." A man who has not uttered a single substantive sentence during his time as the GOP Senate Leader, Skelos has shown that he will stoop to any measure necessary simply to retain the perks of the majority party, even selling out his party's base in order to appease the governor when he deems it absolutely necessary to maintain his own standing.

Times Pours (Ice) Cold Water on Catskills' Casino Dreams

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Fri, 07 Nov 2014 21:38:00 +0000

Casino supporters in the Catskills may be wondering about the tone and the timing of this article in the New York Times: Poconos Casino Offers Lesson as New York Weighs Proposals in Catskills. It's a bleak lesson indeed being taught by the Paper of Record, and it comes now, after all these months of speculation, just days before the Location Board, presumably in the home stretch of this process, is scheduled to go into closed session on Monday to evaluate the various proposals.

Seven years after opening, the Mount Airy Casino Resort has fewer than half of the hotel envisioned by developers, and a third of the slot machines promised in news releases. It has generated about half of the slot revenue forecast by Pennsylvania officials, and little economic spillover has occurred outside the resort. Expansion plans have long since been shelved. The much-heralded charitable foundation has raised a grand total of $1, federal filings show. Those funds have not been distributed.
..........

As New York State officials prepare to announce up to four new casinos, the case of Mount Airy — once advertised as "Your host with the most in the Poconos" — offers a cautionary lesson for residents and elected leaders in another faded postwar vacationland desperate to reinvent itself: the Catskill Mountains. The Catskills were once home to 500 hotels and scores of bungalow colonies, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and legislators have talked up gambling as a path back to prosperity.

.......

In 2006, Pennsylvania projected that the Mount Airy site would generate $269 million per year in revenue from slot machines alone. It has never come close. Slot revenue peaked in 2008 at $176 million and fell last year to $143 million. Table games were added in 2010 and total gambling revenue reached $190 million in 2012 but fell 3 percent to $183 million last year. [NYT]

The article touches on all the areas of skepticism that we've touched upon in the last few months: over saturation, the self-containment of the casino which results in little benefits for surrounding businesses, increases in traffic and accidents, and the "dissonance between resort gambling and traditional family-friendly attractions." But as much as we tend to agree with those observations, and as much as we dislike casinos, this article strikes me as being exceedingly negative and one-sided...and you know that we don't particularly like when the Times does that either. From reading this article, one would think that the only person in the entire town who is happy is some dude, a.k.a. The Goldfather, who is apparently an unlicensed pawnbroker.

I mean, if the reporter really wanted to, he could have surely, and if nothing else, found at least a few people for whom the casino has provided stable employment and benefits that he/she didn't have before. And, in mentioning the Sands casino in Bethlehem as one of the competing facilities, he could have pointed out that that casino is considered by many to have actually been "successful" in helping to revitalize a depressed area (the poor gamblers on whose backs that has occurred aside).

Having said that however, the point of the article is that the circumstances of the Mount Airy casino are similar to that of the Catskills - a casino with recreational and resort amenities in a once-thriving-with-tourists but now struggling rural setting - as opposed to the Sands casino, which is an urban one. But even here, this article simply does not have its facts straight.

Yet each of the three proposals for Catskill casinos — in or around the borscht belt destinations of Ellenville, Kiamesha Lake and Monticello — is on the scale of what was envisioned for Mount Airy: hundreds of hotel rooms, thousands of slot machines, dozens of blackjack tables. Myriad dining and entertainment options, championship golf courses, zip lines, water parks. Acres of parking for the anticipated hordes of visitors.

I dug up the original 2006 presentation for Mount Airy, (a very large PDF file) and, contrary to the above passage, what was envisioned was actually on a decidedly smaller scale than what we're seeing in the Catskills and elsewhere in New York.

No championship golf courses, zip lines, water parks, big entertainment nor "myriad" dining options here; just a pool, a spa, and a few restaurants. (The coffee shop turned out to be a Starbucks.) Though it did present a visual depiction that was most definitely more polished than the finished product.

I'm impressed that the artist got the presence of birds in the water right, though they're swans rather than ducks.

