Quote:
Originally Posted by Hambletonian
That's one opinion.
From what I remember, Colonial wanted to replace their normal meet with a boutique meet, concentrating the purse money in stakes races, which would have ended up largely in the hands of national horsemen at the expense of the locals. Colonial is an island unto itself, you stable there and pretty much that is where you have to race. So horsemen probably felt why go through the trouble of relocating for a meet that would largely be aimed at others.
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As memory serves, the horsemen also balked at the prospect of lower purses. The track management explained the numbers. The horsemen weren't buying the management's stance.
As far as stabling horses, from what I have read, this is actually a problem at many tracks. Some trainers will apply and receive stall space and in some of those stalls are horses that the stable has zero intention of running at that meet.
Anyway, what occurred at Colonial was damned shame. Its a nice clean well run facility. Yeah,. its 40 miles from Richmond, and 30 mins from Norfolk, but so what?