Cards at Saratoga
 

Is it me or has the daily cards at Toga stunk? I'm playing everday and except for the first week on a couple days the overall cards have been small fields, bad races, and a quality level far below years gone by. You use to find races with 3-4 close contenders that made for great capping. Now ou look at a race and there's one or two standouts only to be won by some horse that really didn't figure. Judging by the meet contest, others are doing no better.

I made a post about so few horses returning with records of wins on the course. Where did they all go?

It's really a shame. Toga is my favorite meet, track, racing city, but the level of racing has dropped considerably.

Its not you. Its the reality of racing. Did you look at tomorrow's card at Saratoga? LOL, has to be the worst Saturday card ever. Are you as excited as I am to see Magna Graduate and Fairbanks going at it in the "Feature"?
How about today's card? The Waya Stakes, 6 horse field going 1.5 miles on the turf. Can we build a time machine and go back to the late, great 90's at Saratoga when we saw real horses run?

Timmy too many cheap ny state bred races have to be filled by the sec.

and why do we need 11 races on the big days (sat) isn't 9 or 10 eneough?

I think 9 races is plenty for any day Gales. I'd like to see less time between races and just 9 races, even on the weekends where the last race would go off no later than 5pm.

i agree with you on that gander

I thought so too....you have a few horses prepping for closing weekend as well so it will be interesting to see how they do.

Full fields are a great thing. I think people (like myself) equate Saratoga Saturdays with "star power" and have been spoiled by seeing talents like Skip Away, Ghostzapper, Formal Gold, SilverBulletDay, Bernardini, Point Given, etc. Its nice to have somebody great to see like the above, and at Saratoga its usually a "Given", no pun intended.

But I can see how as a gambler, tomorrow's card may look enticing from a betting standpoint. I just wish I found a race to be all over, but I cant.

Jeez, guess you can't please everyone. The first two weeks were terrific, and now, because there are a few days with subpar cards, "the level of racing has dropped considerably." When you run 10-11 races a day for 36 days, not every race and not every card is going to be fantastic. It's still hands down the best race meet in the country, and things will pick back up very soon. Take it easy.

I think people have the tendency to denigrate an entire meet/track/circuit because they personally aren't doing well at it.

And I still don't understand the point about there not being many horses who have won at Saratoga in the past. What difference does that make?

Enjoy it now. It'll only get worse through the years.

Are they running the Yaddo? I cant remmeber the last time (if ever) a stakes race had to be cancelled at Saratoga because they couldnt find horses.
Have they tried the Harness Track or downtown? The Police force here have a wonderful stable of horses that would probably be free to run.

I could be mistaken but I think the John Morrissey(sp?) was moved back a day or two last year because of the exact reason the Yaddo was moved back a day.

:mad:

It's starting to rain in Brooklyn. I'd play it safe if I were NYRA and take the 2 remaining TURF races OFF. We wouldn't want to ruin the turf courses for all those horses that'll need to work on them when the meet is over.

Its absolutely pouring here in Toga. Streets are flooding, rain coming from all angles, heavy winds.
The weather is at this point comical! You have to laugh.

I don't know why they moved the stakes races so that the Sword Dancer and Alabama would be on the same day, thus leaving this Saturday with, well, nothing much. I cannot remember a Saturday at Saratoga without a graded stakes race.

My guess is for TV. Either that or they're banking on getting some one-week turnarounds from the Million.