AQU Winter Meet
 

I think what they've done with AQU this winter has been good. Going Fri,Sat, Sun has made for better fields. Horsemen may not be happy, but those 5 horse fields are not for bettors.

Think this was a positive this year.

Really???? :wf

The Aqueduct in NY? :zz:

Love NYRA racing but I respectfully disagree.

I'm just saying they are making the best of it. They have big outfits who migrate in the winter. Winter racing is necessary in NY. Not only for NY Horsemen, but for NYRA. My point is they are making adjustments to try and put out the best product they can.

Maybe not ideal, but it is winter up north. I think they are positive changes.

no inner-track has KILLED them!

Care to elaborate on this?

This is actually false. I want to say that they only lost one day due the track (and if I remember correctly it was because it was too warm and the track thawed out unevenly). The rest of the cancellations were weather related and they would've cancelled regardless what the surface was.

The thing I find the funniest is that Irad was penciled in to ride in NY this winter and when the cancellations started he decided to go to Gulfstream and has absolutely been killing it down there. I'm guessing he will be spending his winters down south from here on in.

Has it been successful winter meet 2017-18?

Mark, that's not a response. You made a statement that has no basis in fact, and when questioned on it, in a reasonable manner, you come back with a question.

Pretty lame.

Nice reply, Andy ;) I know things have been tough for the company you work for, but 5 & 6 horse fields (3 days a week) & promoting the Belmont Stakes in mid January ISN'T a good sign for NYRA ..... I've had a pretty good racing season so far 2018 , overall :) not looking for a fight :wf it just seems that NYRA hasn't had a good winter meet, under the circumstances ...... inner-track or not!

Once again, Mark, you made a statement, got asked to explain it, and you comeback with more BS. Pretty unprofessional to say the least.

Don't you think, if they still had the INNER-TRACK in place, the first part of the meet would have been raced without it being cancelled? Is THAT more PROFESSIONAL? :rolleyes:

Of course not. How could anybody think that? The weather was awful. It was freezing cold, windy, and there was a bunch of snow. That's why we cancelled. Matt covered that a few posts ago. The one time we cancelled because of the surface was because it was uneven after we had a thaw after the extreme cold. As anyone that follows the Inner in the past knows, this happened with relative frequency in the past. The surface would turn to pudding ( essentially ) after a thaw, as the water would rise to the surface, and create an uneven track.

The outer is now the same as the Inner was. It's all about the base. It's a limestone base. If you're interested, track super Glen Kozak did a podcast with me back in the Fall at Belmont, and he talked about this.

The surface was probably one of the few things that went well for us this Winter:-) The cancellations caused any momentum we had from a business standpoint to come to a screeching halt, and once you lose that business for a reasonably extended time ( we were closed for about two weeks or so ), it's very hard to get it back. Think of yourself as a player....after we cancel three or four days in a row, you sort of stop wasting your time looking, and find a more reliable signal. It's understandable. Then, the overall quality of the racing as a betting product was not terrific ( nobody knows this better than me, as you can imagine ) to be kind. Hard to get the business back under those circumstances.

We've been doing great, and a lot of it was due to good weather, as Belmont-Saratoga-Belmont-and even Aqueduct until Christmas, was very strong. Things will pick up again in April when we are back on the turf. Clearly this has not been a good Winter, but blaming the surface, or the lack of the Inner, was not the problem.

Ok, sorry I misspoke

Other than the one day the new track thawed unevenly, would the INNER have been used on 5 degree windy days or Noreasters? AND even if some of that is indeed true don't you have also look at the additional benefits of the added turf course vs., some ancillary cancellations in the heart of winter?