Some briefs for a subdued Tuesday morning:
Eric Cherry offered a proposal to help solve the overnight horse shortage. His proposal calls for setting up races for the progeny of second and third tier sires to keep interest in their foals. Is it the perfect solution? Perhaps not, but Cherry proposes something which would certainly help the horse shortage raceways are having; at a minimum, it should be considered a starting point.
Speaking of a horse shortage, Friday night's card at the Meadowlands illustrates it best. Out of thirteen races, only three drew full fields; seven drew eight or nine horses; three races less than three horses. With regards to Simpson-eligible trotters and the $500 bonus, neither prep race filled.
Monday night, George Brennan and Gilbert Garcia-Herrera teamed together to go five for five at Yonkers Raceway. I will admit this raised my eyes, but one must remember three of the five winners drew the three inside posts, most advantageous at Yonkers Then I took a look at Statsmaster and see Garcia-Herrera is currently tied for third in the dash-winning category with Rene Allard, both with twenty-seven victories. When it comes to first time claimers, he is not particularly active, claiming only six horses and winning half of them off the claim; seven trainers with more than one claim has a higher UTR when it comes to first time claims. Headlines don't tell the whole story.
The handicappers have been selected for HANA Harness' 2013 Grand Circuit Handicapping Challenge and looking at the handicappers' bios, it looks like it will be one humdinger of a contest. The contest begins next Friday evening at Northfield Park.
3 comments:
I think it is a great idea about the 2nd and 3rd tier sires...sure it is nice to watch and appreciate top horses race but as we see in the Super Bowl almost year in and year out, the best 2 teams does not always mean an exciting game. It is usually the divisional games and rivalries that are the most exciting games. Gamblers want good odds, good prices, full fields and anything under a 2:02 mile = excitement and a fighting chance at winning $$ some nights and that is what we would get with this format. On a side note I was betting Meadowlands Friday night and it did not seem that bad so I recapped and the fields were actually as follows: 5 races with 10 horses (1 race had a scratch), 4 races with 8 or 9 horses, and 4 races with 7 horses (1 race had a scratch) so it was not too bad but definitely not like in Jan/Feb. Oh, Harrah's Philly raced Friday aft. and had 14 races all with 8 horse fields...really? Can't they all just get along and work together on this?
Well, wouldn't that be nice. Unfortunately, Harrah's doesn't care what happens to harness racing so they aren't going to go out of their way to help unless the PHHA pushes them a bit. Right now, in PA they see short field as meaning you have less horses to beat to get a share of slot-fueled purses.
Perhaps another idea would be to create a local "circuit" for various overnight racing classes. For instance, the 15k claimers would be at M1 one week, YR the next week, PcD the next and Phl/DD the next. Other classes would be offset on the circuit. In this way, all tracks would have full and competitive overnight fields, which drives handle.
What happened in Ontario will be coming to other jurisdictions. It's a matter of time and economic necessity. PHHA would be wise to play ball now while they have some leverage. Once PcD is back to $1000 purses, M1 will not care about them.
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