Santa Anita Derby and Oaks are postponed as SA has yet to be able to re-open for racing.
At this time, there are no known cases of COVID-19 at SA.
A proposal was submitted to LA County HD earlier this week which was thought to have been fully responsive to the HD requests but no response as of yet.
Since, yes, ATM having a life is much more bounded than it used to be 
Sounds like today, Oaklawn and Tampa Bay Downs I believe are racing.
For TVG’s International Racing, mostly just harness racing from Sweden, but yes, broadcast in English Most of the tracks start the way I’ve seen starts here in the US where there is a vehicle with gate and a rolling start but one track :eek: they start like I’ve seen some of the British races… in a group, wheeling around to a tape across the track. Wild enough watching this with the TBs but a fairly large (maybe 8-10 horses) field wheeling around in their bikes to a rolling start to a stationary tape across the track. double :eek:
Swedish Grand National and Nationaldagsgaloppen have been cancelled. Women jockeys’ World cup might be postponed or cancelled. I hope we can continue racing behind closed doors.
Cal-Expo (harness) mandated closure today.
TVG is wearing out their infomercial and Classics videos :lol:
Today was Tampa Bay, Sweden, Fonner Park, Will Rogers. Australia racing isn’t on yet but they’ve been televised at least for the last few nights.
Do you know if they will show TB racing from Sweden too? Starting on Sunday.
That I don’t know. “Normally” TVG shows racing from UK/Europe on Wed-Sun mornings (US time). I have seen, even before the sparse racing calendar, harness from Scandinavia (IIRC mostly Sweden) but don’t recall seeing TB from Sweden… Doesn’t mean it doesn’t get shown, just I didn’t catch it
Today, Gulfstream Park is 20 minutes away from the first race on their card
Last night, 4 different tracks from down under (I think all from Oz but couldn’t swear to it ).
Oaklawn is also racing today
We haven’t had TB racing in 7 weeks Will be exciting to have racing again.
Golden Gate Fields racing suspended by Health Department.
1200 horses on the backstretch care for by 400 backstretch workers, most of whom live on site and have been operating under stringent new measures.
IMO, extremely frustrating for all parties involved except LA County health.
Evidently SA has made a number of requests to the LA County health dept requesting that the county rescind their stop racing order from 3/27. The health dept has been generically responding with ‘racing is not deemed an essential activity’.
While I, in part, do agree with that statement, doesn’t seem to take into consideration the entirety of the track environment as a whole. Afternoon racing uses less personal than morning training. The racing with purses and betting feeds the track financial model which supports the trainers, riders, backstretch workers. While I suspect that Mr Money, Mike Smith, isn’t hurting for $$, there are so many smaller and, for lack of a better word, lower level trainers, riders, horses and fueled by the track financial model. Without racing that financial model starts falling apart.
TOC has stated that SA, CHRB and Los Al are talking about transferring race dates from SA to Los Al (which has the capability to run TB during the day and QH at night). The next CHRB meeting is scheduled for 4/22 so no race date changes before then but wouldn’t be surprised if something happens with dates if the LA Co health department continues with their ‘non-essential’ stance.
On the flip side…
On April 1, Fonner Park decided to extend their 2 week ‘experiment’ of Mon-Wed racing which started on March 23 and run for two weeks to end now at the end of April. Decision based upon the exposure and mutuel handle from the two week ‘trial’.
Last Tuesday, Fonner had $2.7M bet. That’s from a track that, could be wrong here, many of us maybe had never even heard of. (I know I hadn’t heard of it before; it’s in Nebraska).
This week’s early pick 5 produced over $400k in handle.
[URL=“https://www.theindependent.com/sports/fonner/fonner-park-extends-racing-through-april-29/article_917e386c-7490-11ea-b49c-47b5203bee3d.html#3”]https://www.theindependent.com/sports/fonner/fonner-park-extends-racing-through-april-29/article_917e386c-7490-11ea-b49c-47b5203bee3d.html#3
:encouragement:
Ouch
A shortfall in California’s self-insured workers’ compensation program caused in part by the temporary cessation of racing in the state has led to trainers being invoiced $1,233 per horse retroactively for the first quarter of 2020.
And, if you scroll a bit further down, you can read a screenshot of the response from the LA Co HD about resuming racing at SA… caring for horses is essential but I think still not acknowledging that training (and racing) are part of caring as well as not acknowledging that racing has fewer people and horses than morning horse “care” (feed, muck, exercise, vet, etc).
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade…
TVG is still broadcasting whatever tracks are running, both North America (well, US as at least Woodbine isn’t racing), Japan (for the moment), Australia, etc.
Earlier TVG announced a partnership with NBCSN. This partnership is drawing in new sports-starved viewers as racing is one of the very few live sports events going on at the moment.
TVG broadcasts in 45M homes while NBCSN is in 80+m homes. Thats many new potential viewers who are watching racing because there isn’t any other live sporting events to watch (NBCSN is broadcasting replays of old NFL games on Sunday evening).
As part of this partnership and the new focus on new/first time racing, TVG is adapting their coverage (besides getting to see where all the analysts live ). They’re not talking as much about the exotics likes the Pick 4 and Pick 5 and addressing more ‘simple’ bets like where to put a $10 win ticket.
I’ve noticed the change as the analysts now spend more time explaining what blinkers are for and how a horse sees for example. Before, they’d just comment that blinkers are on or off as an equipment change.
Hopefully these changes will help draw in people to stay more connecting with racing even as other sporting events begin to go live.
Just caught the most interesting race on TVG.
4th at Aby (Sweden maybe?)… a ‘monte’ (don’t know the spelling but maybe @JohannaStk can explain better ).
Standardbreds but ridden, not driven. Group start with no moving gate, race at a trot and the jocks are out of the saddle the entire time. Same as driven, if there is a break, DQ (a bit different across the pond here).
Yes it’s a monte race, more commonly called Race Under Saddle (RUS) in North America. They are often offered in Sweden, Norway and France. They are less so in the US, exhibition only. They are parimutual races in Ontario. A regular STB starting gate is used in NA.
@jvanrens Thanks!
I’d never heard nor seen this type of race before (the monte).
I’ve only ever seen a few times the “bunch” (not sure of the correct terminology) start for the STB races where it is a ‘running’ start but no gate so similar to the TB races where there is controlled circling before the start until the started waves the flag. Thought that was a bit of a wild start with the STBs and their bikes 
@Where’sMyWhite you’re welcome! My daughter wanted to do this in the worst way, and actually got our local track to do an exhibition race she competed in! Unfortunately we haven’t had a good trotter since we retired the mare she rode in that one.
If you google RUS Ontario you should find some races on YouTube and you can see it north America style.
Frances Dodge Johnson and Greyhound setting the world record under saddle…
Monté is common around here but I am not into harness racing. Our racedays have worked well on Sunday (Bro Park) and Wednesday (Jägersro). I hope we can continue racing and I think we will be able to. Not to bad to have racing with no spectators now, but I hope it will improve in June and July. Won’t be fun to have the big races and the derby with no spectators.
@JohannaStk now that I know the tracks you race at, I can keep an eye/ear out. I know I’ve seen Jägersro on TVG but don’t recall Bro Park.
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