In mid-March, a month before Indiana Grand opened its 2021 Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse meeting, Polzin said, “Our stalls are jam packed. I’ve got a list of 140 stalls people want and there are none.” What maybe worked 15 years ago might not work today.” It’s sad what you lose, but it’s a sign of the times. “They’re not going to build new tracks to replace Calder, Hollywood, Arlington Park. “If tracks such as Arlington go away, if you lose a city like Chicago and take a big track out of the picture, it hurts the industry,” Panza said. Yet the racing industry has shriveled considerably following the closing of Hollywood Park, the recent loss of Calder Raceway and, unless a miracle happens, Arlington Park. You’re just trying to survive.” Thankfully, the New York Racing Association’s three tracks: Aqueduct, Belmont Park and Saratoga did survive, as did Santa Anita and Del Mar, which is the site of this year’s Breeders’ Cup. “You’re trying to come up with these ideas to get horses out here, and then you have the pandemic. “I think it was just before the pandemic,” Merz said. Santa Anita’s Chris Merz began his first job as race secretary in February 2020. Any racing secretary in the country will tell you it’s hard to land new inventory.” Panza and Jerkens are veteran executives who have seen good times and bad. Tracks that were running five days a week, now are running three or four.” Del Mar Racing Secretary David Jerkens put it this way: “It’s always a challenge. “Everybody is struggling to get horses,” New York Racing Association Senior Vice-President of Racing Operations Martin Panza said. From New York to California, racing secretaries are working diligently to recruit horses, a task made significantly more difficult by the ongoing pandemic.
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