So the projects being proposed in the Catskills are actually significantly more ambitious than what was promised at Mount Airy as far as its non-gambling features go. And, though I'm still skeptical that this model will prove to be successful - and therefore, as I said, would basically tend to agree with the glum outlook being presented - this biased and inaccurate article does seem unfair to the folks in the Catskills who are just so desperate for the kind of economic relief that they truly believe these casinos, for which they have been praying for so many years, will provide. I have to imagine that they must be wondering why the paper didn't instead focus its wrath on projects that developers are trying to force down communities' throats.

Peace, Love and Baccarat

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 23:47:00 +0000

It's 6 PM on Election Day. Do you know where your casinos are?

Well, no. And no surprise there. The members of the location board and Gaming Commission Executive Director Rob Williams talked a lot about a decision in October, but it was apparent to many of us that politics dictated that nothing would happen before this day. Some things are just really obvious around here. A reporter for TWC News was sitting around on Oct 31 wondering about the decision that was, at one time (to some people), expected during that month, and was replied to dismissively:

Spokesman Lee Park in an e-mail sent Friday noted that neither the Upstate Gaming Economic Development Act, nor the Request for Casino Applications, ever established a deadline for a decision.

We know that, Spokesman Park, dude. We know that the law doesn't specify a date or month, and we didn't say anything about October. You did.

The board, appointed by the Gaming Commission, is not on a deadline, Park stressed. Although the goal is to make recommendations in about two weeks, that could be pushed until after the elections in November. But the board is “hoping to get it done in October,” Park added. [Daily Gazette]

Less obvious of course is exactly when the announcement will take place and where the casinos will be. But we have some ideas about the latter, as we've been saying all along, and I guess we should propose a formal prediction at some point very soon! I think I can handicap this better than I did the Classic.

Sullivan County officials have not given up on the idea of both possible Catskills/Hudson Valley casinos going there, even though they would both be located at the Concord. What at one time seemed like a highly improbable scenario has taken on a life of its own - it even has a slogan: 2 at the Concord. Ok, maybe not a very catchy slogan, but it's something. Here's a radio ad funded by the county Industrial Development Agency.

Everybody remembers Woodstock - can you believe it was 45 years ago? Over 500,000 people came to Bethel in Sullivan County!

Hmm, yeah, I'd say that's a bit of a stretch for this purpose. And I'd venture a guess that the prospect of three days of amazing music, free love, and good drugs (other than the bad acid, man) would outdraw a casino even in this day and age.

Actually, now that I think of it, I'm surprised that none of the bidders have included that concept in their proposals! Resorts Worldstock! Ah, I can just see it now....

GIMME AN S!
S!
GIMME AN L!
L!
GIMME AN O!
0!
GIMME A T!
T!

WHAT'S THAT SPELL?
SLOT!(s)
WHAT'S THAT SPELL?
SLOT!(s)
WHAT'S THAT SPELL?
SLOT!(s)

Yeah, come on all of you rich Asian men,
Uncle Andrew needs help again.
He's got himself on a spending spree
Way up yonder in Albany
Go to Woodbury Commons, get your shopping done.
We're gonna have a whole lotta fun.

And it's one, two, three,
What are you waiting for?
Don't ask me, you're feeling hot,
So go play some baccarat!
And it's five, A. M.
Open up the entrance gates,
Well there ain't no time for a midnight snooze,
Whoopee! you're all gonna lose!

Well, come on mothers throughout the land,
Get yourself down to Feathers' scam.
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
Governor Cuomo can hardly wait
For your home to be the first on the block
To be fitted with a padlock.

And it's one, two, three,
What are you waiting for?
Forget the golf and bucolic lake,
Get to the tables with your stake
And it's five, A. M.
Who needs a gourmet meal?
Well, there ain't no time for eats and booze,
Whoopee! you're all gonna lose!

- Save East Greenbush filed another lawsuit against the Saratoga harness/Churchill Downs proposal; this one is in regard to the October 14 meeting of the zoning board in which the zoning laws were changed to permit this commercial project in the residential area on Thompson Hill. I skimmed through the lawsuit papers; it's quite a well-researched effort with a lot of citations. I'd go into it in more detail, but with the decisions presumably just a few days or weeks ahead, I'd like to think that it's all soon going to be moot. If this location board has the nerve to give Feathers this casino over such vociferous opposition, and considering that the revenue projections do not at all outweigh the other Capitol District contenders to the extent which would make up for that lack of community support, then this process will surely be exposed as a fraud.

