Los Al

[karenkarenn]

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/ ... on-project

[Sylvie Hebert]

When are standarbred and thoroughbred people realise that unity is the key? And stop thinking the world revolve around themselves?
"This is a standarbred track,we refuse to let galop horses in...and fast forward a couple years,track is closed..(Montreal).this is a thoroughbred discussion group...nothing else...fast forward a few years..............
Guys our ONLY way to survive is by uniting all the racing together,arabian,quarter horse,appaloosa,paint,standarbreds,mules,TB and look at racing as a whole,a sport,activity,that encompass enough people and enough financial interest to transcend differences...Together we will make it,by turning against each others and shunning our differences we are doomed....Sad,sad,sad....

[karenkarenn]

well what do you think Ca., Nv, Idaho fair meets do...They combine them already......... They have arab racing, with Quaerters and mules and TBS all the time. And how are we going to have a standardbred meet together when one requires a different surface than the other....Its not like Standard bred run on the same surface...

[madelyn]

..."This is a standarbred track,we refuse to let galop horses in...and fast forward a couple years,track is closed..(Montreal).this is a thoroughbred discussion group...nothing else...fast forward a few years..............

You should not ever consider trying to gallop a TB on a standardbred track, which is a shade softer than concrete unless you want to cripple your horses. While we do want the "children to play well together", there are other considerations.

Indiana Downs and Hoosier Park are now jointly working on an agreement to have one be a TB only track (Hoosier) and the other to be for SB's (Indiana Downs). I think that is a step in the RIGHT direction - stop ripping out the track twice a year! Put more money toward purses..

[Sylvie Hebert]

Saratoga,Woodbine are set up that way and it would be easy with all the synthetic materials on the market to simply cover the standarbred surface in the spring and roll it back in fall...Much cheaper than opening new racetrack.And in the summer you could have mixed meet...not like Fort Erie stupid way of preventing stabling of QH when they had 400 empty stalls anyway!!!

[karenkarenn]

Sylvie
Fort Erie has a bigger reason from the QH coming it IS NOT just about having all breeds come together, okay. IT IS going on all around the U.S. Please don't drag in one race track issues and think that its just about not bringing the breeds together.
Second, from experience of riding, NO Way in Hell would I want to ride a horse that doesn't have the support of the surface. Secondly, there is ALOT of track repairs that goes along with switching from Harness to race riding. When Los Al had the Harness racing I was there, my parents took me all the time. I was too young to understand why the horses pulled the carts but my dad told me that it was like a clay track and they need to have a limo there with three people in the vehicle ( Driver, wing manager, and steward) to drive around the horses/drivers to watch them because the upstairs stewards couldn't see them all the way. Then they have to take the rails down put up the cones, ect ect. It's not easy at all.

[madelyn]

Saratoga,Woodbine are set up that way and it would be easy with all the synthetic materials on the market to simply cover the standarbred surface in the spring and roll it back in fall...Much cheaper than opening new racetrack.And in the summer you could have mixed meet...not like Fort Erie stupid way of preventing stabling of QH when they had 400 empty stalls anyway!!!

It would still be rock hard under the synthetic, and not drain the same way. I would not want a horse I own to try to race on that. If there was any kind of planning involved in building a new track, there could be an inner ring for QH racing, next a hard ring for SB's, then a dirt/synthetic for TB's, and the outer ring would be turf. But to support that the track would need four times the stalls.. so barns would be multi-storied, like in Hong Kong..

[Sylvie Hebert]

Woodbine has both harness and saddle and Montreal used to have the gallop in summer and trotters in winter...And why an inner ring for QH they run the same surface as TBs...And why not just run at different meeting like gallopers for a few months and trotters for a few months...I worked in Montreal many years ago and we had the TB in summer and Sb in winter and same for Blue Bonnets and Richelieu.

