Well, this isn't good...

[parsixfarms]

Originally Posted by Linny

There were a lot of big drops off the claim over the winter. It has slowed considerably, as has the number of breakdowns.

I just read where NY R&W is intituting a rule by which the purse may not be more than two times the claiming tag. Makes sense to me. I know horsemen will bark but if the game is facing massive protests by useful idiots and other assaults, it's small price. Over the winter $7500 horses were running for about $40k. That is simply too much.

When the claim box is so active you can almost assume that if your horse is in form, he'll be claimed. That knowledge can lead some people to not bother to look at a horse's health with an eye to the long view.

The situation this winter at Aqueduct may have just been a run of bad luck (not my view), or a confluence of many factors (some of which NYS and the RWB bear responsiblility for, although you will never get such acknowledgement) that led to a situation with which no one was happy.

$7500 claimers were not running for $40,000 for most of the winter at Aqueduct. They were generally running for $30,000 (and for $40,000 on a few isolated occasions - Gotham Day and Wood Day, when all full fields were boosted by $10,000). It may be too much, but keep in mind that $7500 claimers currently run for $23,000 at Parx, and there is competition among the tracks for horses, especially during the winter. To enact a rule as a knee-jerk reaction without looking at the entire landscape and regulate that NYRA can only run such races for a $15,000 purse next winter likely means that there will be no $7,500 claimers running here next winter. (That might not be a bad thing, as the hope is that the racino money will lead to the bottom rising in NY, but I doubt the RWB considered such things.)

As for the bolded language above, I agree completely.