NYRA quietly announced Monday afternoon that it was ending a longstanding practice of putting out a press release at the end of each racing week comparing the attendance and handle to the previous year.

Also, NYRA spokesman Dan Silver said that NYRA would not put out an end-of-the-meet release on closing day, something it has done for many years. Silver said that release will be issued a few days after the meet closes, which is the approach NYRA follows with its meets at Aqueduct Racetrack and Belmont Park.

As it turned out, NYRA made that policy change on a day when it had plenty of good news to distribute.

The following weekly and seasonal totals and percentages were compiled using the daily stats provided by NYRA.

Total handle for the week was $84,933,037, an increase of 14.21 percent over 2011. The total handle for the meet is $394,998,537, a jump of 8.06 percent.

On-track attendance for the week was up 3.03 percent and the attendance for the season is down .66 percent.

The on-track handle for the week was up 7.28 percent to $20,352,787, which pushed the on-track handle for the meet to $86,466,743, an increase of 1.03 percent.

This is the final week of the season to make year-over-year comparisons with the 2011 season. The track was closed the day after the Travers when the tropical storm blew through the Northeast, leaving a 39-day season at Saratoga.

• Monday was another up day with on-track attendance up eight percent to 14,584, on-track handle up 14 percent to $2,403,344 and total attendance ahead 24 percent to $10,059,364.


• Trainer Todd Pletcher won the seventh with Notacatbutallama and matched his personal record of 18 victories in 2-year-old races. Pletcher is the leading trainer and on course to his ninth title with 72 percent of his 25 wins coming in juvenile races.


• Bettors continued to settle on the correct horses and seven of the 10 races won by favorites. For the week, 34 of the 62 races were won by favorites: 55 percent. Through 28 days at the Graveyard of Favorites, the betting choice is winning at a 39 percent clip.