Belmont Entries for 5/29.... Very Poor

[the_fat_man]

Originally Posted by NoLuvForPletch

My opinion, as small amount of respect that it might get, is that they are running an awful lot of maiden races these days at BEL.

Last Sunday's card was particularly disturbing, 5 Maiden races (3msw, 2 mcl), 4 claiming races at 25k and down, and an allowance race. That's a Sunday card in May in NY?

Overall in May of the 160 races run, a total of 60 have been Maiden races (30 msw, 30 mcl). 37%

But in the past week or so the 19th-26th the numbers increase to 43% and instead of a 50-50 split btwn msw and mcl we've had 8 msw and 16 mcl, including 5 maiden claiming races on yesterday's card.

While some of these races might make for good betting races (if you like throwing darts), the quality is just not there.

It's not just that they're running a lot of maiden races or the same horses seem to be running all the time. It's more about the lack of quality in these maiden fields. By this I mean, for the most part, that there are some very bad horses running. I bet a lot of cheap tracks (relatively) so it's not about quality for me. What it's about is whether there are horses in a given race that have ABILITY. Too often at NYRA, presently, these maiden fields resemble the maiden fields of the AQU INNER --- there's no form to go by (other than NUMBERS --- for horses that are getting gapped.) It's about competition within races not about field size or quality of field.

Moreover, NYRA isn't the only track that has a limited pool of horses to deal with. So, it's common to see the same horses over and over. Yet other racing secretaries seem to find ways of keeping these races both interesting and competitive, and, more importantly, BETABLE. What they do is switch up on the distances. So, for example, over at CRC, you have the same plugs squaring off every 7-10 days but one week they're sprinting over 5.5F, next time they're going 7F, then 6F, then 6.5F or any combination of these. Campo still thinks he's under AQU INNER constraints and that 'SPRINT' means '6F'.

Most of the races presently at NYRA are just not betable.