Oh, that’s really sad. I did not really understand/follow all of what NancyM posted, but obvs she is not in the US. Almost everyone here has “prior knowledge” of a horse because you can look up pps and works, and if the horse is at the racetrack, you can watch it train every day. Or just as important, the horse doesn’t train for a while.
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Well that’s just awful…
There are potentially other issues to consider before approaching the trainer about a claiming horse before the race–
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If the horse is well met expect to pay for part or all of the purse because that is what the owner/trainer thinks they are losing by not running;
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The claiming game is kept “honest” by the fact that any onsite trainer can claim and probably will claim a horse running below his value. But if the horse has sentimental value to you way in excess of the claiming tag, expect the possibility that you can get jacked around a bit by the unscrupulous. The buyer needs to be able to walk away if the price quoted is absurd.
OTOH, a private sale means that you can vet the horse out and/or do a breeding soundness exam. It is rare but there is also no requirement to announce that there is an issue in that department. There was a talented Tapit filly that became the claiming hot potato passed around in California at the $25,000 level because she was a hermaphrodite. She raced 9 times before Mandella let the world know.
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Well I certainly would have never thought about the possibility that the mare could be a hermaphrodite! 
Interesting article!
There was a mare who raced in and around Kentucky for a couple of years. She was nicely bred and a graded stakes winner. When she dropped into the claiming ranks, people were all over her, wanting a broodmare–but no matter how often she was claimed, she kept reappearing on the track. Eventually it came out that at some point in her career, she had been spayed. I wish I could remember her name.
Poor girl!
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This is a very interesting discussion. I knew that there were claiming races but thought there were just a few. I always thought that horses just raced and were bought and sold. I never really knew much about this.
Why are there so many claiming races? Does it make it more interesting for the better, more appealing to owners to run their horses, etc.? Thanks for all the information.
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Claiming races are the vast majority of races in the US. While not without it’s downfalls, they actually work pretty well to keep the races competitive. If you have a $20k horse there is a very good chance you would easily win a $5k claimer but there is a very good chance your horse will be claimed for $15k less than he is worth. So you run your $20k horse against other $20k horses and any one of them will have a shot to win and none of them will get claimed for less than they are worth if they get claimed at all.
If there were no claiming races there wouldn’t be many races at all since most horses aren’t stakes worthy. There would be a lot less owners too since the stake race level horse or nothing would put most owners out of business. We trainers like to think we are better trainers than most other trainers to like to look for a $5k horse we can turn into a $20k horse by our superior training. Just like most things with horses, that works better sometimes than others.
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I’ve never heard of rules that prevent a claimed horse from leaving the track for a certain period of time. There are commonly rules requiring the claimed horse run back at the same track (or you’re in jail and can’t run at another track for a period of time). But if you’re not claiming to race then it doesn’t matter.
There is a big horse shortage in the US, and short fields, and tracks are very possessive about the horses stabled on their grounds, hence the various ever changing claiming rules.
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What tracks don’t let you take a horse off the grounds after you’ve claimed it? I’m pretty sure a track tried that rule years ago and it was found to be illegal.
Most if not all tracks have a rule you have to run a claimed horse back at that track, or wait 3 months if you want to run somewhere else or you have to wait until the meet ends. But I am referencing a statement made in a post above by Nancy M that you cannot take a horse off the grounds once you claim it, which I believe is not true. The tracks don’t care where you are stabled. They care about where you run.
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PalmBeach the majority of claims done at the track for racing do so without photos, videos, or much prior knowledge on the horse. That’s a greater risk when claiming to risk vs claiming to retire and make a secondary career.
I say get the trainers contact info or owners contact info and see if you can purchase privately. you will likely spend much less and have the option to look her over before hand.
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Trainers who are claiming at the track don’t need photos and videos. They watch the horse in person. It trains in the mornings, it often has previous races at the same track, and it can be seen in the paddock (and sometimes surrepticiously in the barn).
No trainers are claiming horses without prior knowledge about them. That would just be silly. 
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It can get more explicit than that, Trainers call each other and trade info.
“You had Buttercup last year. What can you tell me?”
“Had a bit of an ankle but otherwise OK when I had her.”
Then the really serious claiming trainers hang out at the paddock and mark legs (write notes on their programs about horses generally from the knee down)". They are looking for that ankle that Buttercup supposedly had.
Sometimes trainers actually call and tell the current trainer “I’m going to take your horse.” That’s not common but it happened to me in January when my horse got claimed. Then they raised him when they ran him back and my trainer knew he wasn’t going to be claimed because “I didn’t get any calls about him.”
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I remember from the book Black Gold by Marguerite Henry, admittedly a fictionalized account, that BG’s dam, U-See-It, was entered in a claiming race on the “understanding” that she wouldn’t be claimed. Some other trainer missed the memo not to claim and claimed her, and the owner/trainer blew his stack and waited in front of the stall with a gun for the other stable to come try to take her. The claiming trainer decided he didn’t want her that badly after all. Owner/trainer got serious consequences from the stewards, but he did still have his horse, at least. I know the author dressed things up a bit for her novels, but I believe I’ve read somewhere that the basic claimed-over-my-dead-body story in fact true.
@snaffle1987 so wrong. As Laurie pointed out, claiming trainers watch horses train every day in person, and also will try to get a close look at the horse in the paddock. Which is why you have horses coming over in bandages - to try to trick people who are thinking about claiming the horse. And you are also wrong about the price tag when purchasing a horse privately. It’s usually MORE expensive if the horse is still running because you pay the claiming price plus any prize money the trainer feels the horse is capable of making in the short term.
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This is going back decades but still sort of funny. Penn National was rebuilding the paddock so they had a temporary paddock way off to the side near the test barn that they were using. You couldn’t get anywhere near as close to the horses in that paddock as you could normally. I was standing there trying to get a glimpse of the horse I was interested in as he came up the horse path but they turned and walked him straight into the saddling stall and never came back out again until after I had to drop the slip.
I drop the slip anyway and they call riders up and here he comes. That’s when I see the giant bowed tendon! I wanted to throw up but what’s done was done. I don’t remember where he finished but he was mine. I cut the bandage off and underneath is nothing but a huge roll of cotton, his tendon was absolutely fine. They went to all the trouble to make a fake bow and then never let us see it, I never would have dropped the slip if they had. Last I looked he still has the track record he set for me back in 1996. He turned out to be one of the best horses I had in my career.
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I get that it’s fiction but…new owners take possession of claimed horses at the end of the race–while the horses are still on the track. It’s all done out in the open and in front of everyone.
It sounds as though that particular story involves some hyperbole.
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