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Pondering a Time Out (08/08/10)Posted Sunday August 8, 2010 By Mike Paradise As I was scratching my head trying to handicap Sunday’s Balmoral card I kept thinking to myself: Would this have been the right time for a “Summer Break.” What I mean is: Would the Standardbred industry in Illinois be better off if the Chicago circuit took a couple of weeks off in mid-August? The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced it would. Every year at this time when the County Fairs are going strong and the two State Fairs roll around we have a shortage of horses. This year figured to be even more acute when our paltry overnight purses pushed more and more of our horsemen elsewhere to try and make a living. While Balmoral managed to scrape together 12 races for Sunday in my opinion the card is an embarrassment for a Chicago-circuit weekend program. On the other hand if you like cheap races and maiden events, Sunday’s card is loaded for you. The first seven races all are for non-winners of one race lifetime. The highest purse on the card is the ninth race with a $3,700 pot for non-winners of 3 or 4 races lifetime. Only one other race has a purse above $2,600 and that’s the sixth race trot for non-winners of $2,500 in the last five starts and it goes for $3,100. Total purse money for Sunday’s 12 races: $28,500. That’s an average under $2,500 a race. Add in another detail: Yesterday’s regular 14-race Balmoral Saturday card had to be reduced to 13 events because of a sparse entry box and 5 of those races that did fill had seven-horse fields or less. And Springfield hasn’t even started yet. Yes I know we don’t have the horses at this time and that’s my point: Maybe it’s a good idea to take a few weeks off when Springfield and DuQuoin are going and for that matter, so are a bevy of County Fairs. Four County Fairs were in action on Thursday and two Fairs also were racing yesterday and the money offered at many of these Fairs isn’t a whole lot less than what’s available at Balmoral and Maywood. No wonder some very good horses this week ditched the Chicago circuit to compete on fair tracks and rightly so. If you had a good older Illinois bred pacer who could handle a half-miler would you have raced him last Thursday at Mount Sterling in the Taser Gun with its $20,000 purse, also knowing Thisbigdogwilfight would likely not be there (the horse is seven and he hasn’t made the trip previously)? Or would you take on the No. 1 state-bred aged pacer in Saturday’s $10,000 Free For All at Balmoral at half the purse money offered at Mount Sterling? Many of the good 2 and 3-year-old state-breds are awaiting Springfield with eliminations set for this upcoming Friday and Saturday. While others whose trainers wanted those to race were at the Lincoln Fair yesterday where six Downstate Classics were contested with purses that ranged from $5,561 to $6,609. Plus add in the fact that after eight long months the horsemen’s purse account is finally very close to the break-even point. Another brief break would have us in the “Black” by at least a few hundred thousand dollars. The three week down time in January produced about $300,000 on the plus side of the purse account. Another now would have done the same, or perhaps generate even a greater figure, and dare I say, we could have been talking about a small across-the-board purse increase of 10 per cent or so as we headed into Super Night. That would have been the first positive for our purse account situation in a couple of years. Instead we’ll once again muddle through the rest of August with short fields and dismal purses as the months drag all the while hoping and praying the Illinois courts and our legislators do the right thing and level the playing field with the boats. To view Archived Notes and Quotes click here. Eight Downstate Classics were decided on the Logan County Fair at Lincoln. The $5,781 freshman filly pace divisions went to Little Miss Henry (Jamaica Patton) in 1:58.1 and Redhot Hart (Mike Brink) in 2:04.1. For Little Miss Henry it was season victory No. 6 for owner and trainer Curtis Rice . . . In the first two-year-old colt division TJ’s Rocky stayed perfect for driver Mike Cox with his fourth career victory (2:00.3) and his second since joining the Dave McCaffrey Stable while the $6,609 second colt split was taken by Winchester’s Hero (Mike Rogers) in 2:00.4 . . .Make It Rain (Stephan Halford II) racked up her third straight win in the first $6,265 split for 2-year-old trotting fillies while Ima High Flyer (JD Finn) captured the second, her third win of the year . . . The two $5,561 Downstate Classics for first season male trotters were annexed by Trop Meister (Jared Finn), his third consecutive win and by Tom Graham Jr.’s Pax who has finished first or second in his first seven career starts . . . At the Marion Fair it was pretty much the Marcus Turner Show. The 30-year-old Jackson, Mississippi native drove four of the six winning horses on the Saturday card including Tickle Me Grace in the $1,700 Egyptian Colt Stake Trot for 2-year-olds. Turner’s other winners came in the three NW of $1,500 paces—You’re News, Venture Highway and Lilwobbydonny and all are also trained by Marcus . . . Brian Cotton drove the other two winners at Marion and they came in Egyptian Colt Stakes, winning with Tarr in the sophomore pace and with Fox Valley Flight in the freshman trot. LOGAN COUNTY FAIR AT LINCOLN Saturday, August 7 Results FIRST: Maiden Pace, Purse $500: SECOND: Downstate Classic, 2-Year-Old Filly Pace, 1st Div, Purse $5,781: THIRD: Downstate Classic, 2-Year-Old Filly Pace, 2nd Div, Purse $5,781: FOURTH: Downstate Classic, 2-Year-Old Colt Pace, 1st Div, Purse $6,609: FIFTH: Downstate Classic, 2-Year-Old Colt Pace, 2nd Div, Purse $6,609: SIXTH: Downstate Classic, 2-Year-Old Filly Trot, 1st Div, Purse $6,265: SEVENTH: Downstate Classic, 2-Year-Old Filly Trot, 2nd Div, Purse $6,265: EIGHTH: Downstate Classic, 2-Year-Old Colt Trot, 1st Div, Purse $5,561: NINTH: Downstate Classic, 2-Year-Old Colt Trot, 1st Div, Purse $5,561: WILLIAMSON COUNTY FAIR AT MARION Saturday, August 7 Results FIRST: ECS Three-Year-Old Pace, Purse $2,300: SECOND: ECS Two-Year-Old Filly Trot, Purse $1,700: THIRD: ECS Two-Year-Old Colt Trot, Purse $1,700: FOURTH: NW $1,500 Lifetime, Pace, Purse $600: FIFTH: NW $1,500 Lifetime, Pace, Purse $600: SIXTH: NW $3,500 Lifetime, Trot, Purse $600:
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 Notes and Quotes
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