Five New Grade I Races in 2007; Two Others Drop to Grade II

Originally Posted by eurobounce

Well why leave out that type of race if you are going to include all the others. Personally, I think there are way too many Grade I races. 107 Grade Races it just way too many. I like your idea of Preps not being a Grade I. However, how would you know that every runner in the so called prep is acutally prepping for another race--does that make sense?

Currently there are 28 Grade I races for straight three year olds. I think this is way too many. I feel that there should be 3 Grade I races for males routing on dirt, 3 Grade I races for females routing on dirt, 2 each for males and females sprinting on dirt, 3 each for female and male turf routers. So a total of 16 Grade I races for three year olds.

I can think of no races as meaningless or that I would rather watch than a turf sprint. In no way should they get graded status, much less grade one status.
As far as preps not being grade ones, I couldn't disagree more.
Not every three year old is bred to go a mile and a quarter, and in many cases the "prep" is the race.
You'd have no grade ones before the DERby for three year olds in that event, and I just don't think thats proper.