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

[parsixfarms]

Originally Posted by ScottJ

If Steve's view is correct that the 14-day rule is designed to prevent triple or quadruple runs during a fortnight, the rule really should be written that way. Since several horses have been running on a seven or ten day cycle and helping to fill cards, this will lead to shorter fields.

In concept, I am not a fan of the 14-day rule. I would rather the racing office exercise its reasonable discretion to accept or reject entries. Having said that, based upon discussions with racing department officials about other rules, my sense is that they went with a bright-line rule on entry dates rather than having to be put in the position of having to explain why Horse A was allowed to run back in less than 14 days while Horse B was not allowed to run back in such a time frame.

I'm not sure that this rule will necessarily lead to shorter fields. It may make certain races harder to fill, but those races that do fill may end up with larger fields (as each condition tends to come up every three weeks in the condition book, and if you pass one book race, you may not run for six weeks).