Arlington Park gets it

[stonegossard]

Originally Posted by GBBob

No dude...it was sh*t before poly too...It's all dependant on the purses which is all dependant on the money the state lets them get from casinos, which is...ahh..I get a headache from IL politics.

I disagree....while it wasn't great racing like Belmont/Saratoga, it was pretty good. These races they are putting together now are much worse in my opinion then before. You would figure with 4-day racing they would be able to put together decent cards......apparently not. As far as the bs politics out there, agree with ya.

[GBBob]

Originally Posted by stonegossard

I disagree....while it wasn't great racing like Belmont/Saratoga, it was pretty good. These races they are putting together now are much worse in my opinion then before. You would figure with 4-day racing they would be able to put together decent cards......apparently not. As far as the bs politics out there, agree with ya.

I'm curious..I know you know AP, but I think purses/cards were bad pre-poly and rebounded LY because of the Poly. But need to find the numbers..will bump either way as I know posters are waiting with baited breath

[ArlJim78]

saying the cards are much worse now is a joke. it has definitely improved since poly. no doubt about it. the early season cards are always relatively weak compared to later in the meet when Churchill closes.
the handle went up last year also.

the track is always fast and plays fairly. frankly i've never heard anyone say anything negative about the surface. there is no groundswell of support to go back to dirt around here.

[stonegossard]

Originally Posted by ArlJim78

saying the cards are much worse now is a joke. it has definitely improved since poly. no doubt about it. the early season cards are always relatively weak compared to later in the meet when Churchill closes.
the handle went up last year also.

the track is always fast and plays fairly. frankly i've never heard anyone say anything negative about the surface. there is no groundswell of support to go back to dirt around here.

So you prefer the cards now comapred to the old dirt races at AP ? The surface plays fairly? Obviosuly you didnt watch last years first few weeks where horrendous horses who showed early speed were winning at an insane clip. It became such a joke that you ahd 20-1 ML horses who had inside speed opening up at 3-1. Nah...thats not a joke....thats a fair playing racetrack. It was a friggin conveyor belt.

AP has become a joke.

[ArlJim78]

Originally Posted by stonegossard

So you prefer the cards now comapred to the old dirt races at AP ? The surface plays fairly? Obviosuly you didnt watch last years first few weeks where horrendous horses who showed early speed were winning at an insane clip. It became such a joke that you ahd 20-1 ML horses who had inside speed opening up at 3-1. Nah...thats not a joke....thats a fair playing racetrack. It was a friggin conveyor belt.

AP has become a joke.

yes and yes.

yesterdays races are a good example. you had 5 one mile races.
in the 3rd the winner came from mid-pack
in the 4th the winner came from 8th
in the 5th the winner went wire to wire
in the 7th the winner went from last to first
in the 8th the winner went wire to wire.

doesn't exactly fit the conveyer belt description.

[stonegossard]

Originally Posted by GBBob

I'm curious..I know you know AP, but I think purses/cards were bad pre-poly and rebounded LY because of the Poly. But need to find the numbers..will bump either way as I know posters are waiting with baited breath

I honestly dont know the purse structure exactly before poly. I guess my b#tching was more about how bad the horses are/ how ridiculous it is trying to cap these races at AP. At least before, you had horses coming from Sportsman's/Hawthorne that were now running on the same dirt at AP. Now it's a complete guessing game to how these horses are gonna run at AP. The horse in the 5th yesterday was coming off of 3 straight races of losses of 31,13,25 lengths.....then gets on the track at AP and wires em easily to win going away. They have suceeded in making it a bettors nightmare (same as Keeneland). The only difference is the horses at Keeneland actually are good horses. These fields at AP are some of the worst horses running today.

[brianwspencer]

Originally Posted by stonegossard

The horse in the 5th yesterday was coming off of 3 straight races of losses of 31,13,25 lengths.....then gets on the track at AP and wires em easily to win going away.

Not to point out the obvious....

The fact that she was making her second start off the layoff, had run more than one race in the last 12 months more than good enough to win this going away, and appeared to be the lone true speed horse in a race in which all of the legit form favorites were going to be coming from off the pace out of a different zip code....

Other than those relatively minor handicapping points, yes you're right, it made absolutely no sense at all.