Every week, we plan on bringing you information that you can use in your horse racing handicapping efforts. Our focus is on the most popular tracks as determined by you, our horse racing tip sheet users. Here are our observations for the week of July 23-29, 2018.
Arlington Park: Speed played well on the turf at 1 1/16th. Two of the four races went wire-to-wire, and another went from 2nd to first. Overall, speed played a much bigger factor in longer races. There were seven wire-to-wire winners in 32 races, five of the them were at 1 mile or more.
Horses that rated and closed were much better plays under 1 mile.
Mitchell Murrill and Sophie Doyle were the top riders. Meanwhile, no trainer won more than two races.
Delaware Park: Speed kills at Delaware, especially on the dirt. Thirteen of 33 winners on the dirt went wire-to-wire, that's 39.4%. Another seven ran from second to first. That's 60% of winners first or second in the opening quarter mile. Add in third to first, and 78.7% of dirt winners at Delaware ran 1st, 2nd or 3rd at the 1/4 pole.
Angel Suarez and Carol Cedeno were the top Jockeys and, again, no trainer stood out.
Del Mar Race Track: The most obvious angle in our view is found in races of a mile or more, regardless of surface. The average calls for the winner in the 19 routes (1 mile or more) was 4.7 in the opening quarter, again 4.7 at the 1/2 mile marker, and 4.4 at six-furlongs. These races were won by the horse who made the biggest move into the stretch.
As might be expected, speed played a much larger role in races less than 1 mile. Seven of 24 sprints went wire-to-wire and 12 of 24 (50% - no calculator needed) ran 1st or 2nd in the opening quarter mile.
Wins were somewhat evenly split by jockeys. Trainer Peter Miller lit it up, winning a lucky seven starts. He was especially successful with either Heriberto Figueroa or Drayden Van Dyke taking the reins.
Saratoga Race Track: Surprisingly, or maybe not in modern horse racing, speed was the biggest factor at Spa in the week that was. Are you ready for this? Twenty-three of 57 races went wire-to-wire, 40%. That means, if you can pick the fastest horse out of the gates, and get 6/5 odds or better, you will have a positive return-on-investment (ROI) with win bets. That's deadly information.
Another 11 ran second at the 1/4 call to first at the wire; meaning 57.89% of winners ran in the top two at the gun. Determine which of the two fastest is the better horse, and 4/5 odds or better makes you a winner. Get better odds than that, and you are ringing the cash register. Never a better time to play Saratoga if this trend continues into the weekend featuring the $1.2M G1 Whitney Handicap.
Put Luis Saez on one of the top two-speed demons, and you could be on to something. Eight of his nine wins fit the 1-2 profile, the other was third at the 1/4 call.
That's enough of the top-secret stuff for today. Make sure you check out our social sites, as we'll be sharing observations for other tracks exclusively on our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts.
Best of luck today!
<< RETURN TO GUARANTEED TIP SHEET HOMEPAGE