20,000 British and Irish

[saratogabrit]

Originally Posted by brockguy

I agree 100%.. its a great atmosphere in Saratoga and Del Mar. Great weather, great people, great racing etc... trainers that have decent horses who need firm ground could do alot worse than send it over for some nice rich turf stakes races over the 6 weeks of Toga..a prep and then the sword dancer..

Saratoga is completely off the radar screen as far as most European racefans are concerned. I guess with the King George, Galway, Goodwood, York, Baden Baden coming all falling during the meet as well as Deauville/Clairefontaine racing for 5 of the 6 weeks of Saratoga-any racefans would probably head to Arlington in clear preference to either Del Mar or Saratoga.

One good reason for little interest is that I think there's only been about 3 European trained runners(in in the last 10 years maybe. Running Stag on the dirt and Michael Jarvis saddled Ela Athena in the Sword Dancer and had a runner in the race the next year. Oh and Martin Pipe had a runner in the Turf Writers Chase 2 or 3 years ago-who ran off the course-presumably to get to Siros early

NYRA needs to take a leaf out of Ascot's book and have someone like Nick Smith who attends most of the major meetings abroad to look for connections who might want to run at Ascot. It's all very hit and miss. Some like the idea. David Donk had a horse entered to run in the 1999 2000 Guineas-who got injured-and was keen to have another attempt.

A few more European runners-means fans will travel over. Pumping more money into the local economy, raising the per capita handle figure etc.

[brockguy]

Originally Posted by saratogabrit

NYRA needs to take a leaf out of Ascot's book and have someone like Nick Smith who attends most of the major meetings abroad to look for connections who might want to run at Ascot. It's all very hit and miss. Some like the idea. David Donk had a horse entered to run in the 1999 2000 Guineas-who got injured-and was keen to have another attempt.

Nick Smith has a job Id love.. despite all the talk about low prizemoney in England and the incentives for foreign shippers, it has certainly increased my interest in many of Ascot's races over the past few years. International racing at the highest level is what it is all about for me... it just seems that a few countries arent to willing to ship and challenge themselves.. but I suppose, there needs to be a big financial incentive to travel as well as the challenge..