In general:

Achieve high win and ITM percentages
Maximize time off between races
Land in softest spots possible

I guess I can agree with you in theory, but this summer at AP has been a nightmare trying to get in a race, any race, unless you have a cheap claimer. There just isn't the opportunity to be that selective here. You run where you can and pray it fills.

Let me ask you, as I have no idea of who's stabled at Arlington:

I'm looking at the meet leaders and see that Ingrid Mason, Tom Amoss, and Danny Peitz have less than 30 starters each, whereas the average of other trainers seems to be around 60 or so.

Do the first 3 I mentioned have roughly the same number of horses stabled at AP as the others? If so, that's the kind of situation I'm talking about (ignoring the relative "types" of horses in each barn).

In CA, you could say that guys like John Shirreffs, Mike Puype, and perhaps Ron Ellis are "guilty" of this.

Peitz probably has 24 horses here. Amoss maybe 16. Mason probably around 20, she trains for the guy that owns the hyperbaric chamber up here. He is a 'poor man' Calabrese, just on a different level. He claims these older class horses, throws them in the chamber forever and then they freak until their wheels fall off, she has also had two heart attacks

I think this might put things in perspective to show you this meet has been doomed from the start. Some horseman were given close to 20% MORE stalls then they requested. They were told to "see what you can do". Given MORE stalls before the meet even starts.....trainers were dumbfounded by this

isn't it really about purse :$: especially if you're not IL bred or have a local owner?

Which is my point that Tom seems to have a very serious issue with. Not everyone is doing that, though Tom seems to think that every trainer is entering every horse he/she has every 14 days and races just aren't filling by some unmerciful act of god.

Are you kidding me? For the crazy nonsense in that first post back to me, you'd think Tom had never seen a racehorse, a racetrack, a condition book, and had no idea how horse racing works.

Luckily, I won't hold a couple bullsh*t posts against him because I know he's smarter than he's made himself seem tonight.

I can't tell you how bad I want to take sides in this one ... especially since it's a thread I started and I'm big on promoting my own ... it's how I roll and stuff .... but I really am not following this one well.

You are just typing. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, period. You must have overlooked the last part when Bob states "Pray it fills"

Every guy that isn't named Canani or Catalano are struggling to pay their bills and they are hesitant to run?

You have no idea how many things actually have to go right before you can actually RUN a horse, let alone the one minor thing that can screw you for weeks.

People enter horses when they are ready to run, and until strangers start paying training bills, the help, feed man, then they can start questioning horseman when they should enter.

Good point, Tom. Until right this second, I had no idea how horse racing worked.

I am enlightened now, and I'm a better person for it.

Please. You're as much a "stranger" to paying bills as I am, so stop with the better than thou sh*t that you're trying to pull above.

Which is essentially why I posted this in the first place. Why fight it if your gonna click at 80% off the angle.

I wasn't about to get personal on this but hey, it will lead to good internet.

Explain how I am as much as a stranger? Have you seen a vet bill ever? What about a feed bill?

Better than thou? That is your area buddy, and I'll leave this at that.

Lets go back to your original asine post, "unlike alot of guys on the backside". You make a general assumption that you are probably repeating from some Arlington schill(sp). Explain what a horseman is suppose to do if last year they had 20 horses, and now they have 10? What about the guy that has 10 and now has four? These two examples are REAL. You understand that what you read from your media buddies about a full backside is absolute BS, there is about 5-6 EMPTY barns back there. EMPTY. Each barn back there has between 5-10 EMPTY stalls also. Why don't you get to the track sometime at 9am and see how many horses are on either the main track or training track? Maybe 10? training track probably 5?

Explain how a horseman makes money without running? Explain how a horseman is suppose to run when the right races are not in the condition book.

What you are saying is that horseman should rush their horses, the very asset that for some people, puts food on their table, to help out a racing office and racetrack.

The idea that horseman are sitting on horses is asine and stupid. There is no perfect spot at Arlington because the only guaranteed races to go are the nickel claimers and maiden 10k. The others you have at best a 50/50 chance of the race ACTUALLY GOING. So if I have a maiden 25k horse, should I drop the horse to maiden 10 to help out a racing office? What if i actually want to try and develop the horse, what if I do not want to be claimed, what if that is one of my few horses and I can't afford to lose the horse?

Lastly, why don't you throw some names out there of people that aren't entering like they should be...

The only motivation for inactivity is milking day bill.

Sucks when they don't fill and you're ready to go. You can always let them hustle the allowance horse into a 10000 2l. Just let me know before you do it!

Races not filling
 

I guess the next logical step would be to look to ship out of town if the particular race you are looking for doesn't fill numerous times at your home base. That of course depends on a race filling in a track that is somewhat close, the right distance, surface and level..... It seems a shame that tracks such as Arlington Park, or whomever can't fill races with their own population every once in a while beyond the low level claimers but if that is the reality then as has been stated owners and trainers and their help don't make any money by keeping their horses in the barns. I suspect having a base like at Phila Park is good because there are numerous tracks one can ship to. Arlington is a bit more challenging as you have Indiana, Churchill and not much else. The economics and reality of the game is forcing all players to reconsider how to operate....

Psh. Chd is having issues filling the better races too. They are going w very short fields or not going at all.

And it isn't like they are getting rich on that day rate either. There is absolutely zero logic in the notion that horseman are not entering horses when they are ready to run.

unless you are pointing for a toga , keeneland meet..ect

Exactly...It has become a game between Arlington and Churchill who they are going to steal next to make a race fill. And they are owned by the same company!! :)

You're right

They may not get rich not running, but if you stand to lose a daybill horse by running a lot of guys will not run.

Just hypothetically if a trainer can put 10 bucks in his pocket per head, per day, and he/she has 15 horses..... Figure that trainer makes 150 a day, 1050 a week. Certainly not gonna get rich, but it may provide a motivation for not running as opposed to running and losing one.

I have seen that often

a small trainer has to set them up to gamble, or make some profit on daybill, or it's a pretty tough gig

I'll throw a name into this discussion, how are Maggi Moss and Thomas Amoss doing this meet?

At which meet csc. They haven't ran as many at chd since that fiasco w the pletcher claim.

She's light years ahead in the claiming game though. She gets it. She makes the right moves more often than not. It's not like she has unlimited funds either. She's just well read, bright, and understands how to turn a profit