I went the year I'll Have Another beat Bodemeister, what, 8-9 years ago? Had reserved seats in the grandstand about 10 rows back from the starting gate (it's really bench seating in most of the place). Back then they only had a small video board, much smaller than what they have now, and the sound system had no chance against the crowd noise. We basically saw them whip into and around the far turn and then disappear down the stretch. Then you'd need binoculars to try to identify the chiclet colors at the bottom of the screen. You actually bond a lot more with the people around you, as you're all asking each other either "what happened?" after the race or "who ya got?" before it.
The fact is 90% of the seats in the entire building need to watch the video board for 75%-100% of the race. There are luxury suites two stories high on the infield side of the stretch that block all but the top couple of floors (5 and 6, maybe 4) from getting a view of the backstretch.
As far as what the infield ticket gets you, there's a tunnel under the stretch so you can go to the paddock area, the museum, various food places, souvenir shops and the betting windows in the open air under the grand stand. They're pretty strict against letting non-grandstand ticket holders enter the grandstand.
I'll go back someday, but I much prefer the Belmont, where there are no infield seats, no infield luxury suites, two levels of stadium style grandstand seats where you get a good look at the whole track, and they cap the attendance at 90.000. The card is top notch and if there's no Triple Crown at stake they only draw 2/3rds the capacity so there's plenty of room to roam.
