Credit where credit is due

Over the past two decades I have been a fairly harsh critic of Philadelphia Park and its ownership, Greenwood Racing.  And I think rightly so, since the sport of thoroughbred racing always seemed to be like a pesky buzzing horsefly that Greenwood was unable to swat away.  Now that they have their gaming license in place, and are making tons of money from slot machines - with more to come from table games - that horsefly may have been shooed out the window.  But this blog entry is not to entirely criticize Greenwood, although Lord knows there is probably enough fodder to fill a book.  Au contraire, I am writing to actually compliment them, something I never thought I would do.

As racing fans in the Philadelphia region are aware by now, Comcast cable television and Greenwood were unable to come to terms on a deal that would keep the PhoneBet racing channel on the air past April 1.  After nearly a 20-year run, the channel went black (actually, the screen is blue, and gives some premium subscription channel information for high school basketball).  Who is right and who is wrong in this situation is hard to determine, but suffice it to say that racing and its fans are the biggest losers.  

Right before the television screen went blue, Greenwood was directing fans to watch live racing via its Philadelphiapark.com web site.  This link proved invaluable last Friday, April 9, when my daughters and I wanted to watch Zenyatta compete in the Apple Blossom Handicap at Oaklawn Park.  At first, I tried the Daily Racing Form web site, since DRF was touting the live feed for the race everywhere I clicked on the web.  After 17 tries to connect to the Oaklawn feed through DRF, and failing 17 times, the thought hit me ... Philadelphia Park!

I went onto Philly Park's web site and connected in an instant to the Oaklawn feed.  Actually, besides the inconvenience of having to watch a not-so-great-quality video picture on my computer, I preferred it over the old PhoneBet cable television channel.  My daughters and I were able to watch the entire Apple Blossom post parade, pre-race warmups, and commentary by Terry Wallace, without any annoying chatter from hosts and without the irritation of the channel cutting to different tracks that I was not interested in.  We were also able to watch the post-race winner's circle celebration, plus the race replay!  I couldn't have asked for anything better.

So, a tip of the hat to the folks at Greenwood for forcing me onto their web site to watch a stellar presentation of the 2009 Apple Blossom Handicap.  I recommend the live video feeds highly, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays on the web site for many years to come.  But you know the old racetrack adage - there's no such thing as a sure thing, especially not in Philadelphia.