NYRA moves Belmont Park fall meet to Aqueduct
 

https://www.horseracingnation.com/ne...o_Aqueduct_123

I personally wanted to see them extend the Saratoga meet with this scenario happening IMO it would have been cool but they just decided that Aqueduct was the better spot I guess :ThmbUp:

Saratoga to Aqueduct would best be described as… too sudden.

It’s like going from a paradise to a prison.

Gas alone. Plus manpower.
 

20 miles round trip on the Cross island expressway. Belmont Park to aqueduct.


No stall space at aqueduct

Many of us spend a lot of time longing for the old days. Well, welcome back to 1964-1968 - when the Belmont meets were run at Aqueduct while "new Belmont" was being constructed!

Thank God for Parx.
That is just too GD much Aquesucks.
It already seems like the winter meet is two years.

I think it's kind of cool, actually. Aqueduct, at various times, has hosted a number of NYRA's big fall races. More recently, other than the Cigar Mile, it really hasn't. It will be great to see the old track back in the spotlight again.

Every other day it seems the rail is either dead or golden.
Maybe they could borrow one of Belmont's temp turf rails and use it on the main track. :rolleyes:

There were also quite a few split bias days at Aqueduct at the end of last year and into the winter, where the track would look like it was speed favoring for the first four or five races, then closers would win the last four races. I don't think it was a coincidence, it happened too often. Sort of looked like a drying out track.

wasn't a big deal in the 1960's

How many folks on this board remember an Aqueduct "summer" meeting that took place after Belmont and before the 24-day stand at Saratoga?

How many remember the Aqueduct walking ring before the current "below ground level" paddock?

How many of you remember Saratoga having less than 10,000 people per day with downstaters wondering "why is that meet needed"?

just don't mess up and 'winterize' the fall meet track :popcorn:

Good luck trying to sort that all out when there's also a lot of turf racing and you only get a handful of dirt races to evaluate.

Aqueduct to take one Belmont fall meet can be handled. All the proposed changes at Belmont not so much.

Am I right in remembering that this is the second iteration of the "below ground level" paddock at the Big A, with the stalls on the "track" side? It seems like when I started in the game, the saddling stalls were on the stands side (horses couldn't really be seen well as we were standing on the platform above them) and faced out towards the track.

I go back to 1969 as a fan and do not remember another saddling option.

I am having a Frank Wright and Charlsie Cantey moment right now. It is almost impossible to believe that Frank left us 30 years ago.

Turns out it would appear we’re both remembering the same thing - this shot is from 1985 Breeders’ Cup coverage from Aqueduct. Ground level walking ring going straight out to the track. Ramp down to saddling stalls which are under the paddock/walking ring viewing platform.

Will someone tell the sea gulls, who spend September and October at Belmont. I would hate for them to not know where to hang out and scavenge for food.

Funny how your perceptions change over the years. When I was younger, just starting out in the sport back in the 60s attending River Downs every opportunity I could, going to Aqueduct was at the top of my wish list. To me, Aqueduct was the holy grail. However, because I was working and had limited funds, I never had the opportunity to go there, but always watched the Race of the Week from Aqueduct with Fred Capossela telling me that it as now post time. The feature race on Saturday was normally $25,000, with horses such as Affectionately, Roman Brother, Kelso and Gun Bow running across my TV screen.

Now that I'm older, retired, and have the means to make the trip to The Big A, I have still never been there, despite going to Belmont and Saratoga numerous times. However, I still have a poster hanging in my man-cave with a Big A in the middle, and the verbage saying that "When your ship comes in it might just be a horse."

Aqueduct obviously isn't what it once was- how could it be, as it was the place where 50,000 people would crowd the grandstands to see horses like Kelso and Damascus?

But Aqueduct is still a really nice place to see a horse race. Its big problem normally is weather- when you go to Aqueduct for races, it's usually cold. But this year's fall meet will give fans a chance to actually attend the races at Aqueduct when it is nice out. They only use a small portion of the original plant, but you can still get a sense for what a palace the place was when NYRA first opened it in the late 1950's. I highly recommend it.

Having a car without air conditioning wasn’t a big deal back then either. :D

For all out there that write code, be aware that someone has made the asinine decision to use "BAQ" for these races rather than "AQU".

