The day before the derby, great card
The day before the preakness, great card
The day before the Belmont, Crap..absolute crap
I could have sworn there was a time when the day before the Belmont had the Acorn, Belmont stakes double and a couple of other stakes races...What happened? There is nothing to get the pulse racing on friday...Another reason the NYRA has to go...
Lost,
Agree, but check out saturday, it looks like they saved all the good horses in the barns for that card.
Mike
I haven\'t look at either card, but years ago I loved to go out to Belmont for the day before the big day and it did seem to be a very good chewy card.
Maybe this year they figured the big race is not as big a draw as it has been in prior years and they really needed to sacrifice Friday\'s card to try to juice up the main event.
Just speculation.
Condition books come out weeks in advance of the projected days racing. Friday\'s card was going to bad even if Streeet Sense would have been going for the Triple Crown.
Friday\'s Belmont card is extremely weak compared to what Churchill and even Pimlico did the day before their Triple Crown races!
One Grade 3, and only a six-horse field...
They could at least throw in a couple of two year old stakes races for fillies and colts to make it interesting...There are no 2 yr old races running Friday or Saturday...I\'m sure they could have at least filled those races..Instead it\'s a card that makes me yawn...
Good call on the lack of two-year-old races...