RockingSham Park

A few friends of ours here at the Casino Snob hold a yearly event called "Ponies and Bombs". The bombs portion is a leisurly boat ride on Canobie Lake in New Hampshire to watch the Canobie Lake Park fireworks. The Ponies portion is an afternoon at the ponies watching and betting on the races at Rockingham Park.

This year, with the advent of Casino Snob, yours truly decided that a proper review of the park was in order. I packed my camera, and my notebook, and headed off on what was bound to be an exciting adventure, and let me assure you friends, an adventure it was. The races, the beers, and the culmination of a 8+ months pregnant woman getting ripped off out of her winnings should make this a unique review to be sure.

A day at the ponies can be a fun and entertaining day. You pay a small admission if its a live track, you buy your program for the day, and you try to glean who will win each race. We like to get in the grandstand, so we can smell the horses, and enjoy the sunshine. Though there are usually indoor seating, and closed caption TVs setup so that if you want to get out from the heat (or the stink) you can do so.

Bets range from as low as $1 to as high as you like, and its one of the few places you and a friend can gamble all afternoon and spend less than $20. Now, that would mean you have no beer, but it *is* possible. Given the price of a movie these days, thats not a bad deal.

Once settled, you get your daily program. In it, you are confronted with a plethora of information about each race. Obviously, each horse is listed, as well as the jockey, but you are also treated to a rather dense listing of information about each horse. Each listing even includes its last several races and outcomes, and a clever markup that indicates what drugs the horse is on. We had an excellent time with that one, imagining if other sporting events took that tack. Imagine your program for a baseball games, and the stars and icons next to the names signified "HGH", "testosterone", and other dubious drugs.

That famous racetrack horn plays and its 5 mintues to "post" time. You have only 5 minutes left to decide on your bet! There are many kinds of bets you can place, but generally they are concerned with the top three finishing horses in a race: the win, the place, and the show. You could for example, bet $1 on horse number seven, "Dancing Charlie" to win a race, or you could bet $5 that he will show (come in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd). The payout is determined based on the original odds of the horse, and the amount of bets that were actually received for that particular combination. I don't claim to be the best number cruncher, but the wizard of odds can explain it to you. Another bet that is both interesing, and relevant to our story include the "daily triple" also known as the "pick three". The basic premise behind this bet, is that you are picking three horses to win in three separate, consecutive races. As you can imagine, the odds of winning this bet are rather difficult, as it means you have to pick three winners in a row. As such, you would also expect the payout to be comensurately higher, particularly if your winners were underdogs to start with.

Now that you have an idea of what a day at the track betting on ponies is, let's go deeper in depth on what Rockingham park has to offer.

Rockingham Park holds live harness racing from May to September, as well as hosting an off track betting facility for all sorts of horse racing from around the country. The park this year is celebrating its centennial, and we have to admit, its starting to show. The facility itself has the feeling of an old bus station. It is a bit rundown, and clearly scene at Rockingham is not in its prime. The place seems halfway deserted, an the people who are there are generally older, and clearly long time fans of the sport.

The grandstand itself, is a slab of pavement that angles downaward towards the finish line. An array of fiberglass benches are set out so you can watch the race. Across the track you can see the scoreboard, which points out the time to post, the odds on the upcoming race, and the current bets that have come in. This can be invaluable as you try to determine what ponie to place your wager on.

You head up to the counter to place your bets, and are greeted by a staff that is friendly enough, but clearly past its prime. Even the security staff is filled with old folks. It makes you wonder what they would do if someone decided to get uppity. Of course, considering most of the clientelle is over sixty, maybe it doesnt matter.

If you get hungry or thirsty, there is a consessions area. The food is just what youd expect, low quality and overpriced. The beer isnt so bad, though the Sam Adams we had was oddly bitter, and not worth the five bucks we paid. The bartender Joe, is an old timer, and he is friendly, so please tip him nicely.

The afternoon plays on, and we enjoy a few races, some we win, some we lose, but one of our lot, the aforementiond very pregnant woman, is having a great day. She and another friend have both picked a pick three, and have won the first two races. The last race, they have different horses, so excitement ensues as we cheer wildly for either of them to win. A jockey's family also was in the stands, so there was actual honest to goodness cheering and excitement on this race (something that is usualy missing from the Rockingham atmosphere).

One horse is out of it, but the other is pushing hard as he comes down the final stretch. He is being whipped furiously by his jockey, and he manages to eeke out ahead amid cheers and hoots. Our pregnant friend excitetly heads inside to collect her winnings. She had placed a $5 bet, so the money coming back should be nothing to sneeze at. Oddly, the winning board, says that a $2 bet pays $2.20, but we know the board must be wrong, and we just are confused.

Some time goes by, and we begin to wonder what has taken her so long to collect her money. The last race finishes, and we all shuffle back inside to fidn out just what has happened to our friend. It turns out on her bet of $5, she was given a whopping $5.50. Clearly there is a mistake, and someone should be able to fix it. Well the staff directs her (and us) to a pair of backroom doors that hide from us the amazing mysteries of "the management". A security woman, who must be in her seventies, tells us to wait here wile they "figure out" what to do.

After about 12 minutes, a manager walks out, and informs our friend, and the other winner who got gipped, that they will be some time figuring out what to do, and in addition, no money will be handed out today. At this point, we are all stunned. How hard could it be to calcualte the winnings, and hand it out. And givent hat its probaby on the order of $60, how big of a deal would this have to truly be? What kinds of mysterious magicks will have to be worked to determine how much to pay the winners?

After a bit more hemming and hawing, we decide to leave her contact information with "The Manager" and just move on. We have yet to see if the true winnings will actually be paid, but given that we have the name of the manger, and documented evidence of the event, we suspect that a solution will be workd out quickly.

In the end, it was a weak ending to what had been a generally pleasant day. It seems that much like the ailing park itself, the experience itself is getting a bit decrepit.

To sum up, we like ponies. We can see how the excitement of the track, and the live show of the races can be fun, but Rockingham Park may not be the best venue to experience it. If you want to see something different, and not spend so much, go for it, but for us, there are much better palces to be and much less shady bets to be won.

August 21, 2006

RockingSham Park