Steven Crist Quotes (4 Quotes)

The real potential is getting more volume out of existing customers, not expanding the base. Attracting 21-year-olds that argument's been made for 50 years, but racing has always been an activity that appeals to older people. You need two things disposable time and disposable income. It'll always be a specialized, somewhat eccentric activity that appeals to people who like the intellectual challenge of doping out the races.

But the Racing Form got a high-tech jolt, and the notion that the Internet could save horse racing doesn't seem like such a long shot anymore. Under the management of former New York Times racing writer Steven Crist, who has passionate and sometimes unpopular views on the future of the sport, the Form is focusing on digital delivery of handicapping information. It's a year-round sport, ... and fans need up-to-the-minute information every day.

All these numbers are perfectly suited to the Internet. And talk about sticky -- a handicapper can spend six hours analyzing the day's races before the first bugle sounds. The Racing Form's Web site, drf.com, provides racing news, but its new online product, Formulator, supplies past performance information that you can interact with. Other sites provide past performances, but the Form's are the most sophisticated. Colorful charts supplant the black type of the printed version of the Form, and some features let handicappers enter new realms of number crunching. If you want to know how a horse has run in wet weather, click and it's there. On the grass, at a certain distance, and so forth, ... It is useful for both the experienced player and the novice.

Like the mighty Wall Street Journal's WSJ. com, with its 461,000 paying subscribers, the Racing Form already gathers voluminous data for its print edition. And no one resembles stock traders more than serious horse players. Potentially, it's a big business. Of the 14 billion wagered on the ponies every year (movie ticket sales last year, by contrast, totaled less than 8 billion), 10 percent of the bettors staked 90 percent of the money. These are hard-core gamblers, info junkies looking for an edge, and they're Racing Form readers. The average person bets 125 a day at the races, ... A Form user bets 500.