I know I shouldn't do this but...

[Cannon Shell]

Larger purses adding quality at Monmouth
By Mike Watchmaker

NEW YORK - It may seem hard to believe, but when Sunday's racing was over, 2010's "great experiment" at Monmouth Park was almost at the half-way point. Sunday was card No. 24 at the "Elite Race Meet" at Monmouth, where a drastic reduction in racing dates to a three-day-a-week schedule this year enabled the track to offer a daily purse distribution that blows every other U.S. track out of the water.

With $5,000 claimers running for $30,000 purses, entry-level allowance horses running for $80,000 pots, and big fields in nearly every race, Monmouth has created an undeniable buzz. With a varied product and a player-friendly betting menu, horseplayers might be shortchanging themselves if they don't pay as much attention to Monmouth as they do to the New York and Southern California circuits that traditionally dominate. It's no surprise that attendance and handle are way up.

But what about the quality of racing at Monmouth? Throwing a ton of money at something doesn't guarantee anything. Is the racing at Monmouth worth this attention? Is it any good?

Measuring the quality of racing anywhere is a subjective exercise. The varying methods of doing so can equal the number of people inclined to do it. For me, a good way to measure the level of racing at a given track is to determine how much of a track's product is devoted to cheap racing. After all, it is just basic math that the less cheap racing there is at a track, the more room there is for quality racing. Conversely, the more cheap racing there is, the less room there is for quality racing.

[pba1817]

If someone else needs to tell you what good racing is or isn't, you are a moron...