Having said that, if you've perhaps forgotten just how controlling and meddling this governor is, this recent article describes yet another instance in which Cuomo virtually dictated the conclusions of an appointed board that was supposed to be independent. So, I guess we shouldn't be surprised by anything. Still, just the fact that there are lawsuits pending, with the potential to slow up the works, should give the panel pause as to the project's viability, no matter what the merits of the suit are (and I'm sure they're pretty solid). At least, that's what a logical person would think.

- I think this was my favorite performance from the Woodstock album and movie.

BC Classic Cheating

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Mon, 03 Nov 2014 17:40:00 +0000

I finally got around to watching the Classic on DVR on Sunday morning without knowing the result. That effectively gave me about 13 hours of additional hope that I'd cash a ticket before sitting down to watch the three horses that I probably liked the least battle it out to the wire. It was a thrilling three-horse stretch duel that was somewhat reminiscent of the very first Classic. Except that one had better horses, wasn't preceded by an overwrought performance of a horrible song; and Tom Durkin's race call still brings chills all these years later.

And the '84 Classic didn't feature this kind of controversy either. Andrew Beyer, in defending the stewards' decision to let the result stand despite Bayern "[causing] interference to the horses directly to his inside" (and those are Trevor Denman's very words in his on-track explanation of the stewards' decision), writes that the stewards were right to avoid marring it with a disqualification. But the race was equally marred by their lack of action. This race was going to have an asterisk attached in the minds of many horseplayers and fans the moment that Bayern came out of the gate running sideways.

We hear that "thousands" of horses veer in or out at the break, and that the stewards cannot become involved in all of them. I'd agree with that. This didn't seem like a typical case though. We see horses bobble or veer in and out and take another horse or two with them all the time. In this case though, Bayern and jockey Martin Garcia came out of the gate running in a straight (diagonal) line towards the rail right from the start despite no apparent misstep or mishap, and no history of having done so in the past. We're told by Beyer that Garcia "got control of Bayern almost immediately," but I don't see it that way; not at all. Looks to me like he kept going left even as the mayhem he was causing had to have been apparent. [Shared Belief must be feeling like Obama nowadays; he got slammed from his right in this case (and later by Toast of New York too); got slammed from his left in the Awesome Again to get carried out wide.]

The stewards noted: "in our determination, it didn't happen in the point of a race where it was reasonable to speculate that they didn't finish in a position where they were reasonably expected to finish, which is the language of the rule." Fair enough; a rule is a rule. "We're loathe to speculate," they noted. Indeed, one cannot possibly guess as to whether Bayern would have been beaten had all the horses had a clear shot. But I think the more relevant question in this case is how the incident affected Bayern rather than how it affected the other horses. It allowed him to run the race the only way he could have in order to win. Forget Shared Belief; by taking Moreno out of the early running, he assured himself an uncontested lead. (Of course, that's assuming that Moreno was up to running his usual race without the traffic problems, which one cannot necessarily do either.)

But again, that's not the rule - the mere fact of interference, about which there can be little doubt in this case - is not grounds for a DQ in and of itself, even in a particularly obvious case such as this. Even though it clearly enhanced Bayern's chances to win. Perhaps ~~the national racing authority~~ all the myriad racing jurisdictions need to take a look at the rule. Because for a sport which is SO worried about its image in terms of trust by the betting public, one would think it would surely want to avoid situations in which a horse can wipe out its competition at the start and ultimately be rewarded for doing so. Even if Garcia's actions were not intentional, what is to prevent him or other jockeys from practicing that kind of race riding at the start going forward now that a clear precedent has been established? Or, more significantly, why wouldn't the betting public now believe that the start of a race is a free-for-all with no rules to protect the horse it bets from foul play, intentional or otherwise? (And what's to prevent European punters, already suspicious of the American version of the sport, from believing this was a hometown decision in favor of the local trainer over the overseas shipper?)

I think that an incident like this in a high profile race has the potential to cause far more distrust on the part of the betting public than some trainer getting a 20-day suspension because one of his or her horses in a barn hundreds of miles away tested 2 nanograms over the allowable limit of an otherwise allowable therapeutic medication. Those trainers are now reviled as 'cheaters' regardless of the intent or lack thereof. So, how was this not cheating on the part of jockey Garcia?

Good thing it wasn't the Derby, and only a Breeders' Cup Classic that nobody watched.

