Belmont '13 Observations

Spent the day at Belmont with 2 hard core fans and 2 folks who had never before attended a live flat track. Some Random Post Belmont observations:

Seems like NYRA handled the new security protocols well. We drove and upon getting off our NYRA bus shuttle on the grandstand end took only about 10 minutes to get checked and into the building. Maybe others experienced some delay, but my group had no problems.

I had Palice Malice with a small $5 win bet but made the mistake of leaving him off my trifectas. The game seems pretty simple if you just bet on the "Blinkers Off" angle. That and throw in that Curlin as the sire was late maturing and got better as his 3 year old campaign so wouldn't his son do the same angle and there ya go-easy bet right?

The newbie's with us liked the day at the track and both of them had the usual observations often said by first time visitors to a track:

Wow, I'm amazed at the amount of different type of people who come out here-plenty of young, old, singles, and couples.

The time between races was way too long. Why is that long between races?

Why can't we hear the race caller over the PA System?

Why did we have to pay once for admission and than again for the race program? Shouldn't the program be free with the paid admission?

All in all the newbie's had fun, and I suspect they will be back, but I wonder how over the top the race experience would be for them if customer service issues like free programs and a working PA system were looked at.