I suppose something to look forward to......

[taxicab]

With just about every track in North America shuttered until who knows when,two things are going to play out when racing resumes:
1) The fields should be gigantic,which horseplayers love.
2) Starting with Labor Day weekend..........the last four months of the year will have a backlog of major races to cover.
Quality racing will be on display every week.

[GMB@BP]

Originally Posted by taxicab

With just about every track in North America shuttered until who knows when,two things are going to play out when racing resumes:
1) The fields should be gigantic,which horseplayers love.
2) Starting with Labor Day weekend..........the last four months of the year will have a backlog of major races to cover.
Quality racing will be on display every week.

How are these owners going to be able to foot the bills to keep these horses going for many months with no income? Sure some can, most cant.

This is gonna be a slaughter, for realz.

[dilanesp]

Also, while there will be some relaxation of the lockdowns, I suspect it will be a long time before we allow large groups of spectators.

So while there may be horse racing in the fall, it very possibly be without spectators and under strict rules. Plus a lot of horse owners may go bankrupt or try to get out of the business.

[NTamm1215]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

Also, while there will be some relaxation of the lockdowns, I suspect it will be a long time before we allow large groups of spectators.

So while there may be horse racing in the fall, it very possibly be without spectators and under strict rules. Plus a lot of horse owners may go bankrupt or try to get out of the business.

No way, you think this could last for months? I wasn’t sure if you had made that clear in any of your three dozen prior posts on the topic.

[The_Turf_Monster]

I would assume that tracks will card more race dates and more races to keep the average field size in the 7-8 range so that owners can still have a shot at making money so they can stay in the game.

Those purse accounts, even at the slots tracks, aren't accruing money right now. Fat chance that handicap/stakes division is run this year. Those purses have to come from somewhere, and it's going to be a steep uphill battle to argue that the purse accounts should be used for vanity races over keeping local horsemen employed

[classhandicapper]

Originally Posted by dilanesp

Plus a lot of horse owners may go bankrupt or try to get out of the business.

I'm sure many owners are moving horses to farms to keep the daily costs down.

I have a piece of two horses.

We moved one that was racing in NY to a farm to save money. The unscheduled rest may be a blessing in disguise anyway.

We kept our unraced horse in training because he just got to NY from the farm and needed a lot of work anyway. Hopefully by the time he's fit, racing will resume. Then we'll bring back the other guy.

It's definitely going to be an issue for people that own a lot of horses that don't have a good cash reserve fund.

[dilanesp]

Originally Posted by The_Turf_Monster

I would assume that tracks will card more race dates and more races to keep the average field size in the 7-8 range so that owners can still have a shot at making money so they can stay in the game.

Those purse accounts, even at the slots tracks, aren't accruing money right now. Fat chance that handicap/stakes division is run this year. Those purses have to come from somewhere, and it's going to be a steep uphill battle to argue that the purse accounts should be used for vanity races over keeping local horsemen employed

Seems right to me.

For all sorts of reasons, the racing that makes sense for the foreseeable future is low level racing, not big stakes. Hopefully tracks get serious about the "no unnecessary people" rules and can keep it going indefinitely.