Biases and track conditions

[Furious Pete]

The logic of horse racing is not easy to unfold, and amongst the more puzzling aspects of this great sport is the development and presence of track biases. I guess the conventional wisdom is that for dirt racing the faster the track, the stronger the speed bias, i.e the souped-up tracks, but I\'m not sure this holds true - at least not everywhere. The Meydan surface has generally been kind to speed for many years now, but this season it has been ridiculous. Meydan is not a particularly fast dirt track, from what I understand (compared to tracks in America), all though a few track records has been broken this year which suggest it\'s getting faster (nothing dramatically though).

Just last week I stumbled across this little piece which tackles the subject of a very speed-favoring Sha Tin dirt track. I know they call it an all-weather track, but it is very much a dirt track: http://www.scmp.com/sport/racing/article/2139172/softer-sha-tin-dirt-proves-biased-towards-front-runners-again . It surprised me to see that the author of that article thought he had found a correlation between slower surfaces, and stronger speed biases.

I guess one of the big strengths of a board like this is the diversity of different people and backgrounds, where everyone have their tracks or circuits that they follow very closely, and has done so over several years (lifetimes, really). It would be very interesting to dig in to that collective wisdom, and see if one could get one step closer to uncover \"the universal truth of track biases\". What are your experiences, what have you observed over the years and under which \"working hypotheses\" have you been/are you placing your bets? Surely it got to have something to do with track maintenance, track configuration, weather, temperature etc..

Perhaps part of the confusion is that there are different kind of biases, i.e also different kinds of speed favoring biases? E.g. You could gain an advantage from avoiding particularly harsh kickback some days/places (maybe this would be the slow surface speed bias?), while you could gain a similar advantage another day under totally different conditions by just not stopping when in front (the souped up track speed bias?).

Any input on this would be greatly appreciated.

[Fairmount1]

No Bias expert here.  And likely to cause trouble for saying this as it may be unpopular but.....

I notice bias more prominently or readily when I don\'t suspect rampant drug use at a track.  You know at a place like Meyden.....or maybe a place like Keeneland 20 years ago.  And there are meets here and there that I believe are run clean from time to time so I\'m not screaming doom and gloom that drugs have overtaken the game.  With that said, is it possible drugs can overcome bias (hide the bias?) ....dare I say \"mask\" the bias?  The problem with bias is that betting them back isn\'t as useful as it once was if you are able to discern one. Some on the board have discovered this I believe when they followed future horses off a bias nearly everyone here had agreed upon (Few years ago?) and nearly none came back to run well.  Maybe this is also b/c of drugs or maybe bias isn\'t as big a deal as some believe.....

You asked....there you go FP..... which generally in my mind stands for Fairmount Park....not Furious Pete.  Good Luck.  (Cold tracks like what I expect if Kee runs Sat often favor horses In Front early by the way so monitor that closely).

[Tavasco]

These thoughts are not for the Keep It Simple Simon crowd. I, like Pete, have not gotten to the point that I know everything one needs to know about betting horse racing. So I still question or consider ideas other than popular doctrine.

First of all I want to give a shout out to both Pete, Fairmount and person A.
On Friday prior to the Dubai World Cup at my request, Pete ran down the card for me. I asked him to post it publically but he declined because, as I understood it, there would be not enough gratitude and too much criticism who needs it. So I was the beneficiary. Pete makes his own numbers and follows Meydan closely. He is also nearing the end of a long term study of Sha Tin in advance of making numbers for Hong Kong.

Pete liked North America best in the classic but pointed out that Thunder Snow ran  better than fans realized last out because he ran well (2nd) against the distinct early speed bias. So Thunder Snow\'s trip in the classic was not all that surprising. Would TS beat West Coast or any of the top five finishers @ SAR, DMR, GP, OP I doubt it.

Fairmount poured gas on my appreciation for European imports and my buddy Richiebee put me in a corner with his reference to Thunder Slow. Thanks to you all.

Second as I understand it, Meydan had a PED scandal with a top trainer as recent as this season. On the subject of PED\'s I\'m still operating on the premise that they don\'t make a horse increase its cruising speed they just minimize fatigue late in a race. As for betting bias compromised horse back, I\'m not ready to dispute the concept (and I\'ve seen the TG analysis employ it) but it would be a slippery slope for me.

Last year there was a lot of discussion about Always Dreaming\'s Final Time performance #\'s TG and others prior to his Kentucky Derby win which in turn got complicated by that day\'s bias. That day was wet less than ideal weather. This week we head into the three (3) KD prep races which at worst will all have bad weather. C/B rain @SA and snow @ Aqu & Kee. Whatever #\'s TG devines they could be of ? use because of the off track conditions. Remembering Desormeaux\'s recent off track specialist.

With regard to Mendelssohn\'s #\'s, it is a little scary to think he won the BC juvenile Turf while being compromised by running on a less than best surface. So it seems to me the # we should be examining is the one prior to the UAE Derby. Was it a slow pace?

[Furious Pete]

Thanks Fairmount, this was the kind of idea exchange I was looking for. Appreciate your effort - food for thought. I remember Mjellish wrote here about the rail at Churchill occasionally casting shadows on the 0,5 path of the dirttrack, making it lightning fast for those jockeys smart enough to find it. That\'s a great observation, and one that could give further clues in a discussion like this.

Tavasco, all though I said that I didn\'t like that world cup race very much as a betting race, this was what I wrote about it (I wrote this on the thursday before):

\"If it is biased and North America gets to the front easily, I don\'t think anyone else than West Coast could run him down. I have huge respect for West Coast though. Will use in the exacta with North America nevertheless. Keep in mind that this would be a pure bias play, and a bet on a very unrepresentative result with regards to their actual abilities as race horses.\"

Correct setup, wrong horse (North America missed the break badly). I had never thought that Thunder Snow could get to the front from that draw, but when he did I thought it was pretty much game over. No way would that have happened on those tracks Tavasco refers to, and that is also why it is not quite sound to just assume that the American guests in the World Cup ran their race (even though some of them did).

[TGJB]

I’m curious. When you did figures for the day, did you split the World Cup and Derby or do them at the same variant?

[Furious Pete]

I don\'t really do variants like you do them, but they lined up pretty good. I gave about the same fig to Thunder Snow and Mendelssohn, but I could certainly have had Mendelssohn a point faster. But in those cases I like to take away from the hopelessly beaten, rather than add to the winner, and have found that working better for my purposes.