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[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by freddymo

How do they get away with offering such horrible pots and why? Why would anyone race claimers on dirt at TB. I get the mdn turf races and how insignificant the purses are if you have to have turf but claimer on dirt WTF? 800 bucks gets your horse to FG, Oak, Philly, NY even Penn. People like racing for 8000 purse instead of 15-25k all for a 800 dollar ride to somewhere

The main reason is that the horseman organization there is run by clowns who want to keep purses depressed so that the place wont be more attractive for guys with better horses. If you are from Suffolk Downs you need someplace to go in the Winter. 20% of the horses that race there are training in Ocala and have to run somewhere. Some of the more established outfits use the place to winter like Proctor and have just enough bad maidens and turf horses to run to keep their stall allotment.

There are enough struggling and broke outfits there that need to run as much as possible and they keep the field size up. I quit running there much a few years ago because blowing conditions for cheap pots is counter productive in regards to the fiscal health of your horse operation. Look at Prospect Knight at Philly today. He has made 30k since late October. Had we shipped to Tampa he would have made 12k running in the same conditions. That is the difference between breaking even or making a few dollars and losing money.

[Rudeboyelvis]

Ashtyn Too is running a mdn 25 @ Tampa in the third race today.

He's a NY bred that set pace and faded going a mile on the turf at first asking - puts up a 40 bsf for the effort.

I don't know the trainer (she has 49 starts last year, this is her 6th start this year.) but it appears to be a family deal.

Point is, he's in for a 14K purse(with an ok shot at it), cutting back to 7/8th's and going to the dirt, when he would certainly fit on the inner in a state bred mdn35 for over double the money.

Allison Hassig would be a would be a good one to ask "Why run here?"

It doesn't seem to make much sense.

[Pedigree Ann]

The first time I attended a live, parimutuel horse race was at Waterford Park (aka Mountaineer) on July 4, 1970. In one of the claiming races (there were only two levels there in those days - $1200 and $1500) was an 8yo gelding whose whole presence - build, conformation, the way he carried himself - argued that he was a breed apart from the others in the field. And so he was; he was Knight's Plume, a son of Round Table from Leallah, by Nasrullah, and a minor SW in his younger days. Three of his half-brothers (all stakes horses) became classic sires, or at least the sire of SWs, around the world, but gelding Knight's Plume kept on racing, eventually winning 22 of 88 starts. Don't know whatever happened to him after that. There were fewer horses around in those days - 20-30 foal crops for stallions, Northern tracks didn't run in the winter - and since he was sound he may have found a second career. One hopes so.