Announcing claims pre-race would do nothing to indicate the soundness of a horse. I remember a race at Parx where R Dutrow shipped a semi-suspicious dropper (named Not For Money) from NY to compete for a jacked up purse on an Owners Appreciation Day. I've never seen the area near the claim box so busy. There were 16 claims in for the horse, who finished a well beaten third in a field of 8. I know all this because we claimed a different horse out of the same race, and were the only ones in the box for him.
It took 8 more races and 4 months before Not For Money won again.
In my opinion, you'd get a better idea of how well meant a claimer is by counting the number of people with the horse in the paddock above the trainer and groom. When I owned horses, whenever I had one in that I thought had a good chance to win, I was at the track, and in the paddock if at all possible. This is by no means reliable, but it's still a hell of a lot better than knowing how many other people were thinking the same way about claiming a horse. That has close to ZERO value.
Last edited by Elliott Sidewater; 02-14-2018 at 01:11 PM.
Reason: factual error
|