Turning for Home Day recognizes Parx Racing's retirement program

Saturday is Turning for Home Day at Parx Racing. The afternoon’s races will recognize and raise funds for the track’s Thoroughbred retirement program.

Turning for Home was established by the Pennsylvania Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association at Parx in 2008 and has found homes for more than 1,800 horses. More than 85 percent of the group’s funding comes from Parx owners, jockeys, the PTHA, track management, and the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association.

The featured race of the day will be the $100,000 Turning for Home. A stakes for 3-year-olds and up in past runnings, Saturday’s 1 1/16-mile race is for horses who have started for a $16,000 claiming price or less in 2016-17.

The changes were made by Sam Elliott, the director of racing at Parx, to draw a larger field and to include the type of horses who generally come through the Turning for Home retirement program.

“If you run a $100,000 stakes on the East Coast in the summer, you too often get seven horses and scratch down to five,” Elliott said. “I also think this race is appropriate because the horses Turning for Home places are claiming horses.”

Last year’s Turning for Home had six entrants and five starters. A field of 11 is entered for Saturday.

To run in the Turning for Home, an owner must pay $100 to enter and $200 to start. All of those funds will be donated to the Turning for Home program, totalling $3,300 if all of the entrants go postward.

Maritime Pulpit comes into the race off consecutive wins for trainer Jorge Navarro. Zanotti, trained by Carlo Guerrero, also has won two in a row and hasn’t finished worse than second in five starts since being claimed for $30,000 last November.

The card ends on a strong note: The Turning for Home is surrounded by three allowance races. Immediately preceding the Turning for Home is a no-conditions, six-furlong sprint with a $55,000 purse. The contenders include Requite, Awesome Speed, and an aptly named horse for the Turning for Home card, Long May You Run.