Leading Trainer / Jockey 2 weeks to go

[The Indomitable DrugS]

Originally Posted by Cannon Shell

In relation to Saratoga.

Turf sprints, NYbreds, condition claimers and maiden claimers dominate most cards.

It wasnt long ago that outside of the 10 or so NYbred races a week you wouldnt see any of these other races at Saratoga.

It has gotten so even 2 yo maiden races on the dirt arent having full fields and we have seen some carded with 6 or 7.

It's really all about horses not running as often as they once did. Basically you're blaming horsemen for not running their horses.

As for Saratoga, they carded a total of 339 races in 2001 .. they carded 359 races last year.

That's 20 more races total.

36 turf sprints were carded last year.

State bred races have become more and more ... because the number of NY bred horses have increased over the last decade ... and connections of NY breds are less likely to wait five or six weeks between starts.

The kind of open allowance races we all like to see carded are now going with 5 horses and featuring lone speed mediocrites like Pitched Perfectly stealing them from horses like Ea (who scratched 3 times earlier in the meet)

As for the 2yo maiden races on the dirt ... the onslought of wet weather all summer long has likely set training of some of them back.

In relation to what's going on at other tracks - especially Southern Cal ones - the quality of racing is going good at Saratoga.