Breeders' Cup Saturday

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 16:25:00 +0000

Nice little field of ten in the Breeders' Cup Fillies & Mare Sprint, and as far as I'm concerned, we can take this and the Dirt Mile and throw the rest of the races that have been added to the BC over the last few years away.

Leigh Court (4-1) has returned to the races at age four with a bang, after a layoff of 316 days; winning at this distance on the Poly at Woodbine, and then scoring in the six furlong Grade 2 TCA at Keeneland; earning sparkling TimeformUS speed figures in both cases. (And a career best 6 on the Sheets, part of a nice looking pattern of slow and steady improvement.) Daughter of Grand Slam has settled on sprinting as a career choice after actually enjoying some success going longer, on turf and synth, last year. Truth be told, she benefited from a perfect trip and a smooth journey behind a fast pace in the Keeneland race (which included even money favorite Stonetastic, 8-1 ML here). But she was very impressive visually, seeming well within herself. Two very sharp works at Woodbine since then, and she seems ready to roll for trainer Josie Carroll, who has a TFUS Trainer Rating of 93 (out of 100) with horses going third off the layoff....

......Though, to be honest, would like, and expect, to see odds higher than the morning line at post time on Leigh Court considering the presence of accomplished sprinters like Artemis Agrotera (3-1) and Judy the Beauty (5-2) in the field. Don't have anything negative to say about either of those, except that they are unlikely to present any value. They're both fast, versatile, and accomplished at this distance.

Throw out the three two-turn efforts by Sweet Reason (9-2), and this 3YO daughter of Street Sense has a record of 6-5-1-0. She's three-for-three in one turn races this year, most recently her win at this seven furlong distance in the Test at Saratoga, in which she stumbled pretty significantly at the start. As consistent as she is though, she hasn't really progressed speed figure-wise from her two-year old season, and I don't know that the level that she's attained is fast enough in this very contentious spot; her first try against older horses. (She paired up a career best 7 on the Sheets in her last two....that's good, yes?) She'll also need some pace in a race that Pace Projector has favoring horses - particularly the aforementioned and very speedy Stonetastic - up front (though it's hard for me to imagine that there's not going to be a fair pace in a $1 million sprint race). Love this filly, and can't count her out, but I think she'd be an underlay at her morning line.

Thank You Marylou (20-1) ran an improved figure when adding blinkers at Churchill two tries back. Never got going from the rail in a big field at Keeneland in her last, but could liven up exotics if she can run back to the Churchill effort. Little Alexis (15-1) is making just her fifth career start, and cuts back to a sprint after running evenly behind Untapable and Sweet Reason in the Cotillion. Like Sweet Reason, had some trouble at the start of the Test, and only finished a length behind that one. With expected improvement...

- As far as the Classic, doesn't seem to be any point trying to top the hilarious "scientific" horse-by-horse analysis by Pullthepocket.

But, in any event, let's give the race a shot: I'm gonna let my East Coast bias guide me here. Shared Belief (9-5) is undefeated and survived the horse racing equivalent of negative campaign advertising - and the depths to which candidates of both parties will stoop just continue to astound - when he survived being floated out to a five-wide-both-turns trip, and won the Awesome Again in an awesome performance (and an awesome call by Trevor Denman, who will be sorely missed again this weekend). He earned a solid TimeformUS speed figure of 114 (which doesn't take the ground loss into account), and a Sheets number of 3 (which does). He certainly looks formidable here and would be no surprise. But he's never raced outside of California, which brings me back to my natural skepticism of west coast runners which has become innate over decades of Lasix (when it was permitted there but not in NY), rock-hard speed tracks, and synthetic tracks (not an issue of quality per se, but of surface preferences); and even if none of those factors are in play these days....I just can't help it! Besides, he'll be a short price, and has to bounce back from what was truly a grueling effort.

I don't need an east coast bias to discard California Chrome (4-1) here. I think he's toast (sorry to use that metaphor in two consecutive posts). Any horse whose connections are euphoric over drawing the 13 post obviously has some serious tractability issues. And his owner is a schmuck.

