By Harry King

LITTLE ROCK — Snipping $150,000 from the Oaklawn Handicap purse will not affect the quality of the race and will help a multitude of horsemen.

Like major thoroughbred tracks in California, Florida, Louisiana, and New York, Oaklawn is in a predicament, mostly because of a race in a faraway desert.

In Dubai, there is a $26 million day of racing with a crown jewel called the Dubai Classic. The purse for that race was upped to $10 million last March with $6 million to the winner.

Compared to that, the Oaklawn Handicap, the Santa Anita Handicap, the Gulfstream Park Handicap, the New Orleans Handicap, and the Met Mile offer chump change. The elite handicap horses go to Dubai and those that are a cut below will compete at Oaklawn whether the purse is $500,000, as it was in April, or $350,000, as it will be next April.

By reducing the purse of its premier handicap race, the Hot Springs track has lined up with Santa Anita, Gulfstream Park, the Fairgrounds, and Belmont.

Not only does Dubai attract the cream, the Dubai Classic casts a long shadow because the races mentioned above occur from March in Louisiana to Memorial Day in New York, and recuperation from the trip can take months.

Consider these purse reductions:

—Oaklawn, $750,000 in 1999; $600,000 in 2000; $500,000 in 2002; $350,000 in 2011.

—New Orleans, $500,000 in 2009; $300,000 in 2010.

—Santa Anita, $1 million in 2009; $750,000 in 2010.

—Gulfstream, $350,000 in 2008; $300,000 in 2009.

—New York, $750,000 in 2005; $600,000 in 2006, $500,000 in 2010.

Eventually, it becomes counter productive to compete against Dubai. The $150,000 sliced from the Oaklawn Handicap is better spent raising purses for the hundreds of other races that are the backbone of the daily programs.

The minimum purse offered at Oaklawn in 2011 will be $15,200 and the $9,000 winner’s check is appreciated by those who grind out a living without a star in the barn. It costs about $30,000 a year to keep a horse in training, whether the steed is a low-level claimer or unbeaten Zenyatta.

Fans also benefit — the better the purses, the bigger the fields, and the more competitive the racing.

At the peak of her game at 6, Zenyatta is the current-day exception. Too often, the best 3-year-olds go from the racetrack to the breeding shed before they turn 4. As a result, casual fans do not have a favorite to follow.

For instance, Smarty Jones had a growing fan base at 3. The winner of the 2004 Arkansas Derby and a photo finish shy of the Triple Crown, he was syndicated for future stud duty in a $39 million deal in July of that year and retired a month later.

No way an owner can pass up that kind of money to continue racing.

Curlin, the 2007 Arkansas Derby winner, was the last 3-year-old champion to race at 4. Before him, I can’t remember.

Gone are the days of Cigar, who won the Oaklawn Handicap in 1995 when the purse was $750,000 and the race was No. 6 in his 16-race winning streak. He ran 33 times, including eight times when he was 6. After he turned 4, Cigar won 17-of-24.

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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.