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Originally Posted by golfer
As BT wrote, they put up their entries days in advance, and many trainers cross-enter horses in other races, this is one of the reasons for the scratches.
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The only way trainers can get out of races they've cross entered at Delpark is with the permission of the racing secretary. Otherwise, it's a couple days (5-10) penalty for scratching. So, blame that one on the racing sec, imo. Of course, stakes races don't apply.
I think it has more to do with the missing mid-level claimers. You rarely see them in MD the rest of the year so not many transfer up to Delpark when MD closes. Then you have the games that are played by the MJC holding MD trainers to task for running out of state - and since the Del meet starts in Apr while MD still has essentially 2 months to run, doesn't help fill the fields. Philly Park horses just seem a notch below Delpark and MD horses so once Apr and May are over, they don't help fill the fields.
Then another part of it is the poor condition of Del's turf course, and the fact that they run cheap turf races at Colonial. Bad trainers with bad horses that have run poorly on dirt salivate at Colonial's opening. That way, they have some hope that maybe trying the turf will help the horse run through their bad training job. When that doesn't work, they go back to running in bad races in MD come Aug.