California screwing up its racing along with everything else

**thezbar** · 11-15-09, 07:17 AM

The Philly Park race. Owners are leaving for the states that have better purses. Santa Anita may be forced to run four day weeks this winter. The best racing this winter will be Gulfstream and Oaklawn, which are both dirt tracks. California racing is becoming a b circuit and they have only themselves to blame.

**Art Vandeleigh** · 11-16-09, 04:06 AM

Yes but after the races you can go across the street and watch Kobe play, or back when I used to go to Hollywood Park it was Magic and Kareem. Hollywood Park purses have always been much lower than the Santa Anita and Del Mar meets.

**andywend** · 11-16-09, 09:21 AM

The purses at Santa Anita FOR CLAIMING RACES are every bit as anemic as Hollywood Park. Del Mar purses are indeed higher across the board.

I used to own and race horses in Southern California from 1986 to 2003.

I still have the racing form from the first horse I ever claimed back in 1986.

The purse of a $12,500 claimer was $13,000 back in 1986 and is only $11,000 today. The purse for a 1st condition allowance was $24,000 back in 1986 and is $38,000 today.

The point I was trying to make is how Santa Anita and Hollywood Park management continue to show extreme prejudice against claiming owners as opposed to allowance and stakes races.

When times were good and purses were increased, management would allocate almost all of the purse increase to allowance and stakes races and next to nothing for the claiming races. When times got bad and purses needed to be reduced, management would boast that the allowance/stakes races were NOT affected with the claiming races seeing the majority of the purse declines.

This attitude has been going on and on for over 20 years and now SA and HOL are at the point where the purses for their lower level claiming races are the LOWEST in the nation even though more money is bet on them via handle than just about any other track.

I don't understand why prolific claiming owners like La Canada Stables take it from behind from racetrack management. They need to get all the claiming owners together and stop entering horses in claiming races and force management to completely redo their biased purse structure.

Day after day, I see claiming races with 10-12 horse fields and anemic purses while the allowance and stakes races attract 6 horse fields.

I just don't get it.

**exstatman** · 11-16-09, 02:06 PM

One other part that is often overlooked is the Indian casinos. When they first started to expand, racetracks were completely ignorant to the threat casino gaming would present. Most recently, the racing industry put up only a token fight when the tribes initiative permanently removed the chance of slots at tracks.

**Art Vandeleigh** · 11-18-09, 03:26 AM

Originally posted by andywend

I used to own and race horses in Southern California from 1986 to 2003.

Cool. I'm sure I was rooting for (or maybe against) some of them in the early part of that timeframe.

I looked into the economics of owning horses for about 5 minutes once and saw pretty clearly it wasn't for me, I prefer the degenerate side. The costs seemed prohibitive, especially in comparison to the purses.

Maybe one of the differences between Philly and So. Cal. is competition. Philly competes with tracks like Pimlico, Monmouth, Meadowlands, Delaware, Mountaineer, etc. so I guess they have to offer higher purses. If you're not happy with the claiming situation in So. Calif., where are you going to go. Turf Paradise? Golden Gate? I don't think purses are any more impressive there. Looks like So. Calif. tracks are telling owners take it or leave it.

**andywend** · 11-18-09, 09:08 AM

If enough of the major claiming owners got together and boycotted the entry box, Santa Anita would have to shut down the track permanently or give in to their demands.

Since the claiming owners have gotten the shaft from track management for so many years, this is one of the rare instances where a boycott is warranted.

I would estimate that the average claiming race at Santa Anita generates approximately 10X the betting volume as compared to that of Philadelphia. Without the claiming races, Santa Anita is finished.

It would be one thing if Santa Anita made severe cutbacks to their allowance and stakes programs and still could only offer these anemic purses to the claiming races. However, everytime they have needed to cut purses, they have taken the majority of the money from the claiming races even though their allowance and stakes races continue to have bloated purses while attracting 6 horse fields.

I enjoy betting on California horse racing and if this situation isn't resolved, I believe California racing is doomed.

With the attitude of Santa Anita management, even if they did get slot machines, the chances are they would give the vast majority of the money to non-claiming races with allowance races featuring $100,000 purses.