Quote:
Originally Posted by pointman
This is complete nonsense. Belmont Park is a world class facility, whether races start in front of the grandstand or not is irrelevant. The fact that the Breeder's Cup refuses to hold races on the circuit of the best year round racing in America is indefensible.
What does Belmont have to offer? Besides being a world class facility, Belmont easily holds well over 100,000 people, will have a very strong handle for the Breeder's Cup, can card all the BC distances and is within miles of the greatest city of the world with world class hotels, entertainment, shopping, etc. It is closer for the Europeans to ship and the weather more or less tends to be on the milder side at the start of November.
I hope that NYRA sticks it to the Breeder's Cup and forms a Fall Championship series that puts the Breeder's Cup out of business once and for all. It will be real interesting to see NYRA do that if NY does not ban Lasix on raceday when the Breeder's Cup bans it. Wonder where the majority of American (and even European) horses will end up.
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I hope you end up being the one who makes the argument to hold the BC at Belmont some day. Other than the "world class" argument (which you made three times), your other "points" are ridiculous. Just because it CAN hold 100,000 is irrelevent. It doesn't draw that many on BC day. And the handle that you described as "very strong" is lower than the handle would be at Churchill. Your point about being closer for Euros to ship is silly since Louisville is only another two hours by air. And say what you want about the weather. In 2001 at Belmont, it was friggen awful. And I suppose it can rain anywhere, so I won't bring up 2005.
Finally, saying that a race being run at one turn vs. two turns is "irrelevant" is perhaps the dumbest thing I have read on this site in a long time.