DIRT racing at Arlington Park

[Sir Blockheadd]

for some time now it has bothered me a great deal that there are no graded stakes races on the dirt in chicago that will attract the likes of these horses,
Perfect Drift, The current active leading runner by lifetime earnings,
   with 4.2 million dollars in on track purses does show once a year to run in the only graded stakes race (grade2)the hawthorne gold cup,

but did we see
roses in may
pleasantly perfect
medaglia d"oro
funny cide
peace rules
smarty jones
giacomo
 or other similarly situated grade 1 runners,

NO !

why can't we have a grade 1 stakes race here on dirt
cigar ran in the WP handicpp,
i want graded stakes on dirt dammit,
noone else gives a sh it about 100 turf, except the suburbanites..

when will they stop neglrcting one half of the sport and those fans ?

[David]

A little hard time following along with you, but just for clarity sakes AP does have some graded stakes  on dirt including the Washington Park, Gr. II for older horses, the Oaks and Matron for the 3yo fillies and 3 up F/M, both Gr. III, and the Lassie and Futurity, both Gr. III for the 2yo's.

I would agree with you that AP does slant thier stakes schedule to the turf, and I also don't agree with it - particularly the "Mid America Triple" which has slowly morphed into a complete turf trio - I liked it when it the first two legs where on the dirt and the Secretariat was the turf finale of the series. With the 3yo's I think you stand a better chance of getting a "name" horse or two if you are running on the dirt - the main stars of the turf usually aren't made until they are 4 or 5 years old in the US anyways - so you usually end up with horses nobody has really heard of before or often afterwards.

[APCD Dan]

Arlington went the grass route when they tried to be an "international" track.  Most foreign racing is on the grass so that is where AP put their emphasis.  There are so many stakes races for horses on dirt around the country that it is hard to get one good horse let alone a quality field for the money you have to put out.  AP figured that they would have less competition with other tracks for good turf horses.  They do get quality turf racing, but that is not the preferred surface in this country, so some, like Block, are unhappy.  It was a marketing move to make them a special track when they were unable to compete with the big dirt tracks anymore.

I don't care, I like turf racing, both for watching and betting purposes.  Anyway, dirt will be replaced by Polytrack so dirt racing will be become scarcer soon.