As for the claiming rule. they could have eliminated the open claiming rule and forced out of state owners to run a horse at the meet in order to claim. That would greatly reduce the number of outside horses being claimed at a short meet like Keeneland where it is tougher to get in a race in order to get eligible to claim. What they have done is fail to recoginze the uniqueness of KY's racing setup and serve to hamper the efforts of midwestern horsemen who race on the FairGrounds/Churchill/Keeneland/Arlington curcuit. You would have assumed that Churchill would have seen that doing this will hurt the racing at Arlington and Fair Grounds as horses claimed at Churchill in the spring meet and fall meet will be out of action at their other tracks for a month. This will especially hurt Fair Grounds during December when many owners look to claim at Churchill to run down there for the winter. Many of those owners will either look elsewhere to claim which hurts the bottom line of the state which cant collect the 6% on claims since they will be down dramatically. And it hurts the smaller claiming owner who loses a lot of flexability with a claimed horse. Forcing a guy to run a horse claimed at Churchill at Ellis or Turfway especially a non KY bred is wrong minded.
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