I didn\'t see Thursday\'s card, 9/8.
I watched 9/3, 9/10, and 9/11 very closely. That is likely the strongest speed/rail bias in the stretch I\'ve seen on a turf course over a large number of races. Absolutely had to be very close to the front once straightened for home to win.
Others thoughts? Little Scotty fans that posted might not agree with the bias. If you do agree, would love to see a similar string as when Molesap created the dead turf rail project from Preakness Day. I\'ll be following these horses that benefited and those that were disadvantaged when they return at Churchill, Keeneland, and elsewhere in the coming weeks/month(s).
Team Valor\'s Mascarpone one to watch in the future if you agree.
Average winning margin today was just under 2 3/4 lengths with 6 races between 2 1/4 to 7 1/2 lengths. Yesterday\'s average winning margin was 2.90+ lengths. So much for close finishes on turf.
Last two days alone, French natives Geroux (8), Leparoux (3), and Prat (2) won 13 of the 20 races. Maker\'s last two days weren\'t bad either.....(12-5-2-1 I believe).
Solid contribution Fairmount.
Would add the configuration of this unique course often eliminates/flatters certain runners. A quick glance at kentuckydowns.com will show the extreme arc/length of the second turn.
While most cappers, turf, incorporate ground loss, few grasp the significance of how the turf rail,(configuration) effects outcomes.
This course, with the rail up, second flight animals have little chance.
The prattle laden Baltimore thread about the dead rail Preakness time was endless and of little significance in my opinion. Ky. Downs horses impacted negatively by configuration often can yield mmediate next out dividends in Louisville and Lexington. bbb
BBB-/ You\'ve been shot down on this grass rail theory a couple of times, and have never offered any evidence to back it up. Cut it out, it\'s annoying.
With horses coming from all over to take a shot at the big purses at Kentucky Downs, I thought I would look at the top three finishers of each race at the meet so far and what track they ran at last time. Part of this stems from my bias in that I think Southern California turf horses are generally a very weak lot, especially the routers, so I have been avoiding them when they run at KD. To satisfy my curiosity somewhat, I looked at horses that last ran in CA prior to starting at KD with their finish position and final odds. The CA horses have a record of 16-0-2-1 at the meet so far. I also looked at the first four days of the meet and tracked where each of the trifecta finishers last raced. What I found is fairly interesting. Almost 2/3 (66%) of the trifecta finishers raced at Elp, AP, Sar or Ind in their last race. Even more eye opening to me was that 72% (28/39) of the races were won by horses having last raced at Elp, AP or Sar. Of course the fields are often dominated by horses coming from Elp and it seemed like too big a task to actually count the number of horses from each venue in every race, but it does give some perspective of horses coming from different tracks.
Horses That Ran Their Last Race in CA (16-0-2-1)
Finish Position - Odds
2 - 3/1
2 - 9/1
3 - 3/1
4 - 5/2
5 - 19/1
6 - 5/1
6 - 39/1
6 - 4/1
7 - 7/2
7 - 10/1
7 - 9/2
8 - 6/1
8 - 8/1
9 - 8/1
9 - 7/1
11 - 131/1
Last Track for Top Three Finishers
Track - Win-Place-Show
Elp - 12-7-8
AP - 9-7-3
Sar - 7-3-7
Ind - 2-5-6
Mnr - 2-1-1
Debut - 1-2-2
WO - 1-1-1
Mth - 1-1-1
Prx - 1-0-1
Pid - 1-0-0
Lrl - 1-0-0
Kee - 1-0-0
CD - 0-3-3
Dmr - 0-2-1
OP - 0-2-0
Del - 0-1-1
Bel - 0-1-0
GP - 0-1-0
FG - 0-1-0
Suf - 0-0-2
Btp - 0-0-1
Fair,
We have to be careful when tossing around track bias\'s, many do not believe in them at all, pretty much the same group that states tracks don\'t change speeds.
TGJB takes a lot of convincing before admitting to one, we have had a few debates.
