Del Mar trying to avoid date cuts

[Alan07]

Tom Robbins, vice president/racing for the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club is looking for horses for this summer's annual race meet, and his job is to fill 37 days of racing beginning July 20.

It doesn't sound like a big deal, but when you consider the Southern California racing circuit has raced five days in a week only four times in the first five months of 2011, it becomes a very tall order.

"Realistically, we may have to shave a few races off a few days. Our goal is to make sure we don't have a cancellation. Horse inventory is down. Foal crops are down."

http://www.nctimes.com/sports/eques...df68a9b2f6.html

[Linny]

With a small and relatively fixed pool of horses it's alway tough in So. Cal. The last 2-3 years have been brutal and honestly I find it gets boring to see the same horses taking turns.
I wonder how many races they'll card per day? They may have to cut back on some of the extended cards on big days.

[PatCummings]

Originally Posted by Linny

With a small and relatively fixed pool of horses it's alway tough in So. Cal. The last 2-3 years have been brutal and honestly I find it gets boring to see the same horses taking turns.
I wonder how many races they'll card per day? They may have to cut back on some of the extended cards on big days.

Almost every card in the UK and Ireland is six races, sometimes seven. Just saying.

[Linny]

Personally I think the 12-13 race cards are overkill. I love to play the races and attend the races but when I print out 60+ pages of PP's it just starts to look like WORK. I understand that tracks like to do this on big days when their are plenty of fannies in the seats but it poaches too many useful midweek races. A couple of races that looks like garbage on the Belmont or Derby undercard could be the centerpiece of a decent midweek program.

If they have a major stake and 3 or 4 supporting stakes and maybe a decent little overnight stake, they they need only fill 4 or 5 to have a nice 10 race card. As someone who plays follows racing daily, I hate that the weekdays leading up to the biggest days are often especially weak to set up a big day.

[richard]

Seems like 9 races is plenty although I am not familiar with the economics of making the cards.

[Travis Stone]

When attention is on the signal, and people are in the building, you milk it for all its worth, even if it makes one less allowance race on a Thursday.

Quality does not play a significant role in handle.... field size does.

[Linny]

I fully agree Travis and understand why they do it, but in the case of a DM where they are struggling to fill cards at all, passing on "supercards" might make sense. At DM and SAR they get bodies in the place every Saturday anyhow.