Santa Anita March 1, horses going 42 and change for a half.

[Stillriledup]

First Strike wins in the slop on March 1st and the internal fraction was 42.83

When you have such a hard surface to begin with and your main track is NOT like an east coast surface (places like Laurel, Parx, Mountaineer, etc) and it rains, you get cheap claimers going 42 and change for the half in sprint races.


This CANT be good for the long term health of the horse, i know Santa Anita and So Cal are only racing 4 days per week, people are concerned about short fields and horse shortages and yet, there seems to be no urgency to have a deeper surface that not only makes the races more fair for the bettors, but won't see cheap horses going 42 and change to the half.

If you have a rock hard surface and its essentially a speed highway, it doesnt matter much if you have large fields because half the horses are essentially no factor, the back half of the field is not winning, the few horses in the front flight will win and you won't get races that are competitive enough to create the massive carryovers that are so coveted in So Cal.

Is there some reason that the main track at Santa Anita is different from the dirt tracks on the east coast? When it rains on the east coast and you have slop at Laurel, Penn National, Parx and tracks like that, do you see 42 halves?

I dont remember seeing 42 and change too often on the east coast and there have been a LOT of sloppy tracks recently.

[letswastemoney]

I know most prefer a fair surface, but doesn't a predictable bias lead to a higher win percentage for bettors? Just looking at it from the other side.

I'd love to eliminate half the field in every race.

[LottaKash]

Wouldn't the recent and now "infamous run ups controversy" have any bearing on this 42 thing ?....:eek:

[Stillriledup]

I know most prefer a fair surface, but doesn't a predictable bias lead to a higher win percentage for bettors? Just looking at it from the other side.

I'd love to eliminate half the field in every race.

I believe that speed gets bet hard for the most part and if the track turns into a "closing track" or even a fair track, speed still gets bet down, i think the public at large is able to adapt to a speed track better than they are able to adapt to a 'closing track'. If speed "cant lose" the public is better at adjusting to that, they're not as good at adjusting if closers are dominating. You will still see some speed horses get bet down, even if speed is dying.

Give me the fair track or even the "closers track" over a speed track anyday.

[Greyfox]

Is there some reason that the main track at Santa Anita is different from the dirt tracks on the east coast?

A reason for Santa Anita being different?

The answer is most likely in soil composition.
About a decade ago I was told that Santa Anita's track is essentially a mixture of clay, sand, and wood chips.
I forget what the percentages are of each component, but I think a soil analysis would soon highlight the differences between Santa Anita and the east coast tracks.

[goatchaser]

Stay away from Gulfstream TODAY!!! An Optional Claimer 10,000 just ran a 1/2 in 44.3 going 7F at Gulf. And hung on and won by 3-4 lengths!! East coast is becoming West Coast...RUN FOR YOUR LIFES!!!. Racing will never be the same.
Oh the Humanity.............. :rolleyes:

[Stillriledup]

A reason for Santa Anita being different?

The answer is most likely in soil composition.
About a decade ago I was told that Santa Anita's track is essentially a mixture of clay, sand, and wood chips.
I forget what the percentages are of each component, but I think a soil analysis would soon highlight the differences between Santa Anita and the east coast tracks.

Thanks. I'm not a fan of it being different in a "faster" kind of way, i'd like to see some "fair" races, i'd like to see some horses come from "the clouds" more often than they do and i think, with a deeper surface, there will be better betting races as well as a safer surface for horses and riders.

[Stillriledup]

Stay away from Gulfstream TODAY!!! An Optional Claimer 10,000 just ran a 1/2 in 44.3 going 7F at Gulf. And hung on and won by 3-4 lengths!! East coast is becoming West Coast...RUN FOR YOUR LIFES!!!. Racing will never be the same.
Oh the Humanity.............. :rolleyes:

:D

Good one Goat, i enjoyed your post, made me chuckle!

[goatchaser]

:D

Good one Goat, i enjoyed your post, made me chuckle!
Stillriledup.....All I was really trying to say was...It takes all kinds of tracks to play this game. Why bitch about them? It's been that way for as long I can Remember...Turf Paradise claimers use to run 108 and change like it was nothing back in the day. Hell...As kid I use to watch races on TV...and I