SARATOGA SPRINGS — Thursday evening’s thunder, lightning and flooding rainstorm added up to a slimmed down betting day Friday at Saratoga Race Course.
Turf courses can be devastatingly slippery when they get wet. So, when the New York Racing Association management saw how much water fell on the Mellon and inner courses during the Thursday deluge, they immediately shifted all five of Friday’s races scheduled to be run on the turf courses to the main track.
That surface was listed as “muddy” during the morning hours and was upgraded to “good-harrowed” a half-hour or so before the card started. But, the damage had been done and the trainers came in droves to scratch 22 of the original 95 entries listing “off the turf” as their reason for withdrawing their horses.
By the third race, a light, southeast breeze and a partly cloudy sky had dried the track and changed the condition to “fast.”
With only four fillies — out of the original field of nine — running in the third race, the winner, Lightlovenlaughter, paid $5.40 to win and $2.90 to place after getting the mile out of the Wilson Chute in a respectable 1 minute and 38.78 seconds. The five scratches shot down all show, trifecta and superfecta wagers.
The most drastic of the betting cuts came in the sixth race, a 1 1/16-mile contest for non-winners of two races that was scheduled for the inner turf course. The race became a win betting only affair when Danzigwiththestars, Battle of Normandy, Tiz a Giant, Al’s Rocket, Fighter in the Win and the New York-bred Shutters were declared out by their trainers.
Ouster and Prince’s Spur, both of whom were favored to be factors on a fast main track, were also scratched. With only three horses remaining, all place, show, trifecta and superfecta wagering was gone.
Blue Devil, who was 10-1 in the original field of 11 horses, won the race at odds of…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply