[10 pnt move up]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

I dont buy the less horses matters that much. There are certainly less owners but there are a lot of horses out there.

Less racing doesn't work on its own. Racing Secretaries have painted themselves in a proverbial corner by writing far too many conditioned claimers. They know it too but all say the same thing (at least in the mid-atlantic) hat they would change it if the other tracks would too.

This allows claimers to be campaigned like allowance horses which is not how it is supposed to be. Rather than race the horse and move them up and down in class based on results, everyone wants to wait for their condition. When you have 5000 nw2, 5000 nw3, 5000 nw4, 5000 nw1 in 6 months, 5000 nw2 in 6 months, 5000 nw1 year going short and long for colts and fillies divides up a huge class of horses that used to be known as 5000 claimers. In effect you have created 24 classes of 5000 claimers. The same thing exists for higher priced claimers as well. Is it any wonder why they don't get full fields? Owners and trainers will wait for the exact condition they are eligible for. It might come in a week or it might come in 5 weeks depending on what fills. When your cheapest horses are waiting 5/6 weeks to run, you will have issues. The claiming ladder is gone because the higher claimers mostly have conditions attached as well. So if you claim a 5000 nw3 horse that gets beat a nose you are either going to wait out jail (30 days) or try a 7500 nw3 whenever that race may go. By dividing up claimers into so many different classes it dilutes the pool as a whole which really makes their jobs harder.

As for the big tracks the disparity between haves and have nots grows wider every day. Until that is addressed I can't imagine how the cards could possible improve.

I probably don't pay enough attention to this situation but your post makes some sense.