NYRA to no longer accept entries from horses who ran <14 days ago

[parsixfarms]

Originally Posted by ScottJ

There were only 52 horses today in nine races at NYRA. Two 3-horse fields, two 4-horse fields. Five races that might have been playable on the card. Andy Serling must have been tearing his remaining hair out today.

I agree that the "final" product that NYRA put out yesterday was embarrassing. That said, you do realize that many of the scratches on Sunday were the result of confusion on the application on the 14-day rule.

For all the bashing of Aqueduct, my impression is that the maiden, allowance and stakes racing so far at the meet has been pretty good. The upper level claiming races have also been competitive. The "problem area," if you will, has been the bottom-level claimers; that's where the vast majority of the break-downs have occurred. I don't understand why NYRA was unwilling to acknowledge this fact (rather, stating that there was no factor linking a majority of the breakdowns). Had the decision been mine, I would have raised the bottom claiming level to $20,000 and then do the best you can in terms of filling races (and this would be partially contrary to self-interest, as our partnership owns one horse that my proposed rule would likely result in us having to ship out of town to run). If you only run six or seven races a day, or cut back the number of race days per week, that's the price you have to pay in this political environment.