Ramon Dominguez at Belmont
 

A solid 9% win rate through two weeks.

NT

No longer facing tin cups.

The less than stellar inside part of the racetrack has not helped Ramon.

Having said that, he'll be just fine.

That's tangentally the reason. The reason is that basically he no longer has his choice of which of the first three choices to ride.

Maiden Spl's with 5 horses in them is the issue not Ramon

He's had plenty of mounts. 54 in nine days is a lot.

NT

He's also 50% ITM...me thinks he'll be ok

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm a HUGE Dominguez fan and of all of them he'd be on my horse first if I had a choice.

I agree with Andy that the dead rail has not helped and I had my head in my hands when he dove to the inside repeatedly between Thursday and Sunday. I think he'll be fine too, it's just been a rough opening two weeks.

NT

This is the first time Ramon has ridden at Belmont for any kind of extended period.

He'll be in the top three.

While certainly one of the more clever jocks out there, Ramon is not one of the better finishers.

For an example of one of his least clever rides and one of his poorer finishes, look at Flat Bold this past Saturday. He loses focus, paying too much attention to Gomez on the chalk, who is behind him entering the stretch, and gets run down by GG on January Gent, who doesn't change leads and appears to be struggling in the lane. If Kent were riding the horse there'd been 5 threads about the ride over at PA.

This is about a poor a ride as I've seen from Dominguez.

Then again, this is probably the worst 2 weeks of racing I can remember over at BEL in the past 35 years.

I'm sure the fact that we had over 4" of rain over a seven day period had absolutely nothing to do with this.

You seem to think we should have raced on the turf Saturday, and believe me I wish we had been able to, yet after nearly two days of warm weather ( one of which was also very windy ) to dry out the courses, when we finally ran one on the Widener ( which, in case you're interested dries much quicker than the inner ) the time was over 3 seconds slow.

Do you honestly think we want to take races off the turf if for no other reason than it causes a great loss of handle? Sadly, there was little choice.

Now, when you want to disagree with this, please try to stick to the points.

I won't respond directly because I just don't think that NYRA should take races off the turf on days when their dirt track is fast or something close to it. And, the condition of the turf on Sunday, visually, was such that it's hard to get someone to buy your argument.


But let me digress.

I can try to sell you on the advantages of POLY: that the races are more predictive, more challenging, more interesting, clearly more turflike, etc. But you wouldn't buy any of it. One advantage that POLY has over dirt that is beyond debate, however, is that horses that can run over one of the surfaces can usually run over the other. Thus, when it rains, entire cards don't need to be wiped out. And while I'm digressing, I mean 'wiped out' in two senses:

1) decimated by scratches

2) throwing almost a complete card of 'wipe-out' type races --- typically the norm for wet tracks.

But let's proceed slowly for all the 'purists' out there: we can add a POLY track at BEL and SAR and run over it on days when the races are off the turf. And, as unpredictable as the turf plays at AQU, rip it out and install POLY. Can you imagine POLY racing in the winter at AQU? :rolleyes:

Not only install poly...install TRAKUS as well.

synthetic/poly would be awesome as a third surface

It would be garbage as a dirt replacement.

Honestly, I am not interested in your constant digressions that attempt to divert us from the topic at hand.

So, you liked how the course looked visually? You do understand the whole water-sun-vegetation thing.....right? Of course it looked good silly....we had over a week of heavy rains. How do you think grass is supposed to look after that? You ignore how the course played.....over three seconds slow....but did like it lush greeness? Great.

How's about for people like me who hate turf racing they never run another race on it again?

I'd be a lot richer if they didn't.

beat me to it..

all jokes aside NYRA should have trakus.

It's mildly funny when fatman predictably complains about problems with racing, but that doesn't change the fact that he is correct about most of the issues.
I'm not 'devoid of heart', I don't mind saying it. ;)

To be honest I haven't been following the turf condition closely. In my opinion you go off-the-turf on situations where you may damage the course. It doesn't matter if the course is playing slow, the only thing that matters is if you will damage the course or put horse and rider at risk with dangerous conditions. I haven't been following one way or another.

With Dominguez somebody said 54 mounts. Somebody said 9% winners, and somebody said 50% in the money. No wonder the topic has drifted. Non issue.

I'm not talking about the lushness or greenness of the course but rather the KICKBACK. Additionally, did you notice any horses having traction problems out there? Your contention is that the course is overladen with moisture. And it follows that the concern is that the course will be eaten up (and, that it won't be safe). Now, I've seen races run other courses where sod is flying everywhere and horses are losing action. There's a minimum of the former and none of the latter in that race. Moreover, the pacesetter was a very comfortable 2nd in the race. Usually, on very heavy (water logged) turf courses, the speed completely collapses.

Doesn't matter to me either way; I play other tracks.

But if I were a horseman with horses prepared for the turf and NYRA was giving my purse money away in 3-4 horse dirt races, I'd be pissed.

It's not only about the damage to the course, if the ground is too soft it can cause more soft tissue injuries in the horse...of course overly hard surfaces are no help either.

I beg to differ on a few points. First of all, in my experience, speed has always seemed very dangerous on boggy courses. On Sunday's race, the field was extremely gapped out, which is hardly common in turf races. Now, maybe the field had something to do with that, but it still seemed somewhat condition related in my opinion.

How exactly do you decide when it is time to cancel the turf races?

Why is it significant that the races were slower then they should be? That isn't the point the point is if the course was exposed to long term harm or was unsafe for horses and jocks.. The speed of the course is not significant.. When its super fast do we say OMG lets take the races off the turf because its a speed way and the mile and a 1/16th time is 1.36?

Come on Freddy.

Back on point, Lezcano riding the Belmont meet bodes ill for Ramon.

Lezcano's only riding on days where Monmouth is dark. He's riding full-time at Mth.

NT

According to a post on Pace Advantage this morning, he is moving his tack to New York, No idea if this is accurate or not.

Was it that slewis guy? The IT dept blocks me from Pace Advantage at work...I thanked them for it.

NT

It was actually in the NY Post.

I was kind of hoping my IT dept would block Pace Advantage as well.

It's funny, I've actually had to rig a few things to get me into DRF and Derby Trail. The only one that's allowed is Thoroughbred Champions. They're probably watching me post right now.

Interesting about Lezcano- he's a very good rider and would only make the colonies at Belmont and Saratoga even deeper.

NT

Watch his ride on Buddy's Humor last out. It was a GEM. I'm sure Levine, who actually has a clue about trips, was thrilled. I know I was.:rolleyes:

That was undoubtedly a bad ride, but they happen. I don't think you can label Lezcano based on that ride as he seems to be pretty solid overall.

NT