Racing Conditions

[chrisforbes]

Is there certain races you just stay away due to the track conditions changing. Like if a race taken off the turf to the main track, due to it raining, a track condition going good to a sloppy track, and does a track being cold like in the winter on the east coast effect your betting it all. Or a late jockey change at all.

Or none of the above and you just adjust your betting as you see fit.

chris forbes

[Capper Al]

Is there certain races you just stay away due to the track conditions changing. Like if a race taken off the turf to the main track, due to it raining, a track condition going good to a sloppy track, and does a track being cold like in the winter on the east coast effect your betting it all. Or a late jockey change at all.

Or none of the above and you just adjust your betting as you see fit.

chris forbes

It depends on you. If you are a niche player playing race types or angles then yes you do skip races. If not, most likely you are playing your formulas, then probably not. I play formulas, but avoid off tracks when possible.

[Stillriledup]

I avoid off tracks for the most part, but i like "elements" of winter racing, it creates more advantage for specific trip and bias notes that better climates don't create as much.

[MJC922]

Is there certain races you just stay away due to the track conditions changing. Like if a race taken off the turf to the main track, due to it raining, a track condition going good to a sloppy track, and does a track being cold like in the winter on the east coast effect your betting it all. Or a late jockey change at all.

Or none of the above and you just adjust your betting as you see fit.

chris forbes

I found that when I played professionally the spring was the most profitable for me by far and then summer. By autumn I could sense a change in form and by late autumn a lot of the horses at my home track were essentially over-raced to the point where bounces were the golden rule... I didn't get my head above water late in the season for many years until I finally started to grasp that. Winter was typically off season for me, I played the inner dirt intermittently and could breakeven there at best when making my own Beyer figs, that's about it, wasn't my home track. An interesting study I did recently suggests winter racing is very difficult to beat. Strike rate drops just slightly but profits are gone bigtime. I don't have any strong opinions as to why that would be the case but anyway, FWIW.

[Clocker]

By autumn I could sense a change in form and by late autumn a lot of the horses at my home track were essentially over-raced to the point where bounces were the golden rule... I didn't get my head above water late in the season for many years until I finally started to grasp that. Winter was typically off season for me, I played the inner dirt intermittently and could breakeven there at best when making my own Beyer figs, that's about it, wasn't my home track. An interesting study I did recently suggests winter racing is very difficult to beat. Strike rate drops just slightly but profits are gone bigtime. I don't have any strong opinions as to why that would be the case but anyway, FWIW.

Were you playing a cold weather circuit such as New York or Chicago, or warm weather such as So. Cal?

[MJC922]

Were you playing a cold weather circuit such as New York or Chicago, or warm weather such as So. Cal?

NY for me. The study I did recently however was every track in North America for a four year period. I figured maybe if I looked at just Florida racing it would show something else, but no, winter losses there too. It's interesting, I'm kind of baffled by it quite frankly.

[Stillriledup]

NY for me. The study I did recently however was every track in North America for a four year period. I figured maybe if I looked at just Florida racing it would show something else, but no, winter losses there too. It's interesting, I'm kind of baffled by it quite frankly.

What did you study?

[MJC922]

What did you study?

Kind of a generic combination of recent class and pace all distances surfaces etc with a minimum odds requirement so it can get overlays in theory with conditional wagers (unproven in practice yet though), nothing I would've really expected winter racing to have any impact on. I looked into warmer regions, looked into females vs males, nothing stood out to me so far as being able to erase the deficit.

Wpct ROI IV Plays Season
19.8% 10.4% 1.68 5831 FALL
20.7% 13.4% 1.69 6265 SPRING
21.0% 16.0% 1.71 8529 SUMMER
17.0% -7.9% 1.45 4581 WINTER

Remove the minimum odds requirement and it looks like this:

Wpct ROI IV Plays Season
35.4% -6.6% 2.83 33854 FALL
35.3% -7.1% 2.70 36583 SPRING
35.1% -3.8% 2.69 46413 SUMMER
32.6% -20.2% 2.61 25479 WINTER

[MJC922]

Kind of a generic combination of recent class and pace all distances surfaces etc with a minimum odds requirement so it can get overlays in theory with conditional wagers (unproven in practice yet though), nothing I would've really expected winter racing to have any impact on. I looked into warmer regions, looked into females vs males, nothing stood out to me so far as being able to erase the deficit.

Wpct ROI IV Plays Season
19.8% 10.4% 1.68 5831 FALL
20.7% 13.4% 1.69 6265 SPRING
21.0% 16.0% 1.71 8529 SUMMER
17.0% -7.9% 1.45 4581 WINTER

Remove the minimum odds requirement and it looks like this:

Wpct ROI IV Plays Season
35.4% -6.6% 2.83 33854 FALL
35.3% -7.1% 2.70 36583 SPRING
35.1% -3.8% 2.69 46413 SUMMER
32.6% -20.2% 2.61 25479 WINTER

Let me repost that, those ROIs on the latter are for $2 so they needed to be halved. See attached for the correction on that.

[Johnny V]

Is there certain races you just stay away due to the track conditions changing. Like if a race taken off the turf to the main track, due to it raining, a track condition going good to a sloppy track, and does a track being cold like in the winter on the east coast effect your betting it all. Or a late jockey change at all.

Or none of the above and you just adjust your betting as you see fit.

chris forbes
I generally avoid off (sloppy, muddy) tracks. Any race taken off the turf is a non bet for me. A late jockey change I could care less for the most part. Winter racing is no problem for me other then the inconvenience of cancelled race cards after doing the all that handicapping. In fact the AQU inner track is one of my best meets.

[Clocker]

Any race taken off the turf is a non bet for me.

Ditto. The trainers put those horses into that race for a reason. At Saratoga this season, you could get hurt in the stampede of trainers yanking their horses out of off turf races.

[CincyHorseplayer]

Is there certain races you just stay away due to the track conditions changing. Like if a race taken off the turf to the main track, due to it raining, a track condition going good to a sloppy track, and does a track being cold like in the winter on the east coast effect your betting it all. Or a late jockey change at all.

Or none of the above and you just adjust your betting as you see fit.

chris forbes

The conditions definitely have affected my play.After getting snowed out of cards at Turfway about 2 dozen times or having Beulah start frozen,then go to sloppy and heavy with altering biases I said to hell with northern racing in the winter.The birds have it right,fly south for the winter!I love turf racing anyway so I goes where the turf horses goes!After a breather post Breeders Cup I take my tack to Fair grounds and then Gulfstream and Tampa.Tampa gives me fits though at times.I'll mix in some Santa Anita and the occasional New Mexico track.Long story short,go where the conditions are good.I've had big mutuels during the winter funk but winning with regularity for me always happens under optimal conditions.