while there is no doubt that their revenue will be down this year because of declining stud fees and fewer foal nominations, ect, completely scraping the program is a terrible idea. Very few of us smaller scale breeders believe we will ever get a horse that makes it to the big BC races but I would nominate and pay the $500 to register the foal because of the much greater possibility that a foal may make it into one of the smaller BC races held throughout the country. If I ever got one good enough for the big show it would be gravy. I would imagine that I wont be nominating any foals next year and i'm sure that many other breeders will feel the same. Had they chose to scale back the program a bit I would understand. But this group has consistently been reactionary and unwilling to listen to its constituents that dont own large stud farms or arent collecting large salaries. From the insistence on keeping the purple saddle towels, talking of having an overseas cup, adding totally irrelevant races like the marathon, changing the name of the distaff and having all the filly races on the same day, raising the BC day ticket prices to obscene levels the people who call the shots at the Breeders Cup have almost always done what turns out to be the wrong thing. I would be considered a redboarder however I along with many, many people on this board, callers to steve's show, others in the business that i talk to all agreed that these were bad ideas beforehand. Do you know how bad you have to be when a general consensus of racing fans and industry types agree on your ineptness? Magna or John Brunetti type ineptness.
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