JC / Railbird - Biased

Biased

From Steve Davidowitz’s DRF+ column on Saratoga stats:

On dry tracks, pure front-runners won more than 40 percent of all attempts from five to seven furlongs, and stalking types virtually equaled that percentage, leaving deep closers to account for only 16 percent of Saratoga, dry track sprint winners over the same four year sample.

In dry-track dirt routes, closers won at a 24 percent rate.
Interesting … imagine the outcry if the Saratoga main track were synthetic, not dirt, and the stats skewed the other way, towards horses rallying from off the pace.

Posted by JC in Saratoga on 07/18/2008 @ 2:48 pm / Follow @railbird on Twitter

2 Comments

Still, we must keep our eyes trained on synthetic issues of concern: Are the surfaces carcinogenic? Are they worth the money, time, maintenance headache involved? Are they equally fair to all pedigrees? Are the BC “championships” legitimate when “dirt” horses are forced to compete over an artificial surface? And do they reduce breakdowns or just change the kinds of injuries horses endure?

Posted by John S. on July 18, 2008 @ 11:01 pm

I understand, and I’m all for more research. We have enough synthetic surface tracks across the country now that there’s no reason not to sit back, collect data, see what patterns emerge re: health concerns (although, honestly, those seem overblown to me, especially considering what blows through the air of your typical urban area), safety issues, maintenance and money. The small point I’d like to make re: discussion of synthetics is that many critics see extreme bias toward early/stalking speed as the norm, and so decry synthetics allowing more off-the-pace types to win as a wacky, fundamental to change to the game, when all that’s happening is (well-installed, well-maintained) synthetics are allowing (what I think of) as the true pace of a race to emerge (not Del Mar last year, but so far, Del Mar this year).

Posted by Jessica on July 20, 2008 @ 9:17 am

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