Del Mar has been a better meet than Saratoga this summer.
Saratoga can't deal with Mother Nature being undefeated, the rain, no fault of Saratoga, can destroy and guts their cards.
Let's not fully dive in the difficulties of having to handicap them, especially when the weather prognasticators could rarely call a walkover.
Handicappers whom knock what we do, don't get up until 7 AM at the earliest, wait for scratches and form their opinions with hot coffee in their cup, if scratches come up at 11 am, if lucky, they have two full hours, an eternity, to formulate plan, but go ahead and take your dumbass shots at us having to do it without change and scratches the night before and by the way can I have a friendly reminder that Del Mar is fast and firm and with minimal scratches.
Maybe I am getting old or can't count, how many intact cards have we had at the 'Spa' last two weeks. Maybe three?
Saratoga homers call Spa the best product in the country, what the Fark are they smoking in NY? Whatever it is its hallucogenic.
At Del Mar, you get what you see in your past performances, no guessing on the conditions, at Saratoga, Mother Nature is giggling her arse off.
She might have side wagers with her assistant and interns, "watch this, I am going to make these darn fools run their tail off to get a set up in the backyard, and then i'll rain buckets on them, and if I am in the mood I might throw a lightning strike or two and split one of my trees down the middle, I'll make them run their arse off, again'' she says 'giggling.
You go 'girl!
Mother Nature is undefeated, face it, you can't beat her, it's like the J-E-T-S playing Tom Brady in his hey day, 'foggetitaboutit'!
What makes Saratoga even more maddening is this three races on the turf and three races off thin', then, more rain comes and off they come and all horizontal wagers are off faster than you can say 'ALL'.
This is no fault of management, they can't control the weather like Del Mar, its all about playing blackjack with mother nature, you bust every time as she gets 21 every time, an ace and a king, every time. She's a great card counter.
Friendly reminder, Del Mar is fast and firm.
The Work Reports from Racingwithbruno for both Saratoga and Del Mar have been outstanding, the 4 star works have been 4 stars, firing about 33-35% on last study, but at Del Mar there has been consistency.
Handicappers need consistency, not one day fast and another day muddy.
One season at Saratoga I counted in one week span we had five different types of main track:
1,) Puddled
2.) Sloppy
3.) Fast,
4.) Muddy
5,) 'Fucked' up
Think about the horses that have to deal with different conditions each and every hour and day to day.
I didn't mention quicksand on one card out of the blue a couple of weeks ago when a trainer was screaming at the ground crew on a Saturday and on Sunday, two-year-olds in the first race were staggering like a hobo after two bottles of Mad Dog 20/20.
By the way, there has been one track notation: Fast and the turf course Firm at Del Mar.
Saratoga homers can't handle the truth, so to get my message across this is how I will state it