Three New BC Races

[bogeydaman]

Originally Posted by miraja2

It obviously will reduce field size. There is no doubt about that. The addition of three new races this year already decreased field size.
If someone had a really top notch 2yo turf filly this year they could either take a shot against the boys in the juvenile turf OR try the dirt in the juvy fillies. Not next year. They can enter her in a BIG money 2yo turf race for fillies instead.
Saying that it won't reduce field size is nonsensical. People could disagree on how big of an impact it will have....but it will certainly have an impact.

IMO the Juvy filly turf race will have no impact on any field size. All 4 2 year old races will oversubscribe with maiden breakers and NW1 allowance horses. You can make the argument that they already "experimented" with the Juvy Filly turf race in 07. It was the 6th race at Monmouth on BC Friday. The only difference is that the purse was $250K this year and next year it will be $1 million and have the title "world championship" next to it. The only possible difference field might be another shipper or 2 from Europe and a long shot in the 2 year old filly dirt race might take a shot 1st time turf because of the "world championship" title.

[miraja2]

I don't understand people that DEFEND the addition of these races by saying, "It won't take horses away from the other races because there will be plenty of low-level allowance horses to fill all the races." Great.
Either it will take horses away from the other races, or it will be filled with horses that don't belong in the Breeders' Cup. I think it is a pretty bad deal either way, and I think the worst news is, that it will do both.

The problem with the juvy turf race for fillies isn't that it might not fill. It probably will. The point is that if the race didn't exist, the top-notch 2yo turf fillies would be forced into one of the other two races (juvy fillies or juvy turf) or skip the BC altogether. By adding more races, I think it is inarguable that - even if they do have full fields - it probably means less interesting races.