Thoroughbred Times folds due to bankruptcy

[heavylifting]

Sadly, another horse racing media outlet bites the dust.

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/72828/thoroughbred-times-declares-bankruptcy?&utm_source=DailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20120916

[husker71]

I like bloodhorse better but still hate to see any outlet go out of business.  Anybody remember the daily that was going to take the place of the racing form?  I look for old ones on ebay but cannot ever find  them for sale

[heavylifting]

Anybody remember the daily that was going to take the place of the racing form?  I look for old ones on ebay but cannot ever find  them for sale

That would be the Racing Times. Steven Crist founded it back around 1990. They went out of business when their publisher Robert Maxwell drowned off the Canary Islands in late 1991; his body was found floating in the Atlantic Ocean. It was widely believed that he committed suicide, as his publishing empire was about to be discovered insolvent and/or misbehaving Enron-style.

The Racing Times introduced numerous innovations, most notably Beyer Speed Figures. Several years later, a private-equity group purchased DRF and installed Crist as editor-in-chief. DRF was then basically retrofitted to resemble The Racing Times. 

[HawgWild]

I'd forgotten about the Racing Times but you are correct. They introduced many bits of information that the Racing Form, for whatever reason, neglected to provide until pushed by this competition.

[husker71]

I bought a couple of copies at a newstand in Los Angeles when I was taking that bus that was an express to either Hollywood or Santa Anita.  So that had to be 1990 or 1991.  We had a cook at the hotel I was working at then.  He retired (had to be 70+) and had about $40,000 and his social security.  He left for Vegas checked into the Crest Hotel $99 per week with free breakfast at the El Cortez next door.  Within 1 month he was back and busted. Said he was playing craps at $300 per roll. So he comes back but he still goes to Hollywood Park on that $1 express bus.  One day the bus is in a bad accident and he is lly hurt with injuries to his back and neck.  Turns out the driver tested positive for cocaine and within 2 years the guy has +$800,000.  So last time I heard he was back at the Crest Hotel which is now $129 .  That is a gambling addiction story.

[heavylifting]

That is a gambling addiction story.

Yes, but a good one. Right up there with the train that crashed on the way to Bowie race track in Maryland back in the 1950s (I think it was), with horseplayers clambering over the dead and disabled to hustle to the track in time to bet the Daily Double (and at that time, kids, there was only one double on the card).

[HawgWild]

I remember an early trip to Oaklawn back in the late 1970's and seeing an elderly man being carried out from a ticket window area on a stretcher, obviously dead, his skin a pale, pasty white. Few people seemed to noticed. They had their heads down in the form, trying to get to the window to place their bets. It had a surreal feeling to it for me.

[husker71]

has anybody here read any of the William Murray books???  all of them a mysteries but revolve around horse racing and the backstretch.  I like them better than the Dick Francis books because lots of betting storiesare intertwined.  He says a guy had a heart attack and died right after the first race.  As they were carrying out on the stretcher one bettor comes up and asks another player "Is he alive???"  the other answers "only to the 3"  (in the double)  Most deal with Socal racing   I really suggest you try one of them