6/27: BEL (P4); PrM (P4); MTH-PHA-WO Stakes

[golfer]

Originally Posted by pointman

That DQ was f*cking outrageous IMO. I will preface this by saying I have a bias here as the DQ cost me about $1K, but how could they have taken that horse down?

First of all, if you DQ the 8, you have to DQ the 4 who DID THE EXACT SAME THING to the 10 (I think 10 who I believe checked when the 4 came in on him) on the rail to even try to get by the 8 on the rail when the 8 was there first. The 8 was simply better!

That is two very questionable DQ's that have cost me dearly in less than 24 hours! (Hollywood 4th last night).

It is hard enough to pick winners, even harder in the 7 to 9-1 range, without having Bull$*it DQ's!!

I agree with every word. I thought the decision SUCKED. It seemed to me the 8 had as much right to the rail as the 4 did. And he didn't come over 1.5 paths as Tom Durkin was told to say. It was much less than that.

[blackthroatedwind]

This is the third time in eight racing days I have been disqualified. Clearly I see races differently than those that make the decisions. Then again, I see a lot of things differently than many people.

[pointman]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

This is the third time in eight racing days I have been disqualified. Clearly I see races differently than those that make the decisions. Then again, I see a lot of things differently than many people.

First of all, nice call with the 8. I don't think that you saw this one any different than anyone other than the stewards. I know you don't like to knock people you work with, but that was theft, plain and simple. I feel your pain after the bull$*t DQ I took at Hollywood last night as well.

Someone has to explain to me why what the 4 did to the 10 was ok but the 8 taking a lane that I believe he had every right to was not. I am wondering if I can put my hands down yet.

[the_fat_man]

I think it's time some of the stewards sat down with people that watch a lot of races, trip handicappers, and actually GET A ****IN CLUE about races. Given today's decision, it's clear the NYRA stewards are either CROOKED or RETARDED.

NYRA is doing some incredibly BUSH things with the way they've handled, or should I write, basically destroyed, BEL turf racing but this decision today is just bound to drive even more people away.

Now, let me track to figure out which turf races will be taken off the turf tomorrow. MOTHER **** NYRA.

[blackthroatedwind]

You do realize we have left a lot of turf races ON that most, if not all, tracks, would not have?

Taking races off the turf costs us a fortune and does a disservice to everyone from the horsemen, the owners, and the customers. We have struggled to do the best we possibly can under unbelievably difficult circumstances.

[the_fat_man]

This is what I realize and hopefully someone else will see it the same way.

I've been playing the horses and, thus, BEL/AQU/SAR, since the early '70's. I've never seen it this bad at BEL. Not only in terms of all the races coming off but in the quality of the races. Do you realize that on any given day CD, MTH, HOL, AP, WO, etc. have better quality turf races than NYRA? NYRA's basically recycling the same old tired horses -- claimers and NY BREDS.

Moreover, NYRA has the luxury of TWO, count them, TWO turf courses to work with. Is ruining the spring/summer BEL turf meet worth SAVING BOTH COURSES? Can't we come up with something a bit more creative?

Why is it that when I'm over at Prospect Park the grass there is never as bad as I'm led to believe the BEL courses are when it rains? Better drainage at the park?

I've seen tracks beat up their courses to shreds just to put on some turf races. There's a 6 week break when they're up at SAR; you can grow a lot of grass in 6 weeks.

Just run the ****in races. Get creative with the rails. Give people who handicap the night before a break. And let the 6 weeks fix whatever damage was done.

And this is just the view of someone who only plays BEL peripherally. I can only imagine what the horsemen must be thinking: they get a ton of hassling and money is taken out of their pockets on top of that.

[parsixfarms]

Originally Posted by the_fat_man

I've been playing the horses and, thus, BEL/AQU/SAR, since the early '70's. I've never seen it this bad at BEL. Not only in terms of all the races coming off but in the quality of the races. Do you realize that on any given day CD, MTH, HOL, AP, WO, etc. have better quality turf races than NYRA? NYRA's basically recycling the same old tired horses -- claimers and NY BREDS.

And this is just the view of someone who only plays BEL peripherally. I can only imagine what the horsemen must be thinking: they get a ton of hassling and money is taken out of their pockets on top of that.

