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Originally Posted by Gander
At least you get to see horses who have competed in some really nice Graded Stakes in Magna Graduate, Sam P and Fairbanks.
And race 4 isnt bad. Callmetony is a nice one as are Noonmark and Most Distinguished.
Trying to see the glass as half full  |
At the risk of seeming argumentative, which honestly, I am not...
It's SATURDAY and a graded race seems appropriate. Most Distinguished and Noonmark, Callmetony and Fairbanks are nice horses but if they were truly "graded stakes horses" right now, they'd have been in the Vanderbilt or the Whitney or pointing for the Forego or Woodward.
Accepting the fact theat they are G3 not G1 then an overnight race is fine at the Spa, but why a Saturday? Any of the "stakes" today would be fine additions to a weekday card or as supporting races for a Saturday.
Why move the Sword Dancer (which should be made a G1 MILE) anyhow? It's not like running it a week after the Arlington Million is going to alter is complexion.
Just like the daily overnight races, Saratoga is dumbing down it's stakes program. Once, if you had $16k claimers you sent them to Monmouth or rested them for the duration of the Saratoga meet. Now you bring them and their races fill. Similarly, you used to look at the very tough stakes schedule at SAR and find allowances or out of town (lesser) stakes. Now you bring them and they write races for you and call the $100k stakes.