[Hickory Hill Hoff]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

Of course not. How could anybody think that? The weather was awful. It was freezing cold, windy, and there was a bunch of snow. That's why we cancelled. Matt covered that a few posts ago. The one time we cancelled because of the surface was because it was uneven after we had a thaw after the extreme cold. As anyone that follows the Inner in the past knows, this happened with relative frequency in the past. The surface would turn to pudding ( essentially ) after a thaw, as the water would rise to the surface, and create an uneven track.

The outer is now the same as the Inner was. It's all about the base. It's a limestone base. If you're interested, track super Glen Kozak did a podcast with me back in the Fall at Belmont, and he talked about this.

The surface was probably one of the few things that went well for us this Winter:-) The cancellations caused any momentum we had from a business standpoint to come to a screeching halt, and once you lose that business for a reasonably extended time ( we were closed for about two weeks or so ), it's very hard to get it back. Think of yourself as a player....after we cancel three or four days in a row, you sort of stop wasting your time looking, and find a more reliable signal. It's understandable. Then, the overall quality of the racing as a betting product was not terrific ( nobody knows this better than me, as you can imagine ) to be kind. Hard to get the business back under those circumstances.

We've been doing great, and a lot of it was due to good weather, as Belmont-Saratoga-Belmont-and even Aqueduct until Christmas, was very strong. Things will pick up again in April when we are back on the turf. Clearly this has not been a good Winter, but blaming the surface, or the lack of the Inner, was not the problem.

Ok, sorry I misspoke