The weather is finally starting to break here. It has made it above freezing and we have had rain and thunderstorms this afternoon and now we are a sea of mud. The fields are beat to death. Hoping for some sun and warmer drying weather this week as promised. I have been going back and forth to Arkansas every week to ten days. It was 65 degrees and sunny over the weekend while I was there, after an entire week of no racing due to the frozen track and poor weather conditions. Then we have the great all weather Turfway Park, which froze last week. Yes we had bad weather, however Beulah Park which is 100 miles north and has a dirt surface, ran all week and had worse weather overall. From what I understand, the guy just kept mixing the snow in (instead of scraping it off) and it froze in layers. At a meeting the other day, he told the horseman he would do the same all over again if circumstances were the same. He said the weather was the problem, and not his care of the track. Hmmm??
The gambling bill doesn’t look very good in Kentucky this year, but the governor says it is not dead. Whether they have a late plan, who knows. We should know something in the next few weeks. The papers says that some legislators are holding back on it as they don’t want it to get mixed up with the Mitch McConnell race, which is very important. But that is politics, so who knows. It really doesn’t sound good for the horseman.
Over 150 horses have been claimed at Oaklawn Park in Hot Springs so far this meet. They have raised the purses and they have claiming friendly rules as your horse is only in jail for 21 days. The people genuinely like racing and have fun.
Only 75 days until The Kentucky Derby.