http://www.drf.com/news/article/114053.html


Fair weather helps Belmont business
By David Grening
ELMONT, N.Y. - Thanks in large part to cooperation from Mother Nature, business has been brisk at Belmont Park through the first half of the spring/summer meet.

Through last Sunday's 33rd card of the meet, total handle on Belmont races was $379,598,071, down 4 percent from last year's total of $395,24,768 on June 13, which was the 34th day of the meet. The daily average handle is $11,502,972, down 1.1 percent from last year's daily average of $11,627,199.

Total ontrack handle is $53,309,944, down 1.4 percent from last year's figure of $54,068,420. However, the daily average handle of $1,615,453 through 33 days is a 1.6 percent increase from last year's daily average of $1,590,248 through 34 days.

Daily average attendance is 5,552 this meet, down 6.2 percent compared with last year's figure of 5,922.

The discrepancy in total handle could be pinpointed to Belmont Stakes Day, when total handle was $74,613,144, down 16.8 percent from the 2009 total of $89,705,994. Attendance on Belmont Stakes Day was 45,243, down 13.3 percent from last year's crowd of 52,186.

"With one less day we're actually equal to last year," NYRA president Charles Hayward said. "Since the rest of the industry was down 8 percent in May, this is pretty encouraging."

One reason for the encouraging numbers is the fact that Belmont has been able to run 156 turf races through the first 33 days of the meet, compared with 107 through 34 days last summer, which was marred by wet weather. The additional turf races have translated into 378 more starters when compared with last year.

The solid business at Belmont follows a disappointing Aqueduct meet in which total handle was down 14.1 percent, from $565,924,129 in 2009 to $486,241,985. Daily average handle was down 9.5 percent from $7,163,597 to $6,483,226. The figures are from 75 cards run at Aqueduct in 2010 compared with 79 run in 2009. There were 681 races run at Aqueduct in 2010 compared with 720 run in 2009, resulting in 426 fewer betting interests.

Total attendance at Aqueduct was down 7.2 percent from 234,937 to 218,078.

Everything is down with the handout racing.

What did I miss?

Those 4 and 5-horse fields at Belmont Park going for no distance have me excited. Sometimes I have to dump an ice tray into my jammie bottoms as a field of 5 goes to the post for a turf sprint.