KY Downs is a short meet and a quirky track with many pointing for it. Not being very familiar with this meet until this year I paid a lot of attention to it.
Mark Casse had a quote the other day \"Saratoga is over, now lets go for the money.\" It kind of shocked me at first.
I didn\'t play on 9/3, but did see a few comments about speed doing well. Thursday and Saturday 9/8 & 9/10 there were strong wind gusts both days.To my eye and its very difficult with the camera shots you get from there it was behind the stretch runners.
On Saturday 3 of the 10 races came from well off the pace 1st, 5th and DaHoss of the remaining 7 heats 5 of them were won by 8/5 horses or less. I would have expected a CLASS comment from BBB but per usual he just shoots his mouth off without any documentation. FWIW one of the few times I took a peek at brand R\'s board I saw his same CLASS rant over there. Some new material may be in order BBB!
On Sunday the first or 2nd choices won the first 9 races with the biggest price being 4.70/1 and Kittens Roar rallied from off the pace. The last race was a Rusty Arnold speed ball at a price and Frenchy didn\'t even fall off.
So in 2 days 15 of the 20 races were won by the 1st or 2nd betting choice with 11 of them being less than 2/1 and only one of those winners paying double digits.
On Thursday 9/8 the 2nd, 4th and 7th came from off there were 2 chalky wire jobs and this was the day that some price horses went coast to coast.
Far too many short priced winners, quite a bit of wind and a rain storm that interrupted the Saturday card.
The only thing I would take out of this purse bonanza after 4 days is the best horses who were pointing for the money got most of it.
Good luck,
Frank D.
Molesap, to build on what you posted, in the last four meets before this, Del Mar shippers were 3/32 with a $0.35 ROI. Woodbine shippers were 7/30, ROI of over $2 for each dollar wagering, and Arlington shippers won at 19% with a profit of about 20% if you bet on each of them. Saratoga shippers were major money burners in the past, though apparently not this year, and horses from Ellis were 33/560!
Fairmount:
Will review charts at the end of the meet. I am not so certain about the rail bias
(I think jocks sit close to the rail for fear of getting lost on the quirky
course), but as to speed favoring did seem to notice that runners who were not
close up \"heading into the dip\" did not seem to have much impact, with the
possible exception of the marathon races.
One of the few price horses on the weekend, Lots of Lex, was very plausible off
the TGs, unfortunately was surrounded by Lots of Chalk in the horizontals.
Moosepalm\'s description of watching the races from KD (\"like watching an artsy-
fartsy indie film shot with a hand held camera\") one of the high points of the
meet so far.
Frank and \'bee,
Track bias is a tricky subject and many serious \'cappers don\'t believe in one. I can understand their thoughts on this even if I don\'t completely agree. I am VERY hesitant to declare one but felt confident stating what I did. My statement was concerning the horses at the top of the stretch but I went back and watched the replays and reviewed the charts to see how 1st call leaders (early speed) have done at the meet so far searching for a true \"track bias.\" Here is what I found through the first 40 races.
On each racing day, BY CHART, there were 2 wire to wire winners as defined by the leader at the 1st call in the chart.
8/40, 20%.
Horses that were either first or second at the first call and won totaled 18 wins.
18/40, 45%
Then, I looked at the distances of the races won by horses first or second at the first call.
6.5 furlongs. 11 total races. (6/11 won by first call leader: 54.5%). (7/11 won by horses first or second at first call: 63.6%)
7 furlongs. 3 total races (0/3 won by first call leader: 0%). (1/3 won by horses first or second at first call: 33.3%. NOTE: 44-1 winner).
1 mile. 12 total races. (1/12 won by first call leader: 8.5%). (3/12 won by horses first or second at first call: 25%).
1 mi 70 yds. 7 total races. (0/7 first call leaders, 0%). (5/7 won by horses in 2nd at first call, 71%).
1 5/16 miles. 5 total races (1/5 first call leaders, 20%). (2/5 won by horses first or second at first call, 40%).
