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#2
09-19-2006, 05:29 PM
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I know thats hard to believe but its gonna happen with the slots money. Its easier for me to believe that then it is that Gulf is suddenly gonna boost purses and start running races that horseman wanna run in. It was an absolute joke the last two years there, and even longer than that. They have a HUGE pool of very expensive an classy horses to draw from down there and refused to utilize it. Some gamblers may not mind claiming races but guys who drop hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions on horses who don't have spots to run in do mind, they mind a great deal. For anyone who wants to question the quality of the product down there recently all you have to do is pull the results from last year and check out the nauseating cards on all weekdays and most Sundays. They packaged a bunch of stakes races on a few days(many at graded stakes level committe minimum purse money for that grade, ahem cough cough) in an attempt to try and fool people into thinkiing it was still a great product. Its not. You need to give horsemen a chance to run allowance runners and maidens in proper spots. As one guy told me, the racing secretary is not a horse trainer, yet due to the lack of spots available for them to run higher class horses in, hes acting as one by basically giving you no options on where to run your horse. Oaklawn flourished last year and will flourish again this year. Even though there is no grass course, they card decent races with good purses. Same with Aqueduct's inner. Big purse money and places to run your horses. Fair Grounds should have a good base as well. 
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#3
09-19-2006, 05:39 PM
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I know Mike, its just hard to believe Philly Park will ever look nice. Its an absolute eyesoar. Gulfstream was an utter mess last year, save for the a few big Saturdays here and there, mostly in teh beginning of the meet. When does Saratoga start again, LOL!
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#4
09-19-2006, 05:44 PM
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#5
09-19-2006, 05:57 PM
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Santa Anita has far away by light years become the place with the highest quality races to watch and bet on in the winter time. East coast horseman and bettors deserve better quality racing.
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#6
09-19-2006, 06:00 PM
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I agree. The day after Christmas is now what I look forward to the most in winter racing, not when Gulfstream opens. What use to be one of my favorite meets is now something I could care less about (except for a few Saturdays in the course of 4 months). It started going downhill that year all those horses were breaking down towards the very end of the meet. When they actually had a hole in the track. I think its way too long of a meet. They ought to cut it down to 5 days a week and 3 months max.
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#7
09-19-2006, 06:06 PM
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Gulf used to rule the winter months but I now find myself eagerly awaiting Oaklawn's opening day far more than Gulf's.
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#8
09-19-2006, 10:34 PM
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Originally Posted by oracle80
Misinformation? You say its headed in the right direction? I have a few questions for you then. 1) Are the purses there not embarassingly small given the type of horses who winter there(like the ones YOU cited) and the fact that there is a huge horse population to draw from? 2) Are the weekday cards not an absolute disgrace containing nothing but cheap claimers and maiden claimers(as cited by trainers last year including Frankel when they went to management to complain about it)? 3) Was the refurbishment of Gulfstream Park not incredibly stupid and undertaken with no foresight as the mile and an eigth dirt races give an unfair advantage to the inside pp's causing trainers to scratch horses out of these races when drawing the outside? Was it not also incredibly stupid to refurbish the oval leaving horseman without the possibility of running mile and a sixteenth two turn dirt races, something that Zito, Pletcher, etc complained about citing how vital they are for three year olds starting their tri crown campaigns who are not ready to go a mile and an eighth of the layoff yet need two turn seasoning? As a South Florida local who goes to GP 10-12x per year for the past 15 years I agree with all of the above statements. I would temper the comments above with the following: *Outside of a few meets (such as Saratoga) most weekday cards at most tracks are a joke (including Del Mar, Santa Anita, Aqueduct and even the old GP had horrible mid week cards with a minor stake stuck in the middle 1x per mid week). *I personally am not an owner so I don't care what the purse structure is. I am guessing that whether an allowance race last year was for $33K or $50K I still would have seen Bernadini vs Exclusive Quality (believe this is the Pletcher's horse name) in a NW1 at Gulf last year. I don't care what the purse of the allowance race was. That being said it sure would be nice to see more 3 year old maiden allowance and Nx1 races each day (instead of 3-4every other Saturday) and I believe slots will enable this. *I believe that if (yes Bush may still try to kill this deal) slots are installed purses will significantly increase (I have heard numbers similar to the posted article on this string). For now we are all just speculating so there is no reason to point fingers until we see what happens. *I know this string started with Pletcher going west, but there have been plenty of West Coast trainers heading (or remaining) East (more than East Coast trainers heading West) for the GP meet for stall space in advance of the purse hikes (all the more reason that it will happen and be significant). Wesley Ward and Mike Mitchell moving their tacks for the meet and Harty / Frankel staying East despire having the ability to move those horses back west. Granted a lack of claiming horse quality out West is part of the reason as well.
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