Mr. Ark is doing well as he comes off his last race and starts to get ready for his first for the Club (look for that in the next couple of weeks). Reports are that he is a great horse to be around with a good personality and enjoys human attention. He’s working well as well – which is always a plus!
But what about our next horse? We want to start the season with a pair of runners but we can’t just claim another horse per the rules of claiming at Oaklawn. Here is a video of Nevada explain the process for us:
Why, you may ask, would a track do implement a rule like this? It ends up being pretty simple: tracks don’t want horsemen to come in and raid the track, claiming horses in order to stock their own stables to run somewhere else. You get one open claim and then you have to run in order to participate in claiming horses at the meet. Another caveat at many tracks: a claimed horse can’t leave the grounds for 30-days or, perhaps, until the end of the meet. This, again, keeps horsemen from dipping in and claiming a horse only to have it run somewhere else.
So we continue to look for a private purchase, but we will have another option open to us once Mr. Ark runs back.
Canterbury Racing Club 
Interesting. Makes some sense. What are Canterbury’s rules on claiming?
Basically the same. You need to be licensed and have a horse on the grounds ready to run to claim or have an open claim form approved by the stewards if you do not currently have a horse. Once you claim a horse it cannot race elsewhere for 60-days after the claim UNLESS our meet is over before then.
Thank you for sending out info this year about claiming /acquisition of horses. I had a vague idea about claiming but knew nothing about the process or track refs regarding open claiming. Information about aspects of horse ownership in welcome.
Does a track make any exception to the claiming rules if the horse you claimed comes out of their race injured needing time off or to be retired? I am thinking of last year, would the club have been able to claim another horse right away without waiting the 60 days when our horse had the career ending injury? (I get we had another horse so it isn’t exactly the same, but what if the order of purchase had been reversed?)
The 60 days only applies to moving the horse to race someplace else. If you were moving the horse because of injury, you’d be able to. You just need to inform the officials.
I’ll have to check on being able to claim again but I think you can apply for an exemption to the Stewards because of the circumstances.