1 1/2 miles. 2 total races. (0/2 first call leaders, 0%). (0/2 won by horses first or second at first call, 0%).
Klein\'s 2005 book The Power of Speed studied 300 races at KD at 6 furlongs, 7 furlongs, 1 mile and 1 1/2 miles. His first call leaders and totals were very similar by distance and overall win percentage. 24/71, 33.8% at 6f, 7 of 48, 14.6% at 7f, 30 for 150, 20% at 1 mile, and 3 of 31, 9.7% at 1.5 miles, OVERALL 64 of 300, 21%. The exception being the 6.5 furlong distance of this meet is quite exaggerated in the small sample. There are 3 six furlong races and 1 6.5 furlong race on Thursday for you to wager on to see if the trend continues this meet.
As for the jockeys that have won the 8 \"wire jobs\" at this meet,..... interestingly, they are 7 different men: Lezcano, Lanerie, Flores, Albarado, Geroux (2), BJ Hernandez, and Leparoux.
Last, I broke down the 40 races by running style of the winning horse. 8 of 40, 20% were won obviously by Early Speed types, 1st call leaders who led at every call. 19 of the 40 races, 47.5% were won by horses as Pressers or Stalkers, defined as horses within 3 lengths of the lead at the first call but not leading. 13/40, 32.5% were won by Closers who were more than 3 lengths back at the first call (included in this last category is a winner who was 7th by 2 at the first call and then was 7th by 5 at 2nd call so b/c of his placement in 7th and further drop I used him in this category).
This last categorization lends itself towards no bias. Certainly, 9/3\'s date I\'ve rethought my position and see it as FAIR after watching the replays and reviewing the charts and see more of a distance factor in regard to speed doing well. The other dates I do wonder about the wind in the stretch possibly keeping some horses from catching the horses much closer after the straightening for the home stretch or some other factor, possibly the condition of the course without rain for some time.
Best of luck Thursday if you play their last card of the meet. Buy some TG\'s for the real answers and get to work!! I\'ve heard it is an impossible p5 sequence (I haven\'t studied a thing as I\'ll be working.....but rumor is it might pay an amount FrankD finds worthy of pursuit).
______________
Ingrid Mason\'s fastest horse in the world that failed at Saratoga on dirt, then worked on Saratoga turf after that race, Then failed on Saturday in a $100k poly stakes at Arlington.....747..... is entered on 4 days of rest for Thursday\'s 1 mile Ky Downs MSW race for 2yo, Race 7.
Is Steve Klein no longer involved publically in racing? Haven\'t heard a word about him in some time.
Fairmount1 Wrote:
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>
>
> Is Steve Klein no longer involved publically in
> racing? Haven\'t heard a word about him in some
> time.
Haven\'t seen anything since his latest blogging posts on DRF\'s site -- which were posted in the summer of \'13. Updates welcomed . .
Fair,
You make Bee, Uncle Bill and I very proud!!! Two or three more Spa backyard schoolings and you\'ll be considered for the north east \"junior\" debate team.
So much of what we do is random and wide open to the individuals translation of whatever data base they are using. You had an opinion, backed it with facts and research, something many here should learn before hitting send.
When it comes to track bias\'s as you said many will argue they even exist. Some will debate their relativity even if they admit existence. While others see a 3/5 shot go wire to wire in the first race and start screaming speed bias.
Good luck,
Frank D.
More interesting than track bias, is why some seem to have a visceral negative reaction to the notion.
Theory: Something they can\'t easily measure or comprehend, easier to just deny its existence, or claim it\'s rarer than a Bigfoot sighting.
Not so so hard to imagine a one lane paved road with sandy shoulders.
Boscar Obarra Wrote:
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> More interesting than track bias, is why some seem
> to have a visceral negative reaction to the
> notion.
>
> Theory: Something they can\'t easily measure or
> comprehend, easier to just deny its existence, or
> claim it\'s rarer than a Bigfoot sighting.
Sort of like \"class\". I kid, I kid....