Cards at Saratoga

[the_fat_man]

Originally Posted by philcski

What has been done wrong other than the horrifically bad weather?

What's wrong is that MUCHO time of handicappers (particularly those focusing almost exclusively on turf) has been wasted with all the OFF the TURF races. This would be excusable IF there were only ONE turf course. As there are TWO turf courses, NYRA needs to shelve the old way of doing things and sacrifice one of those courses for wet days. It's not like they'll need BOTH turf courses for the entire year. Same applies to BEL.

And, the distance incentive has been a BUST, IMO. Do we really need $70k maiden route races? How about we use that EXTRA cash in writing some BETTER races for BETTER horses. Seems to me, the quality of horses is down this year as there are other options for them (at comparable purses).

While the quality of the fields doesn't really affect my handicapping, as I know the turf horses well and I've pretty much accepted that there just won't be as many quality turf races in NY anymore, I do, every so often, want to see a nice competitive turf race. If I wanted CLAIMERS, I'd focus on DEL, CNL, Maryland, and (in a lesser sense) AP and MTH.

I realize that SAR offers a nice ON TRACK experience. For the OFF track player, however, it's very much an ordinary (even subpar) one.