Bayern (6-1) scored wire-to-wire wins in the Haskell and the Pennsylvania Derby on tracks that TFUS has rated as favoring speed (race rating shaded in light pink.....red would have meant a particularly hideous speed bias like the one on BC Friday last year). Not only that, he got away with a slow pace (pace figures shaded in blue) at Parx. He'll have Moreno in his face on Saturday and needs to last another furlong. I think he's likely to finish closer to last than to first.

Tonalist (5-1) and Zivo (15-1) ran 1-2 in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, both coming from the back of the pack. Each had their progress interrupted when Wicked Strong threw his rider. I think that Zivo took the worst of it in that regard, though he saved 10 feet relative to the winner according to Trakus. They are both as consistent as can be, and both come into this race with nice patterns of improvement. Tonalist, in fact, has improved his TFUS figure in every race in his career (save for one instance in which he duplicated the prior one). Zivo's improvement has been a more general one during this, his 5yo racing season....and he comes in with a nice recent pattern on the Sheets. (Here you get a little preview of the Ragozin PPs product that TFUS will be releasing within the next few weeks.)

(Note that he was compromised in his Woodward effort two races back, his only out-of-the-money performance this year, by a track that was rated as strongly favoring speed by TFUS.) Both would seem to need to step forward one more time in order to get the top spot here, but each seems eligible to do exactly that.

There are questions about both: Tonalist seems to particularly love Belmont, while Zivo's trainer Chad Brown hasn't enjoyed much success west of the Mississippi; 1-for-27 on the SoCal circuit over the last five years. Find them hard to separate on form, but easy on price. One could do much worse than 15-1 on a horse who has won seven of his last ten while moving forward for a master trainer for whom the 35-day layoff between races is right in his wheel house. I'll take a shot with him on value, but Tonalist needs to be on the tickets as well, for sure.

Toast of New York (12-1) is racing on dirt for the first time, and he's....well, you know. Hope we get a lot of Euro money in the pools here.

V.E. Day (20-1) is an interesting longshot here in my view. The Travers winner is making only his 8th start and surely would seem to have more to give. Willing to give him a pass for his dull Jockey Club Gold Cup effort after he took a solid bump at the start, and given the weird configuration of the mile and a quarter distance which starts on the turn. Think he'll prefer the standard two-turns and could make some noise in the final furlong. Cigar Street (12-1) has some nice numbers (in fact, the best last-out TFUS figure - 115 - in the field), and excellent tactical speed. I think he's had it pretty easy though in his two races back from a 510 day layoff, and I'd use him only deep on my exotic tickets here. Candy Boy (20-1) is in recent sharp form, and comes off a competitive career high TFUS figure of 110.

So, it's a win bet on Zivo, and I'll play him in exotics with Shared Belief, Tonalist, V.E. Day, and throw in some Cigar Street and Candy Boy.

- In the Grade 3 Discovery at the Big A, Bay of Plenty (8-5) would seem to have this field at his mercy. He's the lone speed in a race favoring such runners according to Pace Projector. He returned from a 154 day layoff to win his last, at Belmont, in easy fashion, earning a career best TFUS figure of 103 in his third wire-to-wire win in a row. So maybe it's nitpicking when I point out that he was allowed to set a very moderate pace in that last race...and that he benefited from tracks that TFUS has rated as speed favoring in his prior two.

But let's instead go with the fastest horse in the race; which is, according to the TFUS numbers, Noble Moon (5-1). He has two 4ths to show from his last two, which came off a layoff of 140 days; but earned field-high TFUS figures in efforts in which he really had no shot in races in which he was quite ambitiously placed. There was the G1Kings Bishop at Saratoga, in which he actually acquitted himself well rallying for 4th, earning a figure of 104.....and the PA Derby behind Bayern on the speed-favoring track; an even effort in which he was given a figure of 108. In his prior two turn efforts - in the Jerome and Wood earlier this year - he actually showed some pretty decent early speed (in fact, he wired the Jerome). So hoping he can find nice position breaking from the rail in a short field, and run the favorite down late. Three Alarm Fire (2-1) handled his first assignment against winners with aplomb, but tries two turns for the first time. We'll try leaving him out. Best of luck and have a great Breeders' Cup!

