Turf Racing

[1retired]

I have been trending the results charts for about 8 major tracks using BRIS several major tracks on a daily basis since late July of this year and have seen some fairly noteworthy bits of information that are causing me to reexamine how I handicap turf races.

Delmar, Saratoga and Arlington Park have exhibited a strong bias in favor of late pace, i.e. high sustained pace, hidden energy, high 3rd fraction velocity and low %Median and high %Hidden. Hidden Energy in my definition is the fractional velocities of the 2nd and 3rd fraction divided by 2. % Hidden is the sum of the 2nd and final fraction divided by the sum of all three race segment fractional velocities.

Specifically, Saratoga, Delmar and Arlington Park turf races are characterized by the % of the 3rd fraction velocity compared to the added velocity of all 3 fractions being above 34%, in the case of Arlington is 34.6%. When you consider that this is the last race segment when the horse has already run more than 2/3 of the race (actually more like 75% of the race), you take notice when the 3rd fractional velocity is higher than the 1st and 2nd fractional velocities. This coupled with the fact that the % Median for these tracks is in the 65% range and the %Hidden range is over 67% tells me that the emphasis in these races is on late pace.

I don't want to go off the deep end with turf races because these facts are not true for some tracks such as Monmouth and Gulfstream where the %Median, % Hidden and 3rd fractional velocities are more like the numbers found for dirt races on those tracks, i.e. 66 or 67% Median and 3rd fractions at 31-32% of the total energy velocity. However, when the bias does exist at a track, it seems like the thing to do is to use it, ride it for all it is worth. James Quinn, in his book "Figure Handicapping" comes to much the same conclusion but he virtually eliminates the first fraction of the race and concentrates only on the middle and third fraction in his haneicapping efforts. I think that that is a partial mistake and that the initial fraction does need to be included in the handcaipping but that the first fraction is not extremely influential.

I have seem a number of Results Charts where the early speed horses in these turf routes dies in the stretch and the race is taken by a Presser or Sustained type of horse.

So, my handicapping approach would be to evaluate the Sustained Pace, Hidden Energy, and Third Fraction as part of the main handicapping method and to use the % Median and % Hidden to eliminate quasi contenders who do not fall within an acceptable range for these two parameters at racetracks with the late pace turf bias as the main way to find the contenders. I don't think that just emphasizing Sustained Pace will do the trick because sustained pace is early pace + third fraction divided by 2 which does not place enough emphasis on the late end of the race.

I am too new to the website to know how the various methods for evaluating contenders uses the Sartin Methodology factors, if at all, i.e. FFIV IV etc. . I suggest that a program such as I have just very roughly outlined be run for turf races at tracks with the late turf bias to see if the ROI and win% can be improved on turf races.

Turf races seem to be a more murky and mysterious area because, except for James Quinn's Clf All Pars on the turf in his book "Figure Handicapping" I have not seen any published information as to average or par times for the various classes of races on the turf. Nobody except Quinn talks about the par times for turf races at any tracks that I know of and nobody talks about the average daily variant for turf races at any distance. Quinn does not really use the DRF track variant to adjust turf races but he does have some guidelines which he uses. I think that turf races should be handled the same way that dirt races are handled in terms of adjustments for the average track variant and the daily variant for individual races. Because of all the "murkiness" with turf races, I think anyone with a good well-thought out handicapping methodology could do quite well with turf races. The trick is, is what I have described above well thought out and will it work or has it worked?

Has anyone else had any similar experience with turf races or already been down this road? Am I on the right track or FOS in this regard? Even if the approach of others is different, I would like to hear it and the reasons for why it is used and, most importantly, does it work?
I would appreciate anyone's comments as to their experience with turf races.

1retired