In case you missed it, Chasing Time is entered in race 4 at Keeneland on Saturday.
If you have been following along, this has been a good lesson in conditions. Long story short, none of the races with conditions Chase was eligible for were filling at Oaklawn. He was entered twice but neither race received enough entries, so those races were replaced with races of different conditions that would actually attract more runners. He “needs a race,” so they ended up shipping him to Keeneland even though he does so well at Oaklawn.
A lot of times you hear people say things like, “I don’t know why they don’t have more longer races or more races for older horses,” etc. But racetracks have to write races based on what type of horses are at their track. Because everything is dependent on wagering to keep the lights on, you can’t just run a race of 3 or less horses for the heck of it. It’s also why sometimes older horses get retired even though they could still be running. If someone doesn’t want to drop their horse to the claiming ranks and risk losing them, but can’t ship all over the country to find conditions, they might just retire the horse (especially if the horse can be useful in another career).
