"It's not a tin-cup industry anymore," di Costanzo said.
Until the running of this year's Breeders' Cup, the industry did not seem too worried about customers like Carty or their complaints.
In October at the Breeders' Cup, the industry has another opportunity to show that it, too, can be more like the big-league sports.
In a city where tunas festoon everything from billboards to restaurant signs, and where even the golf tournament is the Tuna Cup, the fishing industry's influence is impossible to miss.
England took the Ashes against the weight of all expectation, rugby union's World Cup revealed the extraordinary industry of Japan and Scotland, and then there was the Premier League phenomenon called Leicester City – 1,500-1 in August to finish Christmas at the top of the Premier League, having spent more time propping up the division last season than any other side.
That has led, since at least the 1994 World Cup, to a cottage industry of temporary grass fields being hastily assembled for international friendlies and the latest incarnation of the World Football Challenge, which began last week with Manchester United and Major League Soccer's New England Revolution.
While authorities widened their investigation into the legitimacy of a bet with a payoff of $3 million on last Saturday's Breeders' Cup races, thoroughbred racing industry officials said they had begun immediate reviews of how the billions of dollars bet at American racetracks were handled.
In addition to a tight sense of verisimilitude (performances from a straight-faced cast are wonderfully authentic) several key segments were staged at real-life events, including the Melbourne Cup and a the industry's biggest event, the Pumper and Cleaner Expo in Nashville, Tennessee, dubbed "Poo HQ" by Kenny.
Through my research it became clear that the music industry's cup of givers is flowing over, full of inspiring individuals making the world a better place.
But to leave our industry tin-cupping its way around a government it covers seems desperate and ill-advised: a cure that might be worse than the disease.