Had that discussion yesterday with Ron Tiller at HDW.

Decided the best way to handle this is the same way we've handled all previous nonsensical track code changes track execs have told Equibase to make such as OSA, Barrett's at Fairplex, Betfair Hollywood Park, etc:

• Track code for data file names stay the same (AQU.)

• Track code for chart result file names stay the same (AQU.)

• Track code for running line and workout data stays the same (AQU.)

• Track code for all stat categories (rider, trainer, sire, damssire, etc.) stays the same (AQU.)

That way everything in the data flows.

As opposed to everything suddenly needs special handling before it can flow.

All because some track exec who doesn't bet and doesn't consider the headaches nonsensical track code changes create for customers who are actually using the data.

There. Stepping down off my soapbox now. :)


-jp

.

We're Back-queduct!

Unbelievable! :bang:

I hope I don’t have too much hard coded.

Construction underway. Here's the scene this morning.

Interesting...thanks for the pic

I don't know if it's true or not but way back many years when I asked a former racing secretary about why Oak Tree at SA got a different code when it's the same track he said it's partly because of the overall variety of the races written, and purse structure which differed intentionally from regular SA.

That's weird because for a very long time, Oak Tree DID NOT get a different code than Santa Anita.

They did when I was getting into SoCal racing about 15 years ago.

Right, but the Oak Tree meet was around for a long time before that and it was just SA.

BAQ..... now there is one job that can be eliminted entirely.
I bet the moron who times the races came up with it! :lol:

I get it, I was just passing along one convo I had back when.

Was listening to Chuck Simon/Barry Spears "Going In Circles" podcast last night, and Chuck mentioned something about when they finally do go ahead and do a rebuild of the Belmont Park grandstand, "everybody knows" they're putting it on the opposite side of the track, like they did with the Meadowlands.

I had not heard anything like this, and it sounded different from what thought I had heard proposed (which sounded more like a Gulfstream type setup complementing the arena).

I do remember reading things years ago which said the direction the current grandstand faces is definitely not ideal, but that was all I can remember.

I can't be that simple with the way the chutes are constructed currently. The Meadowlands, sure, standard one mile track that is only used for harness racing now.

The Belmont grandstand faces north. From recall reading racing pubs, I believe this created an issue (or is presumed to create an issue) with the track consistency in fall/winter because the current grandstand would keep the stretch in shadows while the backside would get sun. I did a quick search and found this from mainstream news https://www.liherald.com/stories/nyr...nt-park,131399 from March 2021.

Seems more likely option would be to reduce the grandstand size sufficiently to at least mitigate the issue, and retain the current racing layout, with an added all weather track inside the inner turf, which I believe is a little longer than 1 1/8 miles.

I was driving to visit one of my church members in the ICU when I heard them say it. So my focus was a little elsewhere - maybe they were just joking about the kind of stuff they'd heard around the track in conjunction with the move of meet announcement.

Glad you brought up the chutes on turf - makes it much less plausible. You'd have to rip out a LOT of nice hedges to move the turns on those courses.

Also Club Med has both 6F and 1 1/4 mile chutes like Monmouth has. The t’bred horsemen still have rights to fall dates there, but haven’t opted to use them save for the short turf only meet. Costs too much $ to turn over the dirt track combined w low horse inventory make a longer meet not financially viable I suppose.

Yeah, I don't see how you could do it without shrinking or drastically reconfiguring the track, and I doubt NYRA has any interest in doing that. Belmont's configuration is part of its branding.

Just throw in a Wilson chute and it'll be ok.
It worked good at Toga, in fact, t was better than the 1m8 races.

Went and downloaded again and listened to this part again. I was mistaken in saying this was the part where they said "everybody knows." The quote regarding the track was "Nobody really talks about it in public too much, but they're building a tunnel on the backside, what's currently the backside of Belmont Park, on the backstretch - that's not a random occurrence. They're gonna rebuild the grandstand on the other side of the racetrack like the Meadowlands did. That's gonna happen."

Just went back and looked at the pic that classhandicapper posted when construction started - where all the work appears to be happening (in line with what I understood before hearing this) is closer to the NW end of the current grandstand.

I'm looking forward to seeing what's ultimately proposed/ultimately happens. I know I need to get out to Belmont this coming spring to see the grand old lady as she is one more time.