Earlier and faster Meadowlands’ card produces a season high handle – but what does it mean?

Was $3.3 million in wagering last Saturday at The Meadowlands simply a one-time circumstance of favorable conditions, or does it prove races can be run faster and still produce high handle.

by Brett Sturman

Last Saturday (Jan. 24), The Meadowlands ran their card at a slightly modified time and pace than usual. With a winter storm oncoming that forced the cancellation of the next-day Sunday card, the track announced that Saturday racing would go on, but with that result in mind to complete the racing card in advance of inclement weather.

Though forced to change the flow of the race card due to weather more so than a natural policy, The Meadowlands conducted a highly successful set of 14 races where the posted handle was $3,379,086. That number was the first $3 million total since Nov. 29, and highest since Nov. 15 of last year.

Instead of the standard announced post time of 6:20 p.m., the adjusted post time for Saturday was moved up to 6 p.m. But to a pleasant surprise, the race actually did go off close to the stated post time. Typically, a 6:20 post time comes with a 6:37 off-time, nearly 20 minutes after the advertised post. On this special Saturday, however, the first race went off at 6:02, right on schedule for all intents and purposes.

From there, the second race went off just 16 minutes later at 6:18, and the third race went off 18 minutes after that at 6:36. By that time, The Meadowlands had already conducted three races whereas on a typical night, even the first race would not have yet gone off. It also goes to show that it’s entirely physically possible to run races spaced apart by 16-18 minutes.

As the program went on, perhaps feeling a little “too ahead” of schedule, the races did become more spaced out with about an average of 25 minutes in between each race through the middle section of the card, which included 28 minutes between races 4 and 5. Towards the latter stages, the time in between races once again picked up where races went off somewhere between 17 and 19 minutes.

In the end, the card that started at 6:02 ended at 10:47, which in looking at the total duration of four hours and 45 minutes still seems long, but was still an improvement on the usual. The prior Saturday card began at 6:37 and ended at 11:42, or looking at it another way, 20 minutes longer than the most recent Saturday card.

The question is then: What drove the substantial handle increase if the two race cards were completed only by a difference of 20 minutes?

The least complicated part of the explanation is that The Meadowlands was one of the only signals — thoroughbred or harness — running that night. Thoroughbred cancellations included Charles Town, Turfway, and almost all the Delta Downs card. The only other harness track running that night in the U.S. was Northfield Park, with Woodbine Mohawk Park in Canada.

What’s interesting is that you can’t say The Meadowlands increase was due entirely to lack of competition, because if that was the case you would have expected Mohawk to have a similar bump in their handle too, but that didn’t happen.

Before The Meadowlands handle of $3.3 million a week ago, the prior three Saturday’s there were $2.6, $2.6, and $2.8 million. Mohawk, on the other hand, remained flat. Starting from the first Saturday of January, their Saturday handles have been $2.1, $1.6, and $1.7 million. Last Saturday, they produced the same $1.7 million as they did the week prior.

What may also have contributed to the high Meadowlands increase could have been simply starting earlier and ending earlier. This is something that, as discussed in a recent column, Hoosier Park did this past meet, and had success with this formula too.

Essentially, there is more to gain in handle by shifting the later races earlier. Put it this way, are there going to be more eyes on the product between the hours of 6 to 6:45 or between 11 to 11:45? The answer is the former, and that’s based on The Meadowlands last week and on what Hoosier Park found in last year’s season. Indeed, the handle at The Meadowlands last Saturday during the 10 o’clock hour far exceeded the same race handle from the week prior in the 11:00 hour.

There just aren’t many people around to bet on harness racing at close to midnight, but wrap things up an hour earlier and then maybe you have something.

To the opposing point, you could say that The Meadowlands tried once again to eliminate post drag in a highly publicized effort last year, and it resulted in a disaster. However, that initiative also coincided with a concurrent policy to put restrictions on certain computer assisted wagering (CAW) action. With that, it’s impossible to say how much handle was lost last year during the drag-reduction experiment or to CAWs temporarily pulling back.

Another thing is that post drag issues and the amount of time between races are actually two separate things. You could still have post drag and at the same time have fewer minutes between races — which is, whether intentional or not — sort of how things played out a week ago Saturday for The Meadowlands.

At minimum, last week’s Meadowlands $3.3 million handle shows that racing doesn’t have to suffer because of what should be normally run race cards. Was just that one successful night enough for the track to consider another card that follows the same timing?