"When handicapping these races, you almost have to ignore the suspiciousness of the dropdown and just look at it in the above financial terms. A horse taking a big drop in claiming price is not necessarily a "fire sale" or is a horse that has physical ailments that the owner has decided can't be competitive at the present claiming level and needs to be dropped. My rule is to not read anything into the dropdown and just take it for what it is."

"Despite the infrequency of incidents that would trigger the rule, the change has ruffled the feathers of horsemen in California and put horsemen in other states on notice of changes to come. By and large, horsemen said that they do not object to the spirit of the rule. What rankles them, the horsemen said, is that the California rule contains a significant loophole and could lead to the adoption of other exceptions that would hold horsemen responsible for any injury a horse suffers in a race, chilling horsemen’s willingness to enter horses in claiming races, which comprise approximately 60 percent of all races run ... Arthur said the rule was not written as an indictment of trainers at large, but he said there were some horsemen in California who had reputations for entering unsound horses in races. The rule was approved to make those horsemen think twice."