Track news and notes

[Squeaky]

I’ll start this thread.

The jockeys at Oaklawn have apparently voted to not ride the rest of today's Oaklawn card. They ran the first race after an hour delay to try to deal with unsafe areas on the track surface, but the riders felt that the surface still isn't completely safe. So racing is cancelled.

[Flanders]

https://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/h ... -and-indy/



The original incident at Evangeline is just so dangerous and irresponsible that the race wasn't stopped. A horse could have easily spooked and slammed into it, killing both horse and rider. What happens if a jockey saw that the starting gate was barely out of their way and pulled their horse up? Would they then get fined/suspended for not riding to win?

[Flanders]

Arapahoe summer meet cancelled. Inspections that found the barns had plumbing and electrical problems which made them unsafe for use. They hope to have the issues fixed by fall to run a meet.

https://paulickreport.com/news/the-biz/ ... -this-fall

[Northport]

"ECL Entertainment (ECL) announced Monday that, alongside its joint venture partner, Clairvest Group Inc. (collectively, the “Buyers”), it has entered into an agreement to purchase Wyoming Downs. ECL will operate Wyoming Downs’ racetrack in Evanston as well as Wyoming Downs’ historic racing locations across the Cowboy State."

Marc Falcone and Ron Winchell are among the the buyers. If they can make it anything like Kentucky Downs then this could be a really exciting move.

https://paulickreport.com/news/the-biz/ ... ming-downs

[Cigarillo]

"ECL Entertainment (ECL) announced Monday that, alongside its joint venture partner, Clairvest Group Inc. (collectively, the “Buyers”), it has entered into an agreement to purchase Wyoming Downs. ECL will operate Wyoming Downs’ racetrack in Evanston as well as Wyoming Downs’ historic racing locations across the Cowboy State."

Marc Falcone and Ron Winchell are among the the buyers. If they can make it anything like Kentucky Downs then this could be a really exciting move.

https://paulickreport.com/news/the-biz/ ... ming-downs

That would be awesome. Looking forward to seeing the updates as it goes along.

[Flanders]

Golden Gate had to cancel for Friday May 3rd due to lack of entries and said the track also canceled on April 19th because of the same reason. In the article it says "Last year, there were 5,126 Thoroughbred races in California compared to just 2,815 the year prior." Why did California add so many races from 2022 to 2023? Is that even right? Just seems like an awful lot of races when field sizes have been poor for awhile, which they are all over the US not just in California.

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing ... of-entries

[BaroqueAgain1]

Perhaps that jump was due to tracks returning to more normal numbers of races after a couple years of Covid restrictions? The timing can't be just coincidental.

[Curtis]

Golden Gate had to cancel for Friday May 3rd due to lack of entries and said the track also canceled on April 19th because of the same reason. In the article it says "Last year, there were 5,126 Thoroughbred races in California compared to just 2,815 the year prior." Why did California add so many races from 2022 to 2023? Is that even right? Just seems like an awful lot of races when field sizes have been poor for awhile, which they are all over the US not just in California.

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing ... of-entries

The numbers can be looked up of course but it wouldn’t shock me if this is shenanigans by Team Stronach trying to prove that racing should not be allowed in no. CA. I can see a jump like that between 2020 and ‘21 or maybe 2021 and ‘22.

[Diver52]

Maybe the fairs didn't run in 2022? But the numbers don't make sense to me either and I'm here in California.

[Flanders]

Golden Gate had to cancel for Friday May 3rd due to lack of entries and said the track also canceled on April 19th because of the same reason. In the article it says "Last year, there were 5,126 Thoroughbred races in California compared to just 2,815 the year prior." Why did California add so many races from 2022 to 2023? Is that even right? Just seems like an awful lot of races when field sizes have been poor for awhile, which they are all over the US not just in California.

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing ... of-entries

The numbers can be looked up of course but it wouldn’t shock me if this is shenanigans by Team Stronach trying to prove that racing should not be allowed in no. CA. I can see a jump like that between 2020 and ‘21 or maybe 2021 and ‘22.

I didn't even think, oh they might be just pulling numbers out of a hat to make closing GG look better. Okay so it took me a bit to find the numbers and I suppose last year was 2003 cause that is where that number is from. That is the last year California ran that many races. So they are lying like you said. 2023 California had 2921 races, which was down compared to 2022 when there were 3011. So the numbers are just off all around. I don't know where the 2022 number came from. I used the Jockey Club's California stats (its a pdf) here: https://jockeyclub.com/factbook/StateFa ... fornia.pdf

[Curtis]

Golden Gate had to cancel for Friday May 3rd due to lack of entries and said the track also canceled on April 19th because of the same reason. In the article it says "Last year, there were 5,126 Thoroughbred races in California compared to just 2,815 the year prior." Why did California add so many races from 2022 to 2023? Is that even right? Just seems like an awful lot of races when field sizes have been poor for awhile, which they are all over the US not just in California.

https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing ... of-entries

The numbers can be looked up of course but it wouldn’t shock me if this is shenanigans by Team Stronach trying to prove that racing should not be allowed in no. CA. I can see a jump like that between 2020 and ‘21 or maybe 2021 and ‘22.

I didn't even think, oh they might be just pulling numbers out of a hat to make closing GG look better. Okay so it took me a bit to find the numbers and I suppose last year was 2003 cause that is where that number is from. That is the last year California ran that many races. So they are lying like you said. 2023 California had 2921 races, which was down compared to 2022 when there were 3011. So the numbers are just off all around. I don't know where the 2022 number came from. I used the Jockey Club's California stats (its a pdf) here: https://jockeyclub.com/factbook/StateFa ... fornia.pdf

Yeah, they’ve been down to 2 nights a week at Los Al for more than a year now. I don’t even know how they classify those races but I’d say half the races on each card are populated by TB’s. The rules state they can only write TB races at 4.5f and for a claiming price of 5k or less. But then there are the 1,000 yd. Allowance races which are for mixed breeds but usually are all TB’s. The 4.5f races (990 yards) have a run up. The 1,000 yard races have no run up. But if you don’t want your horse to get claimed……..The DRF shows those 1,000 yard races in the horse’s PP’s but Equibase doesn’t recognize them. I’m waiting for someone to run a maiden in one of those, win it and then put it in a maiden race at Santa Anita or Del Mar.