FINGER LAKES CANCELS MONDAY

[karlskorner]

From the T-Bred Times

Finger Lakes cancelled live racing card on Monday because of a lack of entries.

A lack of entries at the beginning of the meet ?

[boomman]

That track used to have some of the fullest fields in The US....I found that extremely "curious", too! Tom, you're in that neck of the woods, how about a local perspective?????

Boomer

[cj]

The entire thoroughbred industry will now be thrown into chaos with this announcement.

[kenwoodallpromos]

I love a mystery! Which is why no one really knows why any track ends up with a "lack of horses". No informatipon or stats kept as to the rates of loss of horses to other tracks, attrition, etc.
How many female ruinners lost per year to go into breeding? what % of horse lost per year to injury? my guess is 20% per year between ages 2 and 5 in each category.
12th looks like mostly short fields for Cl 3+up. 9-10k. maidens got some entries.

[Buddha]

This has happened to Mountaineer a few times before, but instead of closing the entry box at 1100 AM, they will leave the entry box open until the nighttime to be able to get enough to run the card.

[kenwoodallpromos]

I see mostly 4-8 year olds in the 3 +up races, NW_.
Are all the future FL runners at other tracks as 2 and 3 year olds trying to win decent purses? Maybe runners are staying at the other tracks more (slots and purse increases?).

[Tom]

Not unusual this time of year.
Lots of horses do not run anywhere over the winter and are not in shape yet.
The early lure is 4.5 furlong races, which is the only shot lots of our horses have a purse all year. Now we have stretched out, the horse population is kind of in flux. Full fields should be back by June.
IMHO, now that the purses here are so much larger due to slots, more owners and trainers are less likely to run a lot for minor checks and are pointing towards front end checks and waiting until the horses are fit to run them.
But I still have an 8-Track!

[ponyplayerdotca]

Increased number of tracks opening at the same time (horses have to go somewhere to run). Slot purse increases elsewhere have to have something to do with it too.

I've always wondered why certain smaller tracks (as Fort Erie has done this year) don't just reduce either the number of races or race days they run and pool together the purse offerings from those culled races into bigger purses for the same condition?

If there are only 24 horses that are available to run a certain claming price/condition, and your track has 4 race days per week, reduce the number of races offering that condition weekly, and take the same amount of total purse money that would have been offered and redistribute it at an increased amount for those races?

(Instead of 4 races at a purse of $8,000 = $32,000, why not 3 races at a purse of $10,400 = $31,200, or 2 races at a purse of $16,000 = $32,000?)

Wouldn't fewer races per condition (theoretically) increase the number of entrants running for greater purse rewards and offer better betting opportunities for the players, such that they wager more into the pools?

I'm no economics major, so this might be flawed thinking - which I'm sure will be pointed out to me here after I post. Let me know if I'm anywhere near being logical or not. Cheers.

[Tom]

(Instead of 4 races at a purse of $8,000 = $32,000, why not 3 races at a purse of $10,400 = $31,200, or 2 races at a purse of $16,000 = $32,000?)



Two reasons:

1. Owners
2. Trainers

They look at purses, not competitive or enjoyable racing. They would prefer you split those 4 races into 5 or 6:D