I always find these Free Admission/Giveaway days based on the sex of the patron annoying. This Saturday, Rachel Alexandra, will be running in the Grade 1 Mother Goose at Belmont.
NYRA has announced free admission and a free giveaway for the day. Now don't get confused, the free admission is only for females, but the first 10,000 customers, male or female, gets a bracelet. Why not just make it free for everyone?
According to the NYRA website, NYRA has chosen to give away pink bracelets to show support for the decision announced last week by Rachel Alexandra’s owners, Jess Jackson, and his wife Barbara Banke, to contribute a portion of Rachel Alexandra’s future winnings to the Susan G. Komen “Race for the Cure”® for breast cancer.
I wonder how many woman will just keep spinning around the turnstiles for free to grab the free trinket. Although spinning the turnstiles is wildly popular at Saratoga, thankfully it is less so at Belmont. The weather is supposed to be dry for a change and I would expect a pretty good crowd. The bracelet is your standard "dollar store" type synthetic rubber thingy that was a popular fashion statement you could wear to show the world you were a caring person of some cause or another, but the popularity seems to have waned of late.
Attendance prediction: 11,253
5 comments:
This probably would have been a better promotion the other way round.
I'm not sure how many (especially male) racegoers really want a cheap pink bracelet that will force them to explain to their non-racegoer fans that Rachel Alexandra is not their cross-dresser alias.
LOL @ malcer.
I'm going with 9,250 to just eek out the attendence for Curlin's Man o' War last year which reached a peak of around 8,400 diehards.
I resepctivly disagree, men can get breast cancer, it's rare, but they can get it. NYRA is doing the right thing by giving the bracelets to both genders. No one was complaining about the Pink Out on Oaks day.
Malcer & Anon: I have no problem with everyone getting the free bracelet, just think everyone should get free admission also.
Equispace-Curlin drew 8,420 fans last July 13th at Belmont when he finished 2nd in the Man O' War.
Spinning is alive and well at Belmont when there's a desired giveaway. Because attendance is lower at Belmont and because there are more gates and more space, it's not the disaster that it is at Saratoga, but when they're giving away chairs or blankets, you see people in the parking lot staggering under the weight of their multiple bits of loot. And of course, it's all on Ebay within hours.
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