Wagering was absolutely through the roof over the three
days of live racing last weekend at The Meadowlands.
Objectively, the comparable weekend in 2012 was compromised
by the only significant snowstorm of last winter. However, the total
wagered from all sources on M1 races was $8,184,843 a whopping 29% increase
from last year. To gain more perspective, the 2013 total was also 28% higher
than like dates for 2011 and on par with 2010.
"It appears that the changes we made to our wagering
format and racing product are continuing to work. Initially, the biggest gains
were in our export. Now we have turned our attention to enhancing our live
racing experience and the numbers this past weekend reflected that," said
Racing Operations Manager Darin Zoccali.
"We have put forth great promotions including
'Captaintreacherous' where already over 1,600 entries have been placed to win a
share of the pacer of the year. In the immediate future the Meadowlands racing
fans will continue to see enhanced promotion for our live product.
"This Saturday we will be
rolling out our $2 Daily Double Promotion, where racing fans that purchase a
live program will receive a free $2 wager on a Meadowlands Daily Double."
Throughout the cards, the pools were high and the
prices fair. Newcomer Eric Carlson delivered another bomb on Thursday returning
$114.80 with Ladybones then spun right back and paid $23 in the next race with
Palm's Beach, resulting in a Pick 4 payoff of $27,000.
A valuable informational link from The Meadowlands
website is the TrackMaster product StatsMaster which
offers statistics on all horses, trainers and drivers for the meet and has
various sort features.
For example, although Yannick Gingras is the defending dash
champ, drives first call for top barn the Burke stable and is certainly a
fan favorite at The M, his current Return On Investment (ROI) is a remarkable
+30% (a 30% return on win bets). 2012 HTA Driver of the Year Tim
Tetrick, on the other hand, is currently sporting a ROI of -64%.
Early dash leader Dave Miller has been on some roll and is
currently 6 wins up on Yannick from an equal number of starts.
His ROI is just about flat at -1%.
Trainer-wise, Ron Burke leads with 11 wins from 78
starts and sends out many heavily bet entries. Revisiting the StatsMaster
information, a great disparity exists between Burke's ROI at -32%
versus hot starter Nick Surick (6 wins from 13 starts) whose ROI is whopping
+223%.
On the oval, Golden Receiver continues to impress. He
dominated ten rivals in the second leg of the Presidential and should face
no serious challenge in the $103,000 final on Saturday.
More compelling are the Super Bowl and Clyde Hirt
finals. The lady trainers wield the power in the Super Bowl, with
Julie Miller's entry of Helios and Windsun Galliano and Jenny Melander's
Wisenheimer the strong horses heading into Saturday's $51,000 title bout.
In the Hirt, Holdingallthecards and One Through Ten are on
a collision course for the $67,400 final. This
shapes up as an interesting betting race including several talented horses
with a chance that will be overlooked in favor of the headliners.
New Meadowlands GM & CEO Jason Settlemoir had
this to say, "The racing since the beginning of the meet has been
tremendous. The Racing Office led by Pete Koch has done an outstanding job
producing races that are competitive and great to watch.
"Our customer service initiatives, such as
the daily promotions, new enhanced Terraces Buffet on Friday and Saturday
and free admission and programs on Thursday and Friday have been well received.
Those attractions, along with revisions to the wagering format
and later post time of 7:15 pm are yielding the desired result.
"The handle on the exported signal has
been superb and now I can see the on-track handle starting to turn the
corner. I am genuinely excited about the progress we are seeing on most
fronts. If we get a little help from Mother Nature, Saturday's
card featuring the three series finals promises to be
outstanding night of racing."
Racing resumes on Thursday, starting right off with the
current darling of the horizontal wagering crowd, the Pick 5. Visit the web to
find more Big M facts.