Breeders' Cup Friday

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Thu, 30 Oct 2014 18:12:00 +0000

In the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile, I'd love to try and beat Goldencents (6-5), but getting the same feeling as I do when I'm trying to figure out how the Democrats are gonna keep the Senate. He won this race last year using the same three stepping stone races to get here; so he looks like a tough incumbent to unseat. 4yo son of Into Mischief is simply faster than these based on his TimeformUS figs, and he's two-for-two at a mile on this track. He benefited from that nutty speed bias on BC Friday last year; don't know if that will be the case this year, but I imagine that tactical speed surely won't hurt.

But there are a couple of horses listed at 6-1 ML who I think will run well: Pants On Fire (6-1) has been sharp during his 6YO season, if not quite as fast on TFUS figures as in the past. Could be ready to move forward though off a dominant win in a Charles Town stake in which he was wrapped up through the final sixteenth. That was his 4th race in a compressed period of 55 days, and came after a tough loss at Belmont in which he stalked an insanely fast pace and held on grimly for second to Golden Ticket (15-1 here); that on a track that TimeformUS has rated as favoring closers. Interesting to note that his CT win, slow-ish on TFUS, came back as a 1 on the Sheets; that's the best last-out Ragozin number, including the favorite. It was a big jump that I suppose invites thoughts of a bounce. But he won easily, as mentioned, and has a 41 day break and a bullet half work in between.

Throw out the Derby, and Tapiture (6-1) has quite a pattern of improvement going on.

Still needs further progress to compete with the favorite; but this 3YO son of Tapit is making just his 12th career start, so he's eligible for continued improvement. Since the Derby, Tapiture has an easy win at Churchill, a gritty victory in the W. Virginia Derby in which he zigged mid-stretch to find room, and a no-shot second to Bayern in the PA Derby. Tough task facing older for the first time, and from an outside post, but expecting a good effort here.

Fed Biz (7-2) comes off his ground-saving (but nonetheless game) second to Shared Belief, earning a 115 TFUS figure that surely puts him in play. I'd like to ignore him and throw him out in favor of the abovementioned pair. Turns out that, in Sheets-land, he's not all that fast on dirt. When one set of numbers doesn't support what one wants to see, turn to another set that will. That's what I always say.

- The Breeders' Cup Distaff sets up like a harness handicap race with the two best horses, Untapable (5-2) and Close Hatches (3-1), assigned to the outside posts. I think they're both toast. Untapable has been good but hardly great since her Kentucky Oaks win. The bubble burst when she tried the boys in the Haskell; and her Cotillion win was not all that convincing, coming with the benefit of a perfect trip as it did. Her TFUS figures have declined with each effort since the Oaks, and I'm just not feeling a big turnaround here. Close Hatches wired the muddy Personal Ensign, earning giant pace figures along the way, and then was dueled into submission in the Spinster at Keeneland by the 1st-time blinkered Ria Antonia (15-1). The change of tactics served the latter well, as she held for second. Don't see why we'd see anything different here, and with $2 million on the line, we might see some speed surprises from the inside too; particularly from Iotapa (6-1), who'd shown improved early speed before a sluggish break last time out (and who won the G1 Vanity here three back, earning a 120 TFUS figure which tops this field).

So, why can't Don't Tell Sophia (5-1) get a pace setup similar to the one she took advantage of to come on and win the Spinster? This hard-hitting 6yo daughter of Congaree always fires, and has won four of her last five. She's been particularly sharp in her last two, which came off a 175 day break, overcoming a slow pace to win at Churchill, and then her Spinster win, which represented a breakthrough in Grade 1 company. Now she goes third off the layoff for trainer Philip Sims, who has a TFUS trainer rating of 92 (out of 100) in that category, and a perfect 100 in 3YO+ stakes races. Hoping to see her go off north of her morning line, and can see using her in exactas with Untapable to save.

- In the 6th at Aqueduct, Lady Luciano (9-2) makes her second start off the claim for trainer John Toscano, who is happy to be back at the Big A; he celebrated by scoring with a longshot winner (with this horse's rider Ruben Silvera) on opening day to break a long losing schneid from Belmont. He claimed this 3YO daughter of Frost Giant for 40K two races back, and protected her in Starter Allowance company last time out. That was a fine second in which she stalked a lively pace, responded dutifully when prompted mid-stretch, but failed to hold off Costenia, a Toddster 4-5 favorite who next ran a good second in a Keeneland allowance. She earned a TFUS figure of 83, the best last-out number in the field. Lady Luciano seemed to get a little distracted on the turn and in upper stretch; she kept turning her head to the inside. Been 49 days off and two half-mile breezes since then; hopefully she'll be more professional in this spot. Pace Projector shows her (#4) in prime stalking position (after a half mile) behind a horse stretching out beyond 6 1/2 furlongs for the first time.

