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Originally Posted by freddymo
Phil they only have X number of decent horses.. For whatever reason there aren't the horses to fill the type races we would like to see. So isn't better to get a Honda salesman then a Mercedes if all you have is Honda's on the lot?
There is Saratoga, Delmar, and to some degree Keeneland.. After that it's thistle city Baby..
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I think that's wrong.
Gullfstream can card as many grass MSWs as well as grass Allowances as they want. They do not need to card races for $10k claimers to make a turf race go.
They had a very big purse overpayment last year due to slots revenue being 1/3 of projected and are recouping. They didn't have that excuse last year and carded tons of cheap turf races then so that has limited validity.
Maybe this year's excuse is the Florida-bred only races they have to card which I think was part of the deal to open up full simulcasting at Gulfstream when Calder is running.
I think there are tons of MSW types both turf and dirt avaiable. It's not as if every trainer is dying to wait two months for the chance to luck into a field at Keeneland when staying on turf is questionable.
The only other plausible reason that makes any sense is they want to save some decent grass racing for the last 2-3 weeks of the meet to keep quality up and a few more good barns around. That would make some sense which means it's probably not their strategy.