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Originally Posted by Kasept
JJP put up an entry in the Trip Notes Room about Artie Hot yesterday in the 7th... It was Artie Hot that I was refering to that I believed needed to be claimed for $40,000. And I suggested him to a group. That group wanted to claim him, but thanks to a bizarre rule from the Florida HPBA, could not.
Seems that if you want to claim a horse these days in Florida, you have to use cash (!) or have money in your horseman's account or wire transfer in by 1pm the day of the race. These guys got a cashier's check for the $40,000 and the 6% tax, yesterday morning, and were refused the claim when arriving at GP.
There isn't a racing jurisdiction anywhere that won't take a cashier's check. Truly amazing. FL HPBA wants cashier's checks in 48 hours before a race. 48 hours? The race was barely drawn 48 hours ahead... how in hell is anyone going to have a cashier's check drawn then when they don't know they have aninterest in a horse yet? Ridiculous.
Anyway, if you saw the race, you saw that Artie Hot ran big yet again, and now won't possibly be available again for $40,000 as he went unclaimed.
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Steve, sorry to hear about the hurdles your people had to jump through. Interestingly enough, I think there are a couple of tracks that will not except cashiers checks -- mainly, NYRA. I am not sure if the rule still stands, however, for quite some time, NYRA would only allow cash for same day or wire transfer (by a certain time, or perhaps even the day before). The reason, from what I've been told and you may remember the details as I do not and I am certainly not going to mention names, is that NYRA found itself in the midst of a problem where a person took off with money that originated from fraudulent cashiers checks.
Does anyone remember that -- a certain trainer, who ultimately had a problem with a family member? I was told that NYRA moved to a cash, wire transfer, etc. standard.
BTW, I looked at that horse. First of all -- the claiming game (to claim or not to claim) is a circular, never ending game of mental you-know-what. But, the first thing I see, and it jumps out at me every single time is -- the horse was in for the bottom! He's not protecting him at all, and all he's buying is 2lbs. He already got 2lbs. from the NW condition. Second -- and it's not good or bad, but the colt is turf only. He also blows the condition on the win and I would want to know where in the book I could go with him after. Is the an N3L? I was kind of on the fence. I didn't watch any replays or make any calls though.
Good call.
Eric