WALKOVER! Did you see what happened today in 2nd at Colonial Downs?

[Turfday]

Today, Friday, the 2nd race at Colonial Downs, a $25,000 claimer at 1 1/16 miles on dirt, was originally a five-horse field. According to the chart, there were FOUR scratches and the notation is that all FOUR scratches were stewards scratches and not vet scratches.

This left the only entrant to be the 7/5 morning line favorite Live in the Present, who "won" a non-betting walkover.

[Steve 'StatMan']

Sheesh! Wonder if all 4 of those scratches showed up wearing non-eligible shoes for the turf? For example, AP and HAW only allow Plain/Queen's Plate shoes on the turf course, and do order changing/removing shoes or scratching when they show up with the wrong shoes (they note it in the condition books).

Interesting. Sad they only could get 5 for a turf race to begin with!

[Steve 'StatMan']

Nope, that wasn't it - race was on the dirt (maybe moved from turf?). Charts show track as fast, the 3rd as Sloppy, and the rest of the races were cancelled due to the weather.

[Turfday]

no message

[kenwoodallpromos]

What was the beyers?
I would have claimed it!

[Macdiarmadillo]

It's been reported elsewhere that the horse kept trying to get to the the outside fence and Karamanos was fighting the horse most of the way. Had to really work hard to earn that "free" money. :D

Was also told that the replay wasn't offered online. Too bad if that's so.

[Steve 'StatMan']

It's been reported elsewhere that the horse kept trying to get to the the outside fence and Karamanos was fighting the horse most of the way. Had to really work hard to earn that "free" money. :D

Was also told that the replay wasn't offered online. Too bad if that's so.

That reminded me, I've always wondered if a horse has ever failed to finish successfully in a 'walkover'? Would be awfully embarasing! Kind of like rolling a Gutter Ball on one's last shot in a big money bowling match, when you only need 1 pin to win. (Saw the great Del Ballard do that on National T.V. back in the 80's. Amazing. Cost him a good $15-$20,000. He was good natured about it later, and champ that he was/is, came back the next few weeks very strongly.)

[toetoe]

Couldn't they have a plebiscite(sp.?)? Horse will finish/horse will not finish. In Chile in 1988 they had a choice -- Pinochet yes or Pinochet no. 'No' won!

[Macdiarmadillo]

Bets are offered like that on Betfair, set up immediately with odds. Over on the other side of the Atlantic, bookies would offer odds against the favorite winning (for example) during the running of the race, so there is that tradition of people playing spontaneous bets like that. You probably could have bet for/against Pinochet at an English book, too. Wait until Betfair gets in somewhere in the US.

[Pace Cap'n]

I wonder if he got the entire purse or only the winner's share.

[Zman179]

Just the winner's share. The rest reverts back to the purse account.

[Steve 'StatMan']

Nice thing for them was it was a $17,000 purse race, with an extra $8,500 added for VA breds, so he got VA bonus money as well.

Likely (60% x 17,000) + $8,500 = $19,000. Mighty good for not having to beat anyone, just had to be sure not to fail circiling the track with the rider still on the horse.

[Zman179]

According to Equibase, the horse earned $14,535.

[Steve 'StatMan']

Trust Equibase, I'm just estimating. They did get the winner share + a Va. bonus, don't know the exacta splits. Sure it works for the winners, though.