[Sylvie Hebert]

And I worked with standarbreds in 71 to 73...when the gallopers left Montreal for good(with Michel Lachance,Benoit Cote and others..) It is not a clay track here it is stone dust and drained.We had a study done and we could very easily have a surface put over for 6 months and removed for the winter.And the same backstretch could be used for both. And the car you are talking about is a barrier because the harness horses don't start from a standstill.,not because the stewards cannot see...We are in 2013 with all the progress in cameras,electronic and computers we don't run races by having people in high chairs with binoculars anymore .And as for the rails,they are easily removed if needed but in my days we had rails on harness tracks,they were removed later

[karenkarenn]

Excuse me, We don't gallop Standardbreds. They train at a pace or a trot.
Where did you GALLOP A Harness horse. They can gallop but they are trained to trot and pace. I have worked with them to and it is very very hard for them to break into a gallop because they have been training so long and different muscle are being used all the time versus at a gallop where they don't use those muscles as much as.
Secondly, Sylvie -- Your information is WAY OFF by alot. I wouldn't write down the information based off of the 70's when it is 2013 NOW. NOW they have Binoculars inside the Limo so they can watch the drivers, closely. I don't know where you are getting that people don't sit in chairs and don't use Binoc's BUT they do, just watch a harness race.

[karenkarenn]

And the car you are talking about is a barrier because the harness horses don't start from a standstill.,not because the stewards cannot see..

DUH! Why do you think that its called a LIMO. Instead of jumping in a trying to complain about something that you don't know, get to know the industry first. Maybe you have been in the " Industry" in the 70's and 80's but you are way OFF and its time that you stopped complaining and let the people who do OWN the track handle the situation. It might please you because you are hunting for Frozen Shipped Semen and I would have thought that you of all people would be happy that a Quarter horse track is expanding, but no. Aren't you the one on this forum that is inquiring about breeding a old Dash for Cash QH mare? And talking about rescuing horses and complaining about everything here?
Go RIDE a HORSE, maybe on the horse you are always rescuing or complaining about owners that you have rescued, or trying to breed.

[Sylvie Hebert]

Karenkaren,I never said I galloped standarbreds how did you read that?I said the gallopers(TB)left Montreal for good in 1971 and I worked at Blue Bonnets with harness horses from 71 to 73. Did you even know that it is not "hard" for a standarbred to gallop but when they do in a race,they call it a break and they are disqualified? Why are you always being agressive?I did not attack you. Yes we have trotters and pacers and gallopers(TB's) at Woodbine and Saratoga too.And we used to have TB racing before 71 in Montreal at 2 tracks named Parc Richelieu and Blue Bonnets(that track at one point was owned by Jean-Louis Levesque...this name you must recognize... and we had harness racing in the winter there too...I ran TB in summer and SB in the winter,some of us spent the winter in Florida but me I just switched breed for winter.And yes the car you are talking about is carrying a gate(barrier) where the sulkies line up on behind until it open and the car speed away...And they have cameras on the car and around the track too.And let me tell you another thing,may be my english is not very good but I do not attack you and yes I will use frozen semen and embryo transfert too on that exceptionaly well bred mare because that line should be preserved and no I dont agree with breeding just about any broken down mare for resale. I truly believe we should only breed the best and only what we can feed and maintain.And I am not as intelligent or nasty as you but I can live with myself and when I get up in the morning and look in the mirror I know the person looking back at me did not intentionnaly hurt or cause any hardship to another live being and I like what I see.As for you,I wonder how you can sleep at night and hope that God(If he exist)forgive you. Now stop snarling and if you really have too much time on your hands support all the rescues trying to do something with all the throw away horses produced in all breed(And in case you wonder,befor you snap again,yes more QH than TB go to meat every year,simply because more are bred and more cheap uselessones too especially "show and backyard breeders)

[madelyn]

HEY GUYS stop this. Just stop.

[photofinish]

FWIW, we had several tracks in IL that ran harness part of the year and TBs part of the year. The harness track served as the base for the TB track and it worked out fine. We had less breakdowns at the old Sportsman's and at Hawthorne, both of which ran both breeds at different times, than we did at Arlington which only ran TBs. Balmoral used to do the split thing until 1991 as well, but I really can't recall breakdown numbers from that previous era there.
I often wonder if that was because the base was revealed and rolled and looked at so often on the split tracks? On the only TB tracks they never pick up the whole surface, they blade it, but never remove and re-lay the whole thing.

As far as breed vs breed animosity, I think that was initiated during the years when every track relied on betting, and later simulcast. The TBs have always been the biggest earners in terms of betting in every state I have been in. In the age of simulcasting the TB signals are still the best sellers. So, most of your TB horsemen were, understandably, upset over having to basically "support" the lesser contributing STBs and QHs. Nowadays alternative gaming has certainly muddied the waters in that regard, but old grudges can last for generations.