You hit the nail on the head. While I do not believe racing is dead the quality of racing has dropped sharply all across the country.
The economic conditions which have touched all walks of life have definitely effected racing. It seems like there is more to it than just that reason. It will be interesting to see how on track attendance and most importantly betting handle turns out at the upcoming race meeting at Monmouth Park. If this one year experiment is successful I think we will see major fundemental changes in racing.

Alright Scratch, I'll bite. A few years back it was suggested on this board that a possible solution to improving the quality of cards was to put money into the Overnight stakes programs. Well NYRA scrapped those citing the lack of horses being entered into such races. (I believe the report said it was an average of 6 horses per race).
Conditions books and stakes races are published at the beginning of the year yet routinely we've seen short fields for these races, Grade 1's even. That's a decision of the horsemen as they look for spots to run their horses. What difference would adding more money make if the horsemen don't choose to run?
Yes, I'll agree with you that we've unfortunately had an explosion of NY Bred races but does he write the races for what's here or do you write the races with the hope that they'll show up?
Pole reminisces about races being run at longer distances. Well, at Saratoga, they tried to encourage more distance races by saying the more horses entered the bigger the purse. Sadly, it too was a failed attempt because horsemen chose not to enter their horses so what's the point? Again, do u write with the hoppe of attracting more horses or do you take care of the clientle on the grounds that do provide you with larger fields?

The one great thing about this country is that everyone is entitled to rant, NYRA races today looked better than the overall competition. If we like NY tracks at all, for any reason, why not support them?

Ranting keeps things in perspective. Everybody understands that racing is in trouble from coast to coast but the best product in the country here in New York is being allowed to simply swirl down the drain. Just this week New York's dysfunctional legislature and budget division pondered a shitty $17 million "loan" to NYRA in order to keep it afloat through 2010.

"Legislation that would advance $17 million to the New York Racing Association for operations is being held up by concerns raised by the state's budget division over the how the advance would be funded, according to NYRA officials."

Result? Nothing happened - zero, zilch, nada, squat, oongotz. Everybody went home for another long weekend.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/ ... id=5170980

Campo is clueless and has the horsemen puzzled as well. It seems like every race even NY Maidens is short sprint grass..No such thing as 6 or 7 furlongs..He needs to go.

If your not part of the solution then your part of the problem. Campo must Go

Linda Rice is a Campo supporter