Steve Zorn: Monmouth vs. Belmont by the Numbers

[andymays]

http://businessofracing.blogspot.com/2010/07/monmouth-vs-belmont-numbers.html

Excerpt:

To compare the two race meetings, I looked at the data for the past four weekends, from June 18th through July 11th -- including the July 4th holiday -- for the two tracks. That's 13 racing days at each track. The comparison showed some interesting numbers:

http://businessofracing.blogspot.com/2010/07/monmouth-vs-belmont-numbers.html

[MickJ26]

Even with a significatly weakened racing product, Belmont is more than holding it's own against Monmouth according to the numbers. If they keep the same plan for next year, does the novelty wear off? Where do guys like Romans, Wilkes, McPeek ship their best stock for the summer?

[castaway01]

Who cares what Belmont vs. Monmouth is? Belmont is an established brand with high-quality horses. Isn't the important thing that Monmouth handle compared AGAINST ITSELF is massively, ridiculously, incredibly up? And, of course, the implications for the effect on other racetracks' handle if they restructured their racing in a similar way?

[peakpros]

Who cares what Belmont vs. Monmouth is? Belmont is an established brand with high-quality horses. Isn't the important thing that Monmouth handle compared AGAINST ITSELF is massively, ridiculously, incredibly up? And, of course, the implications for the effect on other racetracks' handle if they restructured their racing in a similar way?

Do you factor in at what cost?

[andymays]

Did anyone read the entire article?

[Indulto]

From the article"… The big difference was in the nature and quality of the claiming races. Apart from the maiden claimers, Monmouth ran 63 claiming races (40% of its total), while Belmont ran 35 (28%). But Monmouth's races were almost entirely open claimers, spread reasonably equally over the price spectrum: 15 at claiming prices above $25,000, 22 at $10,000-$25,000, and 25 below $10,000. In New York, by contrast, racing secretary P J Campo continues his infatuation with conditioned claimers -- races for non-winners of two or three lifetime, for horses that haven't won in six months, etc. Of the 35 claiming races at Belmont, 27 -- nearly 80% -- were conditioned claimers. A few years ago, New York didn't run any of these races. Now it runs nothing but. I don't know whether P J could fill a racing card without resorting to the conditioned claimers, but the anemic 7.0 starters per race average over my study period suggests he might not have done any worse had he stuck to the traditional open claiming structure. And he would have had the added excitement of lots more claiming activity. At Monmouth, in the 13 racing days from June 18th through July 11th, 109 horses were claimed -- more than 8 per day. At Belmont, total claims for the same 13 racing days were 14, barely one per day. There just aren't the races at Belmont with attractive claim prospects, and the trainer making a claim doesn't have the options for future races that would be available with a more traditional claiming structure.

No wonder I've been having a hard time finding a suitable claim for my claiming partnership. If it weren't that we all want to race in New York, I'd be looking at Monmouth. And most people who want to make new claims are already there. I don't know if Charlie Hayward and P J Campo consciously set out to destroy the claiming game in New York, but, whether intentional or not, that's what they're doing.

As the figures above show, NYRA and the Belmont meet held up pretty well against Monmouth's challenge. But claiming is an important part of a race meeting, and by stifling claiming activity through a surfeit of conditioned claimers, NYRA is endangering the longer-term health of an important segment of the industry.This is also why -- in addition to lower takeout and lower wager minimums -- some multi-trace exotics are more attractive at MTH to many than at BEL.

[wonatthewire1]

Article also compared the field sizes showing MTH with bigger fields. But author didn't take into account that handle doesn't always suffer with smaller fields.

Why not?

Smaller fields attract exotic players a bit more because of the likilhood of a higher hit rate. So there might be a drop off in win betting at BEL but not necessarily hurting overall handle.

It is a relatively meaningless article overall. Both types of meets can survive but overall, less racing will probably become the norm across the country. Financially, the smaller tracks will eventually go away as casinos will eventually be allowed to operate without tracks involved (PA comes to mind).

That will be the next wave in the evolution of the sport

[therussmeister]

Who cares what Belmont vs. Monmouth is? Belmont is an established brand with high-quality horses. Isn't the important thing that Monmouth handle compared AGAINST ITSELF is massively, ridiculously, incredibly up? And, of course, the implications for the effect on other racetracks' handle if they restructured their racing in a similar way?
Although I don't know for sure, I can't help but think, if many racetracks restructured similarly, they would bump up against what economist refer to as fallacy of composition (http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2009/08/teaching-fallacy-of-composition-federal.html). I am certain they would if they all tried to run Fri-Sat-Sun.

[HUSKER55]

I was wondering, would a field size limit of say 9 and no "conditioned' claimers and a 4 day race week make a positive impact to the industry as a whole?

