Just so we know what we are dealing with, here is a breakdown of the last race of the day for each day at Belmont since the fall meeting started on September 8th:
There have been 30 last races of the day carded so far, including this weekend, and they have been 1 NY Bred stake, 1 Starter allowance/opt. claimer, 5 Maiden Special Weight (1 open, 4 NY bred), 11 maiden claimers (1 65k, 1 50k, the rest 25k or less) and 12 either conditioned or NW2L claimers, all between 15-25k claiming price. So perhaps it's not every day, but there have certainly been a representative number of low-level claiming races to finish up belmont cards.
Breakdown of field size, of 27 races run so far, 5 had 12 horses, 7 had 11, 5 had 10, 3 had 9, 4 had 8, 3 had 7 or less. It's just you remember the three horse field more vividly so it becomes "all the races have short fields" but the actual number don't back up that assertion.
The races draw full competitive fields and as far as I'm concerned that's all that really matters.
Last edited by ranger5830 : 10-19-2012 at 12:19 PM.
Reason: Added field size info
|