The following is a guest post from my good friend and handicapping buddy Randy Parker. Randy is a Economics professor at East Carolina University. He grew up playing the horses at the Chicago area tracks and earned his PhD from the University of Kentucky where he bet Keeneland every meet. Randy and I had an excellent adventure in NY this summer. 

Looking at the numbers from the handle at last weekend’s Breeder’s Cup, it is perfectly obvious to me and Marshall that the numbers reflect a disgust with the changing track surfaces of racing and not the economy. That certainly goes for us. We stood around with our hands in our pockets over the weekend because of the absolute guessing game handicapping horses has become. For any of you who watched the Cup preview with Steve Christ and Mike Watchmaker, their immediate disclaimer was what a tremendous guessing game the two cards over two days really were. When you have those two saying things like that it is time to bail. Think back, Midshipman was the only horse to win from the lead all day Saturday and Curlin looked like a $10,000 claimer.

If this is the future of horse racing then you can have it. I won’t be far from the door and heading out. Look we already know this is a negative expected outcome enterprise in the first place. Take away any semblance of regularity of surface in past performances and we would all be better off at the Bingo parlor. At least we know then going in it is a totally random event.

Most all of my friends had an attitude in their voices last Saturday that sounded like someone just ran over their new puppy. Is this what the leadership of horse racing wants?

Read this almost post mortem on the thoroughbred industry as it stands.

Now they are chasing away the most loyal fans. Will the last person to leave the last dirt track surface please turn out the light?

Best Regards,

Randy