Colonial Turf Cup - $750k for 2007

This is a nice move by the track. The $250k is going to be used for overnight purses. I like this. I would have liked to have seen the Viginia Derby cut its purse too. Here is the link to the article.

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/tod...68365&subsec=1

[GPK]

anything that will improve the quality of racing at my beloved Colonial Downs, I am all for.

[Rupert Pupkin]

It's probably a good idea. The difference between $750k and $1 million is not that great. It is unlikely to have much effect on the quality of the field.

Originally Posted by T3B

anything that will improve the quality of racing at my beloved Colonial Downs, I am all for.

The only thing that will improve the quality of racing at colonial is; less of a dependence on Maryland horses , that circut I hate to say, (withall the rich history) is just plain junk. I grew up on Md. circut and as far as Colonial goes they made their mistake in the beginning, by aligning themselves with Md. racing. But when your in the middle of nowhere as they were when they opened and still to this day are ,with few accomidations to those who might even think about bringing horses here, you get stuck with an inferior product in Md racing at colonial,with a few other obscure castoffs from the likes of Suffolk, Hoisier wich is worst junk than Md. The only hope Va Racing has at this time is Md racings problem, Md state will NOT allow slots and they are as good as dead untill they do . so for other than 2-3 races a meet we watch shiat on a great grass, and I mean superb grass course. Such a WASTE it is!

[GPK]

Originally Posted by Raysva

The only thing that will improve the quality of racing at colonial is; less of a dependence on Maryland horses , that circut I hate to say, (withall the rich history) is just plain junk. I grew up on Md. circut and as far as Colonial goes they made their mistake in the beginning, by aligning themselves with Md. racing. But when your in the middle of nowhere as they were when they opened and still to this day are ,with few accomidations to those who might even think about bringing horses here, you get stuck with an inferior product in Md racing at colonial,with a few other obscure castoffs from the likes of Suffolk, Hoisier wich is worst junk than Md. The only hope Va Racing has at this time is Md racings problem, Md state will NOT allow slots and they are as good as dead untill they do . so for other than 2-3 races a meet we watch shiat on a great grass, and I mean superb grass course. Such a WASTE it is!

Well stated...and I agree 100%. I'm guessing when CD first opened they needed that dependence upon other Mid-Atantic race venues. I too would love to see them gradually rely less and less on the Maryland racing circuit. Unfortunately, I don't have the knowledge required to make any reasonable recommendations...not that anyone would listen to me if I did...

[estreetposse]

Originally Posted by Raysva

The only thing that will improve the quality of racing at colonial is; less of a dependence on Maryland horses , that circut I hate to say, (withall the rich history) is just plain junk. I grew up on Md. circut and as far as Colonial goes they made their mistake in the beginning, by aligning themselves with Md. racing. But when your in the middle of nowhere as they were when they opened and still to this day are ,with few accomidations to those who might even think about bringing horses here, you get stuck with an inferior product in Md racing at colonial,with a few other obscure castoffs from the likes of Suffolk, Hoisier wich is worst junk than Md. The only hope Va Racing has at this time is Md racings problem, Md state will NOT allow slots and they are as good as dead untill they do . so for other than 2-3 races a meet we watch shiat on a great grass, and I mean superb grass course. Such a WASTE it is!

everything you said is correct. They are at the mercy of MD state racing. They put all their eggs in one basket basically. They are in a location where the closest racing state is MD, Bible-Belt states like NC, SC, TN, and GA have NO race tracks. So when MD struggles VA struggles. I have lived in the MD-DC-VA area my whole life and like you said i firmly believe that MD will NEVER see slots, I think there is a better shot of them moving the Preakness then MD getting slots. Aside from a few WV shippers MD horses and horse racing in general is all that Colonial Downs has to offer which is a shame b/c dumps like Charles Town are expanding while beautiful race track like Colonial is going to struggle for years to come. Unless they are doing well with the harness racing I don’t see how that place can stay open for too long. It sucks, all that land and no good racing.

As far as the purse reduction, I could have seen that coming a mile away. $1 million dollar purses are eye popping to all the big name owners and trainers, of course they want to take a shot at it. But when the race isn’t even a G2 you know something’s wrong. Hopefully they put that money to good use before they start building condos on those grounds.