While nobody should defend Stronach’s idiotic moves and play-without-a-plan mentality, if Halsey Minor really had any hope of becoming a central cog in a thriving racing industry, he wouldn’t be crying sour grapes in every 5th-rate media outlet.

Additionally, if Magna Entertainment and each of its sister companies went completely bankrupt tomorrow, it would barely cause a ripple in U.S. horse racing.

If indeed there were a firesale of every Magna track, it would no more than bring about a fair ‘correction’ in the worth of those entities. Something being “worth only what somebody will pay for it” would ring true at such auctions.

This in much the same way as Canterbury Downs at $55 Million was a fool’s move in an area with people not previously known for heavy gambling. But at $7 or $8 Million Canterbury Downs became a viable investment for somebody else.

Indeed there are a lot of foolish horsemen with a “herd mentality” who feel they and their futures are tethered to the success or failure of Stronach’s doomed empire, but it simply isn’t true. In many states it has been the horsemen alone who are to blame for having brought themselves into Stronach’s mess. It is they themselves who continue to have the power to extracate their individual corners of the vast racing industry from his grip. They can only do so when united. And when was the last time horsemen at any venue were truly united in concept?

Racing is what it is… the clueless leading the disenfranchised. On one side of that coin reside Stronach, NTRA and Halsey Minor while on the other side exists fractured groups of uninformed and disunited horsemen along with fans not afforded much of a say in it all.

Mr.Stronach will not suffer. His corporations will. He has found a way to defer and spread the loss at very little expense to his personal self.