Turfway

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by The Bid

Jim, the article you linked is what TURFWAY says. What would you expect them to say, we paid millions for an inferior surface and now have egg on our faces?

Cannon, they have ran in much worse weather. You know being a KY guy that night racing is brutal up there. They wont get an inch of snow, and its not the cold thats having them cancel. 30 degrees is the forecast, how many times have you saddled one when its under 30 during the day?

Wind gusts up to 45 mph possible. They are making the right move by calling it off early, keeps horses from shipping in needlessly.

As usual in most situations the issue is not black and white.
Economically Turfway needs to not run when the weather is so bad. They dug themselves in a big hole financially with the horsemen the 1st year of Poly because they only missed one day instead of the usual 10-12. Because they paid out so much more purse money than was budgeted because they forgot that they would have a whole lot more racing days because they would not cancel as much they are in the red in the purse account. Which is the reason the purses still suck so bad despite the handle being up for the last 4 meets. I have made repeated requests to the HBPA that we should cut out dates in January and Febuary to get the purse account back where it should be and simply because the quality of racing day to day in the winter is so poor that there is less demand for our product. Just yesterday I got an email from the HBPA that was talking about this same idea , though it is a little too late now for this year.
I have said many times that I do not have a problem with the surface at Turfway especially compared to the old one. I have had no problems physically with any of my horses that are training there and they are far from the creme of the crop.