Will Belmont even have a meet this year?
 

IMO I don’t think so even without live audience. Is it possible that Saratoga would extend their meeting and start early? I can see that happening with a June 1st start date. I’m hearing a lot of owners would rather ship straight to Toga.

All racing has been cancelled until at least 2022.

FYI-Parx earliest possible opening is June 1-best case scenario so Belmont probably well after that

Parx isn't opening until the casino opens I would bet. Does that apply to NYRA? i have no idea but my guess would be no.

Maybe they should have a Belmont @ Saratoga meet. At least it will keep all parties involved segregated to one N.Y. track for spring summer season. Many horsemen will probably not want to ship into Belmont in the next month or so even if they run they are more likely to ship to Toga. In any event if NYRA cancels everything the next several months Gulfstream will end up being the go to track with a year round championship meet. Of course this is all an opinion and I seriously hope NYRA gets back into the game.

I think people will be up in arms if there is no Saratoga meet. I'm not from NY or the area but you are starting to see more and more protests across the country. People are not going to stay indoors during the summer especially after being indoors all winter

So far... and I will emphasize, this may not be true in 3 weeks... those protests are pretty small and public opinion emphatically supports distancing.

Honestly, I highly doubt that New York is going to push anytime soon to open up.

At the same time, other than the obvious statement that Belmont isn't opening on time, I don't know how close NYRA is or isn't to any decision to race without spectators.

Yesterday NYC had 18 deaths from the corona virus down from a high of 533 only 12 days earlier. Based on the stats from NYC, being under 65 your chances of dying from the virus are a little less than .001. By keeping things shut down it becomes a punishment and certainly not protective of the people. When the stats start showing no deaths and few new infections the protests will be overwhelming. I expect that to happen soon.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

Holy shit...I had no idea the situation was that under control...talk about curve flattening...

WTF?

How can there by ANY pushback against talk about starting the "reopening process" when all three curves (cases, hospitalization and deaths) have been flattened almost to the point of oblivion?

And this is the WORST SPOT in the USA!?!?!?

Just a note. The NYC data is never up to date. It's likely that 18 will be adjusted upwards over the next few days. The trend is still very good though.

If the scientists say this, that's fine.

OTOH if the scientists say the numbers will go back up if we reopen, we should listen.

And the fact those numbers have decreased so much vindicates the scientists.

Close enough - RIDERS UP!:coffee:

my guess is that Belmont will open up by the middle of June or before with no spectator's. and by the end of the summer there will be spectator's at a New York track wherever they run. with or without the casinos opening.

maybe the governor would use racing as a guide to open up other things because it doesn't have as much a crowd as other events. if i was the guy in charge of racing i would be meeting with the governor with a plan to show him how opening up would be beneficial to the state. with all the people that live in New York, racing could be a big help for the governor to make his tough decisions.

Sure why not open up the racing first because that’s where it basically all started....at a racetrack. Yonkers raceway has been basically confirmed the ground zero of the China virus. Ironically the 3 heaviest hit states all have casinos in them. Then again a lot of states have casinos but not as big or occupied as the northeast ones.