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Originally Posted by asudevil
I was there!! And it was a freakish period for about 6 months back in '05-'06 Does that mean there should have been sweeping legislation across the state? Which was really BS because they left Fairplex, Los Al, and the other fairs alone. They never addressed the base at SA. It needs to be totally ripped out. That place is a ticking time bomb. The better trainers are scared schit everytime they put a decent horse on it. It's not that easy to pick up and move a whole operation to another part of the country, especially if you've been there for years. There's employees, uprooting of family, mortgages, etc. And it's not like there's anywhere to go that's geographically close. Say what you want about Hollywood....That surface has been pretty darn good. Problem there is that the future is on meet by meet basis. Del Mar might as well be Turfway (no offense to those in Florence).
State of racing in CA. is very sad.
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Freakish ??? Are you kidding me ? I came here in 1998 from very cheap racetracks with very cheap horses , truly never saw the amount of horses breaking their legs off as I did here except at Waterford Park back before it was Mountaineer . It wasnt just Santa Anita , it was all the major southern Cali tracks , Del Mar was the worst for whatever reason but still I never heard any compliments about the racing surfaces here. No one ever said "dang those tracks in Cali are kind to horses" " boy they have a nice soft surface out there" , no what you heard was "those tracks are hard and fast " those tracks are like the 405 freeway"
Trainers want to blame the sythetics on owners leaving the game , but they have a hard time admitting to the fact that owners are leaving the game because it costs to much money and that they have no interest in the infighting among the horseman . For most owners horse racing was something to be enjoyed , hard to enjoy it when you have everyone bitching and complaining and believe me they can and do find cheaper ways to enjoy themselves.