[Bill Lyster]

A very strange racing phenomenon that can be ironed out with the application of a few basic handicapping steps.

This course is about 6.5 furlongs, but it actually measures 6.41 furlongs, has the only right hand turn in American racing and the middle fraction is run on a down hill course which severely inflates the second fraction velocities as calculated by RDSS and tends to minimize 3F velocities.

Here is the win model for the 14 races that I have handicapped so far this season:

The results of the model are shown in the bottom two lines. So in the 2nd to last line in the V/DC column is shows that the top 2 V/DC have won 64% of the time and the top three (the bottom line) has won all 14 races (100%). Further to the right it shows that 71% of the top two horses won when 1st or 2nd in the Pace of Race "F2 POR" and "TS POR. the last three columns show info for place horses. Even though I had the place horse in the computer all but one time, the only factor that seems to have any good news is horses who are in top three CSR -62% of the time. The E/L info and % Med info is also shown.

Please note that the use of F2 POR and TS POR sometimes is all inclusive, in that if you use multiple horses from the same race they will have identical pace of race numbers for these two categories, so when that happens you will not get any clear definition of the contenders from this info. These two factors are better predictors of win (i.e. narrow the field) when the races from the competitors are different.

Who do you enter into the computer? Some background first.
A long time ago I compared local Socal 6 furong turf times from Hollywood vs SA 6.5 turf lines. I did this for horses that had raced on both surfaces so that I could find out the relationship between the adjusted speed ratings for the two courses. If you have ever handicapped one of these races and had Hol horses and SA horses from sprint turf races you would see that the 6 furlong total energy and adjusted SRs are always higher (unless the horse is really bad at Hol.) As a result the SA 6.5 turf horses never got ranked highly enough to bet.

In general, adjusted SRs from the SA turf course are about 5 points lower than flat 6 furlong adjusted SRs from Hollywood. But recently I noticed that in higher class races like graded sprints and OC 80 and OC 62.5 races that some of the contenders adjusted SRs were a lot closer than the overall average. Some of the contenders in these races had SRs that were almost equal from both types of courses. So I went back and took them out of the sample. Having done so, I found that the lower class races in the sample had adjusted SRs for the SA turf course about 7 points lower than the flat Hol turf sprint. (So if your horse ran 79 at SA on the turf course it was roughly equivalent to an 86 on Hollywood's turf course)

Experience in running these races is paramount, except when its not! Relatively few horses even run on this special course and usually, unless they excell, the ones that do run on it don't run very often, so...

I ENTER THE BEST ADJUSTED SPEED RATING FROM ANYWHERE IN THE pps FOR ANY HORSE THAT HAS RUN ON THIS COURSE;

On my second pass thru the entrants I look for any horse that has run against fast turf route times who has been up close. I usually look for a horse that has run within two lengths of a 110 and change, or faster, 6f split. If they pressed from 4th or 5th or were farther out, they won't get there today. Rarely do you find more than two such horses in these sprints, but you cannot ignore them. If the best route fraction was 111 or higher even if the horse lead such a race, its not fast enough today.

POLY and DIRT contenders. These do not make it in very often. First I look to see if there are any turf sprint lines and compare the adjusted SRs. If they have turf sprint lines I use them unless their recent dirt/poly form shows major improvement in the SRs and a decided advantage when compared to the horses already in the computer. If there is major improvement in the dirt/poly lines I note it but still use the 6.5 turf line.

FYI of the 14 races handicapped so far only three runners without a race at SA 6.5 furlongs turf have won races. Cat Talk came from a mile turf race where he lead in 46.0-109.1. He'd been off 238 days but had shown in other layoffs of 30 days or more that he came back competively (thanks to Bob Cochran for that). It didn't hurt that he had 3 turf wins either.

Cayambe on Monday had raced within 2 lengths of 46.7-110.2 and 46.5-109.3 AND in its last race had an adjusted SR of 91. The best of the 6.5 turf contenders had an adjusted SR of 82! 9 points greater than the best of my other contenders. He won by open lengths BTW.

Zuboff in Monday's 8th had a poly SR of 85 with the best of the rest using 6.5 turf lines had a 79. One of those 79s had been off 128 days and another 438 days. Zuboffs early speed earned him a 0.0-0.0-0.0 on the Segments screen, significantly beating out the other early types using their 6.5 turf lines.

In these types of races NEVER underestimate horses that have won on this course and obviously those that have never lost! Mizdirection won the BC turf sprint and has yet to lose on this course. One of the winners so far this year won its maiden first out on this course last time out and then repeated. I think that any first timer who wins on this down hill turf course rates special attention next time no matter what the program says.

Ask away...


Regards,

Bill