Charlestown cuts purses

30west · 2yo Maiden Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 77

Last month 5,000 claimers were running for 24,000. Next month 5,000 claimers will be running for 13,000. Hmm I wonder if all the trainers and blacksmiths and vets will lower their prices since their prices went sky-high when the purses went up. I doubt it!!!!! Charlestown has to be the biggest joke.First they get rid of the wv-bred races, claiming the fund has ran out of money.What happens to all these people that invested into the wv program.Then they cancel all stakes races.Racing secretary gets caught taking money for stalls.Trainers have broodmares in stalls so they won't lose them, The stall man is a complete joke.All they care about is how many more people they can cheat out of there money with those slot machines. Anymore you just prey your horse comes back fine, break downs almost everyrace. Just had to vent a little bit!

madelyn · Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 1:14 pm Post subject: Re: Charlestown cuts purses

Shammy Davis · Chef de Race: Classic Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 4451

Hi all: I hope the members of the message board will keep a close eye on what is going down at Charles Town. For those of you interested in Mid-Atlantic CANTER based at Charles Town, you may have been wondering why the names of horses were not listed on the website as they are on all other CANTER websites. There is a connection to current events. Although I cannot expose how I got this information, I can tell you that the source of the problem was this racing secretary who was skimming off the top and looking for ways to oust horses from their stalls. For fear of identifying these at risk horses, Mid-Atlantic CANTER only listed general info to prevent the racing secretary from targeting at risk horses and forcing trainers to send them to auction. I was going to report this over a year ago, but my source was frightened of retribution against CANTER and the horses. I respected that individual's request, but with hindsight, I'd have blown the whistle a long time ago. What is going on at CT is criminal and I hope all of us who are concerned about our sport will write to the WV Racing Commission demanding they clean up their act or horsemen and women will send horses to other tracks who operate responsibly. There is another situation that I am aware of involving a major stallion farm in WV. This farm has been holding numerous mares awaiting service in small paddocks without hay or feed. Many of the mares are leaving this farm in foal, but underweight and beaten up. Sadly, what this all points to is greed and irresponsible behavior. My only suggestion at this point is not to send your mares to WV unless you have personally visited the breeding farm and inspected their facilities. I'm a firm believer in just showing up unannounced. I enjoy to no end seeing Embarassed

painted across the faces of derelit farm operators.Saddle up Joe and all. Let's ride. Very Happy

30west · 2yo Maiden Joined: 01 Dec 2004 Posts: 77

What gets me is you make 150 some starts, win 20% of your races and 47% in the money and not have a single stall on the grounds.Then you have somebody shipping in from delaware or florida and getting as many as they want, even tho most of their horses are junk, just coming here to dump them off. Then you go ask the Racing Secretary if he's got a spot for ya yet and you get the same answer, I'll have 10 for ya next tuesday, well its been a year now still waiting for stalls. I knew that place was run by a bunch of crooks, last October's wv breeders classic, rumor was going around that Aheuvo was going to run in the classic,the rules stated that all nomination fees must be on file by nomination time they even had it on the bottom of the overnight's for month, everybody's fees were paid except for Aheuvo's.Then the rule states entry fees must be on file at time of entries.There was a crowd of people in the racing office when entries were being drawn, everybody waiting to see if Aheuvo was going to be in the race,then they drew his name, nobody wanted to say anything in fear of reprecusions,so we all just took the shaft.

This is all hear-say and rumors, I'am not making a factual statement!

madelyn · Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 2:44 am Post subject:

I think it is all too crooked and has been for all too long, at every track, at the deepest levels.
_________________
So Run for the Roses, as fast as you can.....

roxie901 · Weanling Joined: 01 Jan 2005 Posts: 40

HR LLC · Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:21 am Post subject: Charlestown cuts purses

Everyone knows CTown works on the good old boy network. Either you are in or you get left out.

The state is taking approximately $4.5 mm from the Charles town purse account to subsidize workmen's comp insurance in the state (for all industries), so they had to cut the purses 20%. They didn't take any money from the track's portion of the slot's take, just from the purse account.

You cannot blame the track for the decrease in purses blame the state goverment.

As far as the stall situation, you can blame the track for that.

liberty · Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:40 pm Post subject:

This is an interesting thread. Since I do not have any horses at Charlestown, I had not been following them closely. HR ... is the state taking there $4.5 million from the portion of the slots revenue that previously was destined for the purse fund. Also, one would conclude that the legislature and the Governor had to pass and sign legislation that authuorized this action.

Assuming 220 racing days for Charlestown, a reduction to the purse account of $4,500,000, gives a daily reduction of $20,455. The example of the reductions in this thread seem to be much greater than that. Am I missing something?

Has there been a similar reduction in purses at Mountaineer Park?