SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY, July 20, 2010--The FAQ of the week--after who should I bet on opening day--is what do you expect to happen at this meet in terms of quality? Would it be, as Vic Zast phrased it, Saratoga Racing, or Racing at Saratoga?

I can say without equivocation it probably will be easier to divine a winner on Friday’s opening day card than to know what the following 39 days would bring. I haven’t the slightest idea how this meeting will turn out.

With Saratoga 142 looming, the phone has been ringing right out of is holder. Some friends and colleagues ask; others tell me how it will be. Of those doing the telling, the majority has been negative.

Even NYRA President Charlie Hayward admitted in a TV interview last weekend that the first few weeks of racing here might not be up to Saratoga standards. The question, however, is compared to what?

Compared to last year it has the potential to be quite favorable, perhaps even an improvement over 2009. Compared to yesteryear, of course, do you even need to ask? Nothing is as it has been. Name your category; today’s model is odds-on to be a tawdry imitation.

Saratogian turf writer Jeff Scott did some interesting research for Tuesday’s editions, yielding a few inescapable conclusions: That longer races, on both dirt and turf, are becoming fewer with each passing year, and that the trend does not augur very well for the breed’s improvement.

There either are no reliable programs for horses at graduating distances within the classes, or the population is lacking, or both. Either it’s because pedigrees are overwhelmingly short, or the significance of the condition book is declining since designing a program for races that don’t go is like drinking downstream from the herd.

Or simply does the modern practice of giving horses fewer races and more time between starts exacerbate all of the above? It’s a problem that’s prevalent everywhere, only it takes on an added dimension when the subject is Saratoga racing.

The most dramatic changes in racing at Saratoga have occurred on turf, as everyone surely realizes by now, beginning with the increased number of races run on that surface and the burgeoning use of turf sprinters to fill the programs.

In the last five years, according to Scott’s research, the number of turf races has increased by approximately 67 percent. That’s significant. But the preponderance of those races have been sprints.

In 2004, no turf sprints were run. Last year there were 44, up nearly 20 percent from 2008. Conversely, there were 21 races run at 9.5 furlongs or greater in 2004, attracting fields averaging a tad more than nine starters. Last year, there were only 11 such routes.

Today’s tracks would drool over fields of nine or more, both aesthetically and at the bottom line. But there are trends even more alarming than field size per se, such as the increase in claiming and maiden claiming events, up almost 25 percent from 2004.

Dirt racing has fared no better in this regard. The number of dirt routes at nine furlongs or greater went from 67 in 2004 to 39 last year. But nowhere has the quality of racing suffered more than in the dearth of conditioned allowance events.

In 1999, there were 72 conditioned races for “non-winners of 1, or non-winners of 2 races other than maiden or claiming.” Five years later, there were 54. Last year there were only 34. Racing “through your conditions” is a rarity in today‘s game.

With so many stakes races available throughout the country, allowance horses unable to find a suitable conditioned spot move right into stakes class. Consequently, horses race less often but are trained harder, made to develop at an accelerated pace. With respect to class, racing has become a choice between famine or feast.

The economy, politics, and the perception that racing is a lesser attraction than it was back in the day, all share some of the blame in the causal effects in the decline of quality racing everywhere. Foal crops being what they are, there are fewer good horses to go around. Of course, quality has suffered.

But hopefully the outfits that have shipped into New York to race at Saratoga have brought their best stock to the dance. Deep pocketed owners still want to win here, as do the game’s elite horsemen.

There’s not a stall to be had anywhere near the course on Union Avenue, and perhaps all have come here for a reason and not just for the season. So let’s all take a deep breath and see what happens, shall we?