The Beaten Track:Aqueduct was once a racing jewel; Not Now

Again - as I've said numerous times tonight - I don't disagree that the fan facilities at the Big A are in need of the promised renovations.

That movie quote does not apply. Why? Because NO ONE has said the Big A facilities are fine as they are.

To be "fair" I took this article from the NY Daily News. I thought more info was needed since what Pres posted had inserted this link "The Daily News' coverage of the shocking sexual assault of a mentally disabled woman at Aqueduct." That line was not part of the article. IMO - it was inserted to add to the sensationalism aspect.

I'm NOT downplaying this horrible incident BUT - why would a mother take a disabled daughter, with "the wonder of a 2 yr old" to Aqueduct? The daughter disappeared when the Mother "turned away briefly to place a bet"? She must have been making a whole lot of bets. If she honestly took her daughter to "go see the horses" then she would have been keeping her eyes on her while they watched the horses. What Mother turns their back on a child at the racetrack? If she wanted to bet, then she should have brought someone else along.

Again, it's a terrible incident but in no way was this Aqueduct's fault. It could have happened anywhere. Who takes their child (especially a 2 yr old or a disabled child) to a race track and turns their back on them? Especially a track that they describe as “The men at the tracks now, they’re bums,” she said. “They curse, they steal. It was never like that before.”

From the NY Daily News
A visit to the South Ozone Park, Queens, track on Super Bowl Sunday became hellish when the mom turned away to place a bet and her daughter disappeared.
A joyous outing for a developmentally disabled woman who loved horses turned to a nightmare when she was sexually assaulted at Aqueduct Racetrack, her anguished mother told the Daily News.
The 80-year-old mother said her daughter, at age 40, looks at the Aqueduct racehorses with the wonder of a 2-year-old.
“I said to her, ‘Do you want to go see the horses?’ ” the mother recalled Tuesday from their home in Sunnyside, Queens.
“She likes them a lot, we've been to the racetrack many times, so she said, ‘OK, let’s go.’ ”
During their visit to the South Ozone Park, Queens, track on Super Bowl Sunday, they had been watching the races on the third floor of the track.
“I’m going to bet one,” the mom said she told her daughter, and she turned away briefly to place her bet. When she turned back, her daughter was gone.
Fear filled her in an instant.
“I started looking around, but I didn’t see her,” the mother said. “I said to the guard, ‘My daughter disappeared.’ I was scared something happened to her.”
They found a female guard, and the trio scoured the track. More guards joined the search. They searched bathrooms, they went to the track’s other floors.
Then a guard told her that her daughter had been found, the mother told The News.
“She’s fine,” she remembered the guard saying.
They didn’t tell her her daughter was naked and screaming, huddled in a bathroom stall when she was rescued by a stranger who saw the alleged perpetrator leaving hurriedly, pulling up his pants as he fled.
The unidentified woman who found the victim told police she heard the attacker warn “Don’t tell anybody” before he scurried from the bathroom.
Frank Wood, 37, of Pennsylvania, was taken into custody and charged with sexual assault, a felony punishable by seven years in prison.
In the family’s apartment, with its wooden coatrack carved in the shape of horses and small tapestry of white and brown horses hanging near the entryway, the mother choked back tears Tuesday night when she thought of what might have happened to her daughter.
“We found her, he didn’t kill her,” she said. “They always find people like her dead.”
“If something happened to her I’d die,” she said.
The mother said the broken-down palace of what was once called “The Sport of Kings” is not the place it once was.
“The men at the tracks now, they’re bums,” she said. “They curse, they steal. It was never like that before.”

Wiz - Your post is not true. You said "in fact, AQUYEDUCT brings down the overall product more for NY racing more then HOLLYWOOD did in ca."

You started the stupid East/West crap and you weren't talking about the facilities. That is what I took issue with. Please re-read my reply. As to your sentence, "in fact" is wrong - it should say "in my opinion"

Evelyn:

The Headline WAS a part of the story.

Maybe you don't have kids, but at any given time a child can walk away from their parents or guardian. Why can't someone take a mentally disabled person to a Racetrack or a Casino? Aren't they entitled to a day out?

My wife's sister has a special need Son and we take him to Casinos,Racetracks, even on Cruises. He enjoys his time out.

Crime can happen anywhere, anytime . But since it happened at AQU it's the Mothers "fault" this incident happened. That in my opinion is just wrong.

Pres

Ev in response to your question on what mom turns her back on her child at a race track I will tell you it not only happens at the track but at Dept stores, beaches, subways, and numerous other places. Good moms do get distracted and lose their children everyday of the week. So trying to put the blame on this mom is nonsense. Cannot a child with a disability leave their house or must they be kept under house arrest.

LT - That's very sad but I know you're right. As to the Mother, I disagree. She knew the track, speaks badly of it yet HAS to bet. There's no way she made a quick bet and the daughter went missing that quickly. Something doesn't add up. She does bear part of the blame IMO

I posted that simply to clarify. The incident can't' be blamed on the track.

I also respectfully disagree about the definition of "product". And once again, I'm not defending the facility. There's no question it needs the renovations that were supposedly part of the casino deal but have not been done, as promised. I'm also saying, as is the case with everything reported by the Daily News, a lot of sensationalism was used in that article. I like Bossert. He's a decent 'capper. I'd bet Bossert was used for track access but the bulk of the story was written by O'Keefe who is on the staff of "Daily News Sports Investigation Team". Right - he goes looking for "dirt" to satisfy his employer because that's simply the Daily News! And he never ever tells both sides of a story.