Fast and Fair
As Valerie commented earlier, Del Mar racing secretary Tom Robbins underestimated how much watering would affect the Polytrack, with Plan for Fun, winner of the $10K claiming race that kicked off the 2008 meet, going a mile in a track record setting 1:37.82 (or approximately five seconds faster than the same distance would have been run in 2007 over the sun-baked synthetic surface). The third and fifth races also set new track records, for the 6-furlong and 5.5-furlong marks, and according to Steven Crist, the five main track races on the opening day card “went an average of 38 Beyer points faster than the ones on last year’s very similar opening-day lineup.”
Not only was the track faster, it appeared to play fair as well, with main track winners scoring from far off the pace, mid-pack, or on the lead:
[1ST-P = Position at first call; 1ST-L = Lengths behind at first call/if leader, lengths ahead; 2ND-P = Position at second; 2ND-L = Lengths behind at second/if leader, lengths ahead; FRAC = Final split. View full spreadsheet here.]
“Now they’re kicking in down the lane. Before, everybody used to be floundering,” said trainer Art Sherman, who won the third race, referring to how races would fall apart in the stretch last summer. “Now you can tell turning for home that horses had momentum and were moving forward, which we didn’t have last year” (Blood-Horse).
