Late-scratches, off-the-turf, bad weather. If we have one gripe about racing everywhere north and west of sunny Southern California, it’s that they never often always change the cast of characters or the stage they trod on during the middle of the performances. Yea, verily, we will go ahead and list some tracks that are notoriously bad at this…

Gulf
Monmouth
NYRA

In terms of just having a slew of raceday scratches all the time, regardless of weather, ParXXX is maybe the worst. Every race on the card has at least one withdrawal. 

On the other hoof, Woodbine is one of the greatest tracks in North America when it comes to the bulk of the overnights actually making it to the gate. Of course, Santa Anita is good because, hey, it never rains in Southern California, and the turf course is in good condition. 

Right now, we might not see turf racing again at Churchill for a long, long time; however, at least we know this far ahead of time and there are going to be raceday switches off the turf. 

Laurel and Maryland also are bad at having a lot of scratches just about every day. We get that in the Mid-Atlantic region there’s a lot of tracks, cross-entering and choosing between many proximate opportunities. Nonetheless, it’s an annoyance. We complain. We curse this raceday-scratch-and-change darkness. 

Yes, California racing is Desolation Boulevard, but at least they don’t make it too hard on yourself by throwing a lot of late-scratch traffic along the way.

Getting out of here early again, so here are some strongshots, maybe:

Churchill 8
#6 Cyberknife (.423 Win Prob / 1.36-1 Fair Odds / 1.84-1 Premium Odds)

Churchill 9

15 Best Actor (.423 / 1.36 / 1.84)

Two contentious ones from Lville (The Lawrenceville School?!) on The Twitter.