Elliott on Post 8

Had a great talk with Steve Elliott today, as he prepared to head out for the Delaware County Fair to train Well Said for what he hopes is a Little Brown Jug . Of course, he wishes that Well Said had drawn better than post 8 in his elimination—where he will face Vintage Master and Carnivore—but Steve wasn’t really upset about it. He is and always has been a que sera sera type of person—whatever will be, will be. You can’t control some things and have to live with what happens.

One thing Steve and a lot of other people were more concerned by was Delaware’s decision to go with two elims for its 19 Jug entrants—nine horses in one and 10 in the other. That means there are two trailers in the second, 10-horse elim.

Last year, with 20 in the field, there were 3 elims with 6, 7 and 7 horses, respectfully. The conditions (which are available at http://horsemen.ustrotting.com/stks_conditions.cfm) say specifically: When 20 or more horses declare to start in the Jug or Jugette, three elimination heats will be raced.

But there are people in racing who think the Jug should look to make changes to ensure everyone who is putting money into the Jug purse pool through entry fees has a fair and equal chance to make some back—and this 9-10 split is not accomplishing that goal. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Send me a note to nkraft@ustrotting.com, and I’ll run the comments here.

And you can ask Steve about this topic and more when he visits the USTA’s Speaker Series in the Jugette Barn at 9 a.m. Sept. 24—Jug morning. Be sure to come out for all our speakers—from 8-11 a.m. Wednesday and Thursday in the Jugette Barn.

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There is a big debate in media about how to attract new visitors to publication Web sites. A lot of publications are going Web only, and debating whether or not to charge for content. Others, like us, keep our print product but want to offer more on our Web site. The question is: What should we offer on the Web to keep people  coming back. I would love to hear what you would like most from our Web site content. Please e-mail me at nkraft@ustrotting.com.

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