Through Saturday's Day 25 card of Del Mar's 31-day season, horse claims have not slowed down, notes the lady who takes care of these things, stewards' aide Lucy Vaillancourt.
She reports that there have been 193 total claims realized so far at the session and that's not counting the 31 voided claims that were turned back. All told, those actual claims cost $5,524,000, which means that “the Governor” (aka, the state of California) has realized $483,349 from its 8.75% sales tax.
“And what you've got to realize,” Vaillancourt said, “is that we've had 888 cards 'dropped' (a claim request) so far. There are a lot of folks looking to buy horses this way.”
One of the yardsticks for measuring the claiming activity is the number of “shakes” that are held post-race. That's a situation where more than one horseperson has dropped a request to claim a particular horse, forcing there to be a “shake” (or blind pill pull) to determine the one who becomes the new owner of the horse.
Yesterday, Vaillancourt conducted a 17-way “shake” for the 3-year-old gelding Magic Tiger, who trainer Mike Maker had put in for a $16,000 tag in Race 2. The winner of that pill pull was trainer Jamey Thomas, which is an interesting story all in itself.
Thomas had run Magic Tiger for the same $16,000 tag at Del Mar three weeks earlier on August 7, watched him run third and then go to Maker's barn. Yesterday Thomas took Magic Tiger – who again ran third – back for the same price, after, of course, he had come out on top in that 17-way “shake.”
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