Quote:
Originally Posted by johnny pinwheel
i think you are kind of missing the point....gulfstream is partly responsible. that meet keeps expanding and it causes friction with other tracks. i mean if you like 5k claimers 4, 5 months a year at the place, fine. that track used to be a WINTER ELITE meet. by now they would be getting near the end of the meet, for crying out loud.....now the FLA derby is in april(are you kidding me!) when they run all the other preps....its a joke. they water down every card with races i would not even bet on that lower tracks could be running(calder, notice they kind of leave stakes horses out of it).....then they sit there wondering why others get pissed off. i usually don't even look at the PP's until after the 5th race at GP and once late march hits it really sucks......all day...so what are they trying to accomplish......more dates??....more racing???...even if its cheap claimers???...at the expense of everyone else....of course none of this is OK but threatened tracks will fight before they go down. when it becomes cut throat these are the issues that come with it. its rarely one sided folks........the parties hurt are just casualties.....if calder gets hurt enough and shuts down.........ALL the REVENUE, FOR EVERYONE, from that track will be gone....then they can rent stall space before its townhouses or something.....lol
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I get your general drift but really son't see how the last 4-5 weeks of the year run at Gulf instead of Calder is bad at all. It is not as if Calder is doing much with the December dates, is it?
This year, in November, Calder cut overnights by 10%, which took purses back to pre-slots revenue days. I do believe purse levels at Calder were higher in 2001 than they were at the end of last year. That is almost impossible to believe for a slots track.
Calder also cut a nice G3 sprint, the Kenny Noe, and also cut the Kris S and Cherokee Frolic, which were nice preps for the Calder Derby and Calder Oaks.
So, cutting three really nice stakes races, cutting overnights 10% and putting up as little as they did 10 years prior is what Calder did with the Dec 2010 dates.
In addition, the turf course at Calder in December was an utter mess and they carded fewer turf MSWs and ALWs in 2010 than in prior years. Those were nice races and along with the traditional December Calder stakes made the track relevant during the last month of the year.
I get what you are saying and agree that the Gulf meet after the first weekend in April isn't much but, at this point, is it possible at all to compete with Keeneland? Gulfstream doesn't try and they're right not to do so.
I do think the year-round Florida horsemen have been getting beaten like a baby seal ever since Churchill took over. But that is not Gulfstream's fault.
I am all for December racing at Gulfstream. And, it's not as if CDI is doing all they can to keep the dates after cutting purses and stakes. My guess is CDI really doesn't care about keeping the dates but, somehow, wants to get paid. The only real leverage they have, unfortunately, is their ability to heap misery on the year-round Florida horse people.