I read the article and that is what I think the jist of it is. With internet wagering I am wondering if some of the expenses referrd to are caused by the track itself.

For example, if the auditorium holds (for example) 20,000 people and only 3000 show up. The cost, ie, operating expense, is the same.

That list goes on.

Opinions?

:)

[The_Knight_Sky]

... no "conditioned' claimers ....





That's a start.
Back in the late 80's conditioned claimers at the top level tracks were a novelty.

If your horse broke his/her maiden in for a 3up $30,000 tag
you knew he'd need a drop to roughly $14-16,000 in open company for 3 year olds and up. Now we can find the horse being entered in a $30,000 non-winners of 2 lifetime or similar.

Today's racing secretaries coddle way too much and have created too many subdivisions for the horses in the local colony. As a result they are currently splitting hairs when the hairs have already been split.

I'm taking about expanding from non-winners of 2 for $5,000
and then adding a non-winners for 3 lifetime for $5,000,
Then a graduate of this $5,000n3l could wind up into a
$5,000 non-winners of 1 or 2 race in the last 6 months etc.
Anything to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

There used to be a time when a claiming prices reliably separated
the local talent Now we see in New York a race written something like:
NY bred, fillies and mares, 3 year olds and up $15,000 nonwinners of 2 races
lifetime or nonwinners of 1 turf route in the last 6 months, yadda yadda

P.J. Campo are you serious ???

How can you possibly attract fuller fields if you write races
that limit the stock beyond the basic divisions of age, sex, distance and surface.
How many more divisions are left before only 3,4,5 horses qualify under the conditions?

The condition books around the country at must go back to the basics and let the claiming tags separate the best horses from $5,000 to $150,000 claiming prices. Those were the days !

[Robert Fischer]

Belmont issues
---------

some of the quality shipping to Monmouth - the obvious issue.

distance cutback of graded stakes - so goes handicapping complexity, wagering value, aesthetics, historical precedence...

nail-on-chalkboard dirt races, even on weekend cards - what the hell is the point of all these 6furlong races and maybe a mile if we are taking a walk on the wild side? Can you card a 9furlong dirt race once a weekend??
Distance is quickly going the way of "Weight" as extinct handicapping factors. grrrrrrrr:mad:

"concept of detention barn" will be "abolished" :confused:[/wtf]- per Jeremy Plonk (http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/columns/story?columnist=plonk_jeremy&id=5384035). I am all for abolishing concepts, but hey can we finish 'freedom' and 'equality' before moving on to stuff like this?

[PaceAdvantage]

I was wondering, would a field size limit of say 9 and no "conditioned' claimers and a 4 day race week make a positive impact to the industry as a whole?

I read the article and that is what I think the jist of it is. With internet wagering I am wondering if some of the expenses referrd to are caused by the track itself.

For example, if the auditorium holds (for example) 20,000 people and only 3000 show up. The cost, ie, operating expense, is the same.

That list goes on.

Opinions?

:)Please check your private message box.

[Linny]

My gauge for quality of a card or a meet like Belmont spring is to glance through the "in today" header under trainers. This spring, it is clear that PJ is counting on alot of AQU Inner guys to keep the meet going.

Last Sat at Belmont the following trainers were represnted in at least one race: Bill Allyn, Luis Alvarez, Enrique Arroyo, Greg Garafolo,Sandino Hernandez, Paulino Ortiz, Mel Winney, Robert Young, Ed Pringle and Joe Parker.
On the other hand the following trainers had either no starters, or 1 starter: Todd Pletcher (O) Linda Rice (0) Mike Hushion (0) Bill Mott (0) Tony Dutrow (0) Jimmy Toner (0) Shug McGaughey (0) Nick Zito (0) Tom Albertrani (1) Steve Asmussen (1) and Barclay Tagg (1.)

Let's face it, while many members of the first list may be outstanding horsemen, it is fair to say that they are not holding the highest quality stock on the grounds. The latter list, it could be argued, are. How can so few of those quality horses be on display on a Saturday in mid July at Belmont????

I know that the elite trainers are disinclined to run their horses more than every 6-8 weeks and that is killing the game. They are also taking many of the best horses, many owned by long time NY owners (some members of the NYRA board and trustees etc.) and running them in NJ. Since they are "bigshots" in the game they or their trainers come under no sanction. PJ just drops the bottom of the conditioned claimers once more and begs the little guys to step in to fill races by running horses every 7-10 days.

I'd rather they run open $5k claimers than all those horrible $16N2L's. Most of them are 1 for 20 or worse with a win over 3 rivals on the slop in January, when 2 horses could even stand up in the mud.