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After much deliberation my proposed trip to Newmarket has been replaced by a trip to Miami (although Newcastle and Goodwood were considered)!
If anyone has been to a racetrack in the south Florida area your opinions would be welcomed.
LOL thats some u-turn! Now the title really is misleading!:biggrin:
(Edited by FlatSeasonLover at 1:11 am on Feb. 16, 2007)
Wow Toneloc – Newmarket misses out to Florida – shame! Surely you could squeeze in a night here as well as you trip….
Anyway there are essentially 3 tracks in Florida – Tampa Bay (who race from now to May 6th) in Oldsmar on the west coast), Gulfstream (who race from now to April 22nd) and Calder (who race from April 25th to the end of the year). The latter two are in suburbs of Miami.
Gulfstream is their show piece facility and they have good quality horses who come down from New York and Canada for the Winter months. Gulfstream has had a major refurbishment – not popular with some older timers – to make it into a Racino. However my reports of racing there in the last couple of weeks suggest that you’d have a great time in a modern, stylish facility with the opportunity to bet in the casino or watch top class racing action. The big dates left at Gulfstream include the Gulfstream Park Turf (Gr.1) on Feb 24th, four Grade 2 races on March 3rd and the Florida Derby (Gr.1) and three other Graded races on March 31st.
Calder is a run of the mill meeting for local horses who race through the Summer and Autumn. They do have the odd Graded race though (especially towards the end of the year). Their main Summer race would be the Princess Rooney (Gr.1) on July 7th. July 28th is the day they host some bizarre (by American standards) racing. They include a 2 furlong race, a 2 mile race on turf, a race for 5yos and upwards and last year they had 2 races (turf and dirt obviously) going off at the same time!
I’d recommend you get down to Florida by the end of April but you’ll have fun there anytime.
Indeed!
Alas, my companions have decided that the trip was more in my interest than theirs and felt it more prudent to visit a location more amenable to the groups’ collective interest! De Niro’s just has to wait.
However, I will, in the interests of the forum, make it my job to analyse thoroughbred fillies on South Beach… and report back in due course!
Adrian, I’m only doing it to test your knowledge! You’ve passed this test, but what if I changed my mind to say Papua New Guinea :biggrin:
Calder is the favourite then, as planning on going for a few weeks in Oct/Nov, hopefully to coincide with the Cincinatti Bengals (my chosen NFL team) v Dolphins game.
Gulfstream would be the preferred choice, do you know when they start racing again? That simultaneous dirt/turf race is one to watch, have to catch it on ATR. Reckon Tampa would be a bit too far to go so by default Calder is the selection.
Never been to an American course, or indeed America, do they have different enclosures, pre-parade, parade rings, etc.?<br>
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