Campo cleverly shifts dough for Belmont Conditions

[Kasept]

By David Grening, DRF

OZONE PARK, N.Y. - The New York Racing Association has eliminated its overnight stakes program for the upcoming Belmont Park spring/summer meet and will use that money - nearly $2.2 million - to increase purses for open-company races. Belmont's 59-day meet opens April 30.

Purses for open-company maiden and allowance races will go up by $10,000 from what they were worth at Aqueduct. The new purses reflect a $7,000 increase when compared to last year's Belmont spring/summer meet. Purses for claiming races will go up $5,000, and maiden claimers will go up by $3,000 from Aqueduct. However, purses for New York-bred races will be cut by $2,000 when compared to the levels they were at for Aqueduct. Those purses reflect a $5,000 cut when compared to the levels they were at for last spring's meet.

P.J. Campo, NYRA's director of racing, said he came up with this idea in hopes of trying to be "somewhat competitive" with the upcoming meeting at Monmouth Park, where maiden races will have purses of $75,000 and allowance races will carry purses between $80,000 and $90,000. "It seemed a better use of the money; you would think you would help more of the horse population," Campo said. Campo said NYRA offered 33 overnight stakes worth $2.2 million during last year's Belmont spring/summer meeting. He said the average field size for those races was 5.5 horses.

Campo added that the New York-bred horse population is not affected by the Monmouth Park purse structure since that track will not be offering New York-bred races. "You play to your competitors a little bit," Campo said. "The New York-breds, it is what it is. It's still a good program, and they're still running for decent money." Campo said NYRA will assess how things are going in the middle of June before deciding upon a purse structure for Saratoga.

[richard]

Seems reasonable under the circumstances .