Living up in Saratoga (where it's also been raining on and off for the better part of June), I can't comment on the weather from first hand experience, but from what I hear from our trainers, it just seems that the weather downstate has not been conducive to drying the turf courses. I'm sure a few sunny, 90 degree days will do that, if they ever come. Until it happens, we all have to do the best we can, and I speak as someone trying to get a horse on the turf (but I'm not looking to run him over a boggy course for his first start on turf). Actually, as BTW said above, there have been a few times where we were looking for a race to come off the turf, and it was surprisingly kept on given the relative softness of the course.

As for the quality of racing at this spring's Belmont meet, I think everyone realizes that it is less than what it was a few years ago, but to simply blame NYRA for it is silly. The deterioration of the racing product in NY is a symptom of a number of other factors (including state government's inability to get a slot operation up and running, the competition for horses from other states, and the proliferation of large stables that have taken many of their "B" team horses to venues like Monmouth, Delaware and the like [where they are allowance types instead of claimers in NY]). If you follow the condition book, the racing office is writing the same types of allowance races that they have for years; they simply don't fill, and that's a function of some of the factors discussed above. The types of races that you bemoan are typically "extras" when the book races don't go.

That's not to say that there aren't some "new" programs that the racing office has adopted that have not worked out. For example, the overnight stakes that they are constantly carding seem to be cannibalizing the allowance races. Look at the overnight stakes race that served as Friday's feature. It was a glorified allowance race, as most of those fillies were eligible for NW1X and NW2X allowance conditions. Now, they aren't available for the allowance races that the racing office is trying to fill, which becomes a vicious cycle. And it is even worse, as occurred on several occasions at Saratoga last year, when they ran overnight stakes with almost identical conditions to a graded stakes virtually on top of the graded race (the Jim Dandy, Test, and Lake Placid are three that come to mind immediately), taking horses from those races.

Another misstep, IMO, has been the change to drawing cards three racing days out. Sure, handicappers can get the PPs in their hands early, but when some cards are drawn five days out (for example, today they drew Thursday's card), they are even more at the mercy of the weather than ever. In the past, when cards were drawn 48 hours in advance, if the weather looked particularly ominous, they'd adjust the card (turning turf races to dirt races in advance), so that it would not be decimated with scratches. The current system, given the unpredictability of long-range weather forecasts, doesn't lend itself the sort of improvisation described above, and when bad weather strikes (as we have seen this month), the result is somewhat predictable.

[the_fat_man]

Originally Posted by parsixfarms

Living up in Saratoga (where it's also been raining on and off for the better part of June), I can't comment on the weather from first hand experience, but from what I hear from our trainers, it just seems that the weather downstate has not been conducive to drying the turf courses. I'm sure a few sunny, 90 degree days will do that, if they ever come. Until it happens, we all have to do the best we can, and I speak as someone trying to get a horse on the turf (but I'm not looking to run him over a boggy course for his first start on turf). Actually, as BTW said above, there have been a few times where we were looking for a race to come off the turf, and it was surprisingly kept on given the relative softness of the course.

Let me try to make this as simple as possible. I've been to my local park when the grass there has been flooded by too much rain. This is something that's evident. Not only is the grass wet but you can't even walk on it without your feet sinking into the mud. Walk through one of these areas and you need a month to clean off the mud from your sneakers.

I've been to the Prospect Park and some smaller parks in my area during this period. I've run over the grass; I've cycled over the grass. NO PROBLEMA. In fact, while there have certainly been a good number of day where portions of the paved areas in Prospect Park have been so wet you couldn't cycle over them, there's never been a day when I couldn't walk and run freely over the grass. Why are the BEL turf courses so saturated with water? Why won't they absorb and dry like normal grass does? Why is the BEL turf SOFT when MTH is FIRM? Something indigenous to the Elmont region?

This is all BS. It's ****in grass, they're horses and they've been running over wet grass and dirt throughout their history. NYRA just needs to let them run on it and stop making an issue out of the trivial.

At this rate anyone with turf horses in NY will just start shipping to MTH, DEL, PHA, and elsewhere, like Henning, McLaughlin, Tagg, Pletcher, Contessa, and others are already doing. Then it becomes an issue of why they really need to be in NY.

[pointman]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

This is the third time in eight racing days I have been disqualified. Clearly I see races differently than those that make the decisions. Then again, I see a lot of things differently than many people.

You got one back!