Tue, 2 Apr 1996
Hi Al,
Just got off the phone. More buzz. The TX Racing Commission just
awarded head to head dates for Trinity Meadows (mixed meet) against Retama's
TB meet. Ususally one would consider that TM runs cheaper races (as class
II) than a class I, but TM has been building a good purse account (~$1.2M)
and so will have better purses for those that run there. How many horses
will this pull away from Retama? Hard to say. Retama is having a tough go
of it as is. I hope this is the famous straw (in re: the camel).
The other side of this is, if TM has a strong meet, and IF Lone Star gets a good start with simulcasting, racing in NORTH TX will be great--creating a strong market for yearlings (I hope). Perhaps it would be a good thing to get the northern market established firmly, and rebuild the rest from that base. Hard to say what is best.
Rumor has it that the Ft. Worth yearling sale will have a lot of entries this year (like 500-600). People may have shied away from the Fasig-Tipton in Houston because the prices were lower than expected last year. I don't think Houston has quite the market we have in N TX. Not to say that there aren't some big buyers there, just not as many as up here. If in fact the sale entries are way up, the middle market horses will go cheap. This worries me (I have one I feel is middle market, one should be mid-upper market--hopefully upper).
No point speculating, I guess. We'll see what happens. I've got to run. Later. Hello to the family.
Jill
The Running Horse (http://www.isd1.com/alauck)