Odd entry

[Calzone Lord]

Originally Posted by booner

How much do you think this happens? I've heard of it before, but only every once in a while. Not enough that I have paid much attention to it.

I owned 50% of a horse once named Dixie Doodle for Craig Cox in 2001.

The horse came out of a good 2nd place finish with a career ending injury. Three weeks later, I get a stable mail alert saying he was entered in a race at MNR and had post #2.

He was entered with the intent of scratching, his father Loren Cox had one in, and they would cap the fields at 10 at MNR. One less horse for Loren to beat. The field was reduced to nine. It seemed silly to me.

Much more frequently at some tracks, horses are entered with no intent of ever running to make races go. This was a habitual problem at Presque Isle. An owner named Ben Mondello was basically orchestrating his own horse races on a handfull of occasions for the better part of a season.

You'd see a starter alw scrap up seven entries -- and they'd scratch down to a field of 3 with Mondello's horse 1/5 against two local rats. He seemed to be using his connections with other trainers at the Mid Atlantic circuits very well.