Postby doublete » Tue Apr 11, 2006 7:19 pm
Uhoh.
You hit a sore spot with me Andy.
Suffolk Downs is a "low level track" simply because the purses are terrible. Remember, Cigar ran there, Offlee Wild ran there, Funny Cide even came there. The purses are low because ta da... the track isn't allocated enough money to up the purses. ENTER SLOTS. Slot machines would add some revenue, meaning the budget for purses would go up. This would entice more trainers and owners BACK to Suffolk. Rewind to 5-10 years ago. MANY good trainers and great horses trained and raced there. As the years piled on, and the purses got less and less, and the race days were decreased, these excellent owners and trainers had to relocate. And when they got a stall at another track, they didn't want to give them up just to go "home".
If you'd like to speak in terms of breeding... Go compare Penn National's race card to a Suffolk card any day. Tell me what you find.
And you're wrong that the horses are crap. Yeah, there are at least 1-2 in every race that were not incredibly bred. BUT, that is a small minority. How do you think these horses and trainers are able to survive the winters? They move down to more "prestigious (in your eyes)" tracks. How do they do that? Because, even though they race at Suffolk, they have quality horses.
I'm not saying every horse is nice. Not by a long shot. But most can hold their own at many other tracks.
I've had several go on from Suffolk that do excellent at other tracks.
If you look at Pennsylvania... when they passed the slots, horsemen said "hey... I need to get in there". Because they've seen what slots did for the purses at Charles Town. The purses there are excellent. I'm not sure what it is now, but it was that you could only enter if you hadn't run for 28 days. This was not because it is a HIGH QUALITY track with high quality runners. It is because there are so many horses to fill the races, they can't afford to have all 25 of the horses that fit that condition trying to fill the same race every week-10 days. So they had to figure out some way to split up the fields in each condition. So now horsemen are getting stalls at Philly and Penn, and even buying land there to invest in the PA breeding program.
Honestly, I don't see how anyone can argue against slots if you own and train- heck, even if you don't. The purses go up, and owners and trainers are more willing to rest the horses, treat the horses well, and actually have a little income. Jeez... At Suffolk, one purse for $5000 claimers (which you may say are crap horses.. I agree they CAN be.. but look at most fields.. there are lots of old class horses that just want to keep running- and they do) barely even pays the vet, jockey, training, feed, shoeing bill for 2 weeks. It's pathetic.
With slots not being passed, and Suffolk having the possibility (and likelihood) of closing, the races this summer will be tiny. The purses will suck. But people have called Suffolk home for a long time. It has been a home to Graded stakes races, and anyone remember reading that back in the day Seabiscuit started running there. The trainers and grooms and all other employees that have called Boston home for so long have to make a choice- give up the horses and the job that they must love (cuz the money ain't there darlin'), or give up their home. I do know quite a few trainers that did just that.. They sold their MA homes and bought closer to another track, Penn, CT, MD tracks....
And I am going to have to hop on the CANTER NE support wagon. I have helped them over the past few years, and they work very hard. They certainly won't be sad to see the track close because their neverending work will be over. BUT, they, as much as all the rest of us, know that doesn't end the work that needs to be done. The same horses that end up at Suffolk, at the end of the line because they have old injuries and are being pushed to run, or perhaps just are losing interest in running... well they won't have Suffolk to end up at. The owners and trainers at other "prestigious" tracks will have to make a decision. Without someone to help them sell their horses quickly, yeah.. a LOT of horses won't be saved. At least with CANTER NE being at Boston, most of the trainers and owners now go to them first when they have a horse that might need to retire soon. Most have now realized that instead of running them into the ground, they may be able to recoup some money by selling as a show horse. Why in the world would you be excited about a track that has a program that actually ends up decreasing the number of TB's that get lost closing? This program isn't going to go anywhere else, and the horses that come to Suffolk won't have anywhere else to go. If this track closes, another doesn't open in its place.
Racing and retraining.
), etc... Slots aren't going to magically fix all those problems.