A day at the Racino with the kids?

I like horse racing. A lot. I enjoy a good day at the track and have visited my share of them. My wife, however, is borderline obsessed. A little background: she used to write full-time for one of the big industry publications, freelanced for many years more, and also was an advertising copywriter for a Thoroughbred ad agency for several years. We've bred a few horses and she’s been on the boards of two major industry organizations. The first time she’d ever visited Lexington, she called me after seeing Calumet and told me she wasn't returning home unless I agreed to move to Lexington. I moved (she's convincing; what can I say?). I tell you that because, as we now travel full-time around the country, one of the goals of our trip was to visit every racetrack in North America. We haven't met that goal and have, at times, gotten pretty discouraged along the way.

Several months ago we were in Delaware and one day while I was working she "tried" to visit Delaware Park with our three young kids. She set off in high spirits and it looked to be a fun family day, just like we were accustomed to at Keeneland or Churchill Downs, our 'home tracks,' so to speak. Unfortunately, neither of us had been to a casino-based track before and didn't realize the ramifications of going to one with children.

While I can’t speak for other racinos, my wife learned pretty quickly you can't see a race at Delaware Park if you have kids. There is no possible way (that any available employee or security guard knew about -- and she asked several) to get from the entrance to the apron without going through the casino. Kids aren’t allowed to set foot in the casino, not even to pass through it on the way to the grandstand. There was a playground they could have gone to on the first turn, but she wasn’t there for a playground. She simply loves racing and wanted to enjoy a few races from the historic grandstand. One of the track employees directed her to an "entrance" that she had to walk with the kids (in the rain!) all the way around the gargantuan casino/grandstand to get to, but they turned out to be locked doors. She just wanted to show the kids an historic track where a lot of people cut their teeth in racing, my boss included, and finally just left after two hours of frustration.

I’m not trying to bash Delaware Park, but from what I understand people used to rave about that track as being one of the most family-friendly around. It now seems anti-family. I suspect the problem Delaware exhibited here is not only confined to Delaware, but to racinos in general. It seems like some tracks just hold horse racing to have a casino. That's too bad.

Not for you horseplayers...
anh-usa.org, photo.

This was all brought back to mind by a note yesterday from a friend who is a long-time handicapper. In fact, I'm betting the only day he won't have a bet down on a race somewhere is the day after he dies, because he'll have been to drive-through betting at Keeneland the morning of. Anyhow, he mentioned another racino issue. He attended a handicapping contest last fall at Louisiana Downs where he'd paid a pretty significant entry fee to play. His complaint was that on the horse side, water and soft drinks were $2 a bottle and they made you pay for every little thing. In the next room over, in the same building on the casino side, they couldn't seem to give everything away fast enough, including that same bottled water and soft drinks. In fact, if a casino player tried to enter the horseplayers’ area, security made them throw their water or other drink in the trash. As he wrote, “If a new fan were to go through this, wouldn’t they choose the casino over the race track?”

Seems like a bit of disconnect to me. I'm not saying that horseplayers should be given drinks and food all day, but if the two are combined in the same building, at least make the two worlds a little more level.

I’m not sure there will ever be a right answer to the racino v. casino v. racetrack question, but I think it would be nice for management to let the people who want to go to the track, just go to the track, and for the people who want to play blackjack, just play blackjack. As for me, I just want to be able to take my kids to the races. How can we expect to build future support for this sport if we can't do that?

-- Robert Williams