Steven Crist: Are there too many races at Saratoga?
The number of races at Saratoga has grown from 216 from the traditional 24-day meet of years past to more than 400 today, and it may be diluting the quality of the racing.
Steven CristAug 15, 2013
The number of races at Saratoga has grown from 216 from the traditional 24-day meet of years past to more than 400 today, and it may be diluting the quality of the racing.
Greg Gangle's analysis of the Saturday 8/17 card at Mohawk Racetrack.
Los Alamitos will ask the California Horse Racing Board at its meeting next Thursday for as many as three weeks of Thoroughbred racing next summer, and plans to expand its racetrack and stable area.
The recent Fasig-Tipton Saratoga select yearling and New York-bred preferred yearling sales both enjoyed robust trade and concluded with outstanding key measures, including double-digit spikes in average and median prices and substantially lower buyback rates. Following a solid beginning to the yearling auction season at Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July, the Saratoga sales reaffirmed a level of market stability that has not been seen since the prerecession years of 2006 and 2007.
Of course it makes no sense that the Arlington Million and the Sword Dancer Six Hundred Thousand are being run an hour and a half apart on the same day for the same group of horses at racetracks only a short hop from each other by plane.
I’ve covered horse handicapping tournaments for Daily Racing Form since 2000. I’ve probably interviewed a hundred different winners and talked with thousands of contestants.
When she starts as the expected favorite in the Grade 1 Del Mar Oaks, Kitten’s Dumplings will be after her fourth consecutive stakes win and the fifth of her career.
The six-furlong distance of the $100,000 Paseana Stakes for fillies and mares at Gulfstream Park on Saturday seems less than optimum for My Pal Chrisy at this stage of her career.
Up With the Birds, the marquee player in the field of 10 for the Breeders’ Stakes on Sunday, has been freshened since his unlucky second-place finish in the July 7 Queen’s Plate.
Tom Proctor doesn’t worry much, or at least he says he doesn’t. With a critical race on the horizon for his stable star, Marketing Mix, Proctor was on the Arlington Park apron one morning this week wanting to talk about anything except the Beverly D. Stakes on Saturday.