Kudos and vet scratch question

[HP]

Kudos to TG for the great Create-A-Card product. I picked nine races at Fair Grounds, Oaklawn and Gulfstream for a two hour stretch late yesterday afternoon. If anyone wants to look in the Red Board Room, yesterday\'s 8th at Oaklawn was a particularly good betting race.

I have a question about the vet scratch notes I\'m seeing, which I presume come in from Equibase. Does anyone have a strong opinion about the meaning of this stuff? I really haven\'t paid attention to it, but I\'m curious if I\'m missing something. I\'m wondering if you would assign it any particular weight based on how close to today\'s race the vet scratch was. HP

[Mall]

Good to hear from you HP. The problem with vet scratches, as you know, is that it is next to impossible to find out the reason. As just one example, my understanding is that a horse which ships is a vet scratch if the trainer has not complied with the new jurisdiction\'s requirements to run on lasix. I think that in some situations you can learn more from trainer scratches than you can from vet scratches. Two that come to mind are horses which have been scratched numerous times & 1sters which have been scratched by certain trainers in order to avoid an odds on daylight winner.

[HP]

Those are good points Mall, thanks.

I check back in the entries on Also Eligibles and others that scratch (sometimes a few times) to see the difference between what they were scratched from and what they actually end up running for, and sometimes you see something.

I\'m also aware that there is what\'s called a \"stuck list\" with horses that trainers want to scratch but can\'t. At least that\'s how it was described to me by a guy who used to look at this alleged list in the racing secretary\'s office (this was at Aqueduct). HP