Miss Inclusive looms large on solid Saturday card

Parx Racing may not have any stakes on Saturday, but the card is the Bensalem, Pa., track’s best of the winter and includes six consecutive allowance/optional-claiming races.

Parx has done a good job of maintaining field size this winter. Fields have averaged just more than eight horses per race, according to Sam Elliott, the track’s director of racing.

“We’ve had a lot of cheap racing, not by design but because it’s winter,” Elliott said. “When you make these kind of races, you want to use them to give your guys who have the better horses a shot to run.”

The allowances are slotted as races 4-9 and conclude with a no-conditions race for fillies and mares at six furlongs. The expected favorite is Miss Inclusive, who went wire to wire to win the Maryland Racing Media at Laurel Park by 3 1/2 lengths on Feb. 17.

Miss Inclusive has a history of breathing problems, and trainer John Servis dedicated her Laurel victory to equine surgeon Patty Hogan, who operated on Miss Inclusive when others thought her career might be over.

Total purses on the card are $361,000. There are 85 horses entered in the afternoon’s 10 races.