Privileging Speed
“You have to go to a bull ring like Great Lakes Downs to find a similar speed bias,” writes Dick Powell of Gulfstream’s main track speed bias during last year’s meet, raising a point I’ve touched on here in posts about synthetic surfaces:
Can you imagine the outcry if this was a synthetic racing surface and it had such a pronounced bias? Synthetic racing surface critics pounded Del Mar’s Polytrack this summer yet where are they with Gulfstream’s main track? Just like a speed horse was at a big disadvantage trying to go two turns on Del Mar’s main track, horses trying to rally off the pace are at an equal disadvantage in sprint races on Gulfstream’s main track.
As I wrote last summer about handicapping Polytrack:
Synthetics expose cheap speed for what it is, allowing horses coming from off the pace or far back to run their races. We call this favoring closers only because speed horses and speed-biased dirt tracks have become so dominant.
Privileging speed is the norm; few think twice about tracks favoring front-runners. It’ll be a while before that changes. [BRIS link via the always excellent Left at the Gate.]