Queen Corey (3-1) was claimed out of her winning debut by Linda Rice (also with a winner on opening day). Steps up to face winners from maiden claiming company.....but the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place winners from that race all came back to win, and she really doesn't have all that far to improve in the speed figure department to be prominent here. Best of luck and have a great day.

NYRA Looks Ahead, and NOT Back

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 21:14:00 +0000

NYRA is either REALLY excited about Aqueduct opening. Or, they REALLY don't want you to think about the Belmont fall meet just concluded. Twice in the last two days, I've received press releases in my inbox about the opening of the Big A, and the $14 million in recent capital investment by the New York Racing Association designed to further enhance the guest experience and improve the quality of racing. (That expenditure comes out of the 4% of VLT revenues that are specifically earmarked for maintaining and upgrading the tracks....some $21.5 million for the first eight months of 2014; $31.5 million in 2013.) Tuesday's email was a MEDIA ADVISORY, a notation that is normally reserved for announcing board meetings or significant news developments.

As for Belmont? No sign of the usual end-of-meet release that details attendance and handle figures, along with the comparisons to the prior relevant meeting. Now, perhaps I'm wrong, as these press releases are not something that I go out of my way to save.....and the search engine for press releases on the NYRA site is lacking, at best. But I recall that such announcements always and immediately follow the end of a race meet, whether the news is good or bad. Here's a negative report from the fall meeting of 2009. And here's a really bad one from the 2010 Saratoga meeting that was spun to highlight the good parts.

But NYRA apparently, at least as of this writing, is not even trying to spin this Belmont meet. They've just ignored it, thus far. It's Breeders' Cup week, so Grening is otherwise occupied, and not around to ask them what's up. And even if I'm wrong, and past NYRA regimes have ignored unfavorable results, I thought this is supposed to be the new "transparent" NYRA? Seems to me that they're about as transparent as the Rock of Gibraltar.

Well, at least in today's press release, as opposed to the one on Monday, the Longshots simulcast facility at Aqueduct is discussed. Don't know if that was just an oversight. In any event, what we're not told is that NYRA raised the admission price by $5 since the last time we were at the Big A, to $10/$5 for non-NYRA Rewards members/members.

And perhaps you were considering spending your Breeders' Cup day at Longshots? That'll cost you $40 if you're not a NYRA Rewards member.....$20 if you are. NYRA continues to try and achieve the so-called "profitability without slots" by nickel-and-diming its customers. Though I guess $40 to get into Longshots goes well beyond that characterization. I'll be interested to see if maybe they've gone a little too far in this case. But I won't be there to see for myself.

Having said that, it's good - and rather surprising - to see that NYRA is making an effort to upgrade a track that it probably intends to close at some point in the next few years. I'd noted some of the improvements that I saw in progress when I was there over the summer. In addition, according to the release, there are new video boards in the infield, new TVs throughout the plant, and that "airport style" seating to replace "more than 450 bucket seats at Aqueduct, many of which dated back more than 50 years." I might miss those, some of them have my name on it. Also, and curiously in my opinion, improvements to the infield, with a new fountain, sod, and shrubs, to "improve the external look of the racetrack." Hmm. Must be Chris Kay's inner green self from his Trust for Public Land days! You can read the complete release with all of the improvements here.

High Hopes for Yonkers Races for French Audience

noreply@blogger.com (Alan Mann) — Wed, 29 Oct 2014 14:39:00 +0000

The Head Chef and I were at Yonkers Raceway on Saturday night, and many, many thanks to the Standardbred Owners Association of New York for graciously hosting us. Had a great time, a nice meal (yes, the Head Chef approved), and met a lot of really nice folks, including SOA of NY President Joe Faraldo, who, I learned, is actually NOT the Joe Faraldo who I used to see drive at Roosevelt and Yonkers! That was his cousin. I never knew that, and apparently, neither does/did a lot of other people. I'll put that in the "you learn something new every day" category.

I have been to the Yonk a few times since its transformation to the Empire City Casino, but this was easily the biggest racing crowd I've seen there. It was a "big night," with several stakes for 3YOs, including the prestigious Yonkers Trot and Messenger Stakes. The card was highlighted by the $250,000 International Trot Preview, a precursor for the return of the International Trot next year. As you may know, the International was run for many years at Roosevelt (1959-88), and routinely drew crowds of 40-50,000 plus before the OTB era began. It was moved to Yonkers for a few years when the Big Wheel closed, but hasn't been conducted since 1995.

But the Trot Preview had a more immediate purpose, as a lead-in for a series of six Sunday morning/afternoon cards (1st post 11AM) to be run at Yonkers, starting on Nov 9, with the express purpose of having five races simulcast to France, where bettors will wager on the races through PMU, the French wagering authority. The series is a result of an initiative by SOA of NY to drive handle....and not their first foray overseas; they have been successfully exporting signals to Australia and New Zealand, creating some $150-$250K in additional handle per card for the track. The horsemen and track management do not always see eye-to-eye, but this is a cooperative effort between them, along with the Gaming Commission. In fact, Yonkers President Tim Rooney Sr. accompanied Faraldo and SOA-NY Executive Director Alex Dadoyan to Paris to sign the agreement.

Though the pools will not be commingled, Yonkers will get a percentage of the overseas action. And that action is expected to be rather substantial. “They have the second largest pari-mutuel pool in the world behind Japan,” Dadoyan told DRF Harness' Jay Bergman over the summer. Indeed, Dadoyan, who worked with PMU on Hambletonian simulcasts when he worked at the Meadowlands, was informed by his French counterparts that they are expecting total handle for the five races to be around one million Euros. That comes to some 250,000 US dollars a race on average with today's exchange rate. That's a pretty staggering sum, considering that on Saturday night, the horsemen were thrilled to see the total handle on the card exceed $1 million ($1,105,936, for an average of around $85,000 per race).

So man, they sure do like their harness racing in France! (And in the countries to which PMU transmits the signal as well, which includes Germany and Austria.) I'd think that U.S. harness racing is a better fit for European customers than our thoroughbred racing given the different surfaces and culture of the latter sport here. And it helps that, unlike here, PMU only takes two racecards at a time.

In order to make the races better appeal to the French audience, the Yonkers races will all be trots, have overflow fields of 12 (four starting from the second tier, though a 6 and 6 arrangement was considered), and be contested at a mile and a quarter; that as opposed to the usual one mile distance which is the standard. Races at half mile tracks such as Yonkers can tend to be formulaic, but the mile and a quarter distance can make things a lot more interesting, as it did for the Trot Preview on Saturday night.

As Jay Bergman noted in his fine piece on the race, had the race been run at a mile (and conveniently ignoring the fact that the strategies employed by the drivers would have been different), chances are good that the two frontrunners would have duked it out to the end. The extra distance allowed Natural Herbie to come on and win despite being parked without cover from the half-mile mark, and after being counted out by track announcer John Hernan, who noted at around the 3/4's mark that the 4YO Ohio-bred was "starting to unravel." It was quite an impressive performance. Harness Racing Update reports that Natural Herbie, not staked to the Breeders Crown, is done for the year and will rest up for 2015, when he presumably and hopefully will appear in the International Trot.

Runner-up Commander Crowe is an 11 yo Swedish trotter, with 60 wins from 107 career starts and lifetime earnings of some $4.75 million, whose owner shipped him here, I was told, simply to try and avenge past defeats to Sebastian K (who unfortunately broke trying to get to the top in his first try on a half-mile track). He looked absolutely spectacular on the track in his first U.S. appearance; an amazing equine specimen.

So, with full fields and that extra distance, there certainly should be some interesting Sunday morning racing going on. If the program proves successful, the next step would be to try and commingle the pools. While Yonkers will benefit from its percentage of the overseas handle, they're not expecting too much from the domestic betting on NFL Sunday mornings (though what else are you doing at 11 AM?). But if the pools were combined and the French handle numbers live up to expectations, then it would give harness players here a rare chance to bet into pools that are not only far bigger than what they normally encounter, but swelled with money from French punters who are sitting in PMU shops early on a Sunday evening drinking red wine and betting vast sums of money on foreign horses, drivers and trainers whom they know little about. Ooo la la! Now that could be worth skipping tailgating for!