Hi Terry
Tracks like Gulfstream in the winter attract the best jockeys and trainers
and the top barns from around the country. They want their best horses running in the warm
south rather than on frozen tracks up north.
You get a lot Turf routes at Gulfstream because again turf racing were its at for top barns Face it, there really are not that many high class dirt stakes races but there are lots a good purse turf races now and again later in the year up north,
Looking at the last few days result charts I see about a even split between sprints and routes at GP
albeit many of the sprints were turf sprints and many of the routes were
turf routes
I see it as 37 sprints and 29 routes
Now lets look at a track like Parx
They run year round, They run 6 different sprint distances.
Basically its 5 route distances but they run very few races longer than 8.5 furlongs.
The class of trainer, jockey and barn at Parx has horse flesh that probably is better suited to sprint or run no longer than 8.3 furlongs. So that is what they
run at Parx. The name of the game is to get as big a even ability field as you can.
Here is the break down of the races run at Parx since 1/1 13 till today
Its almost 2/1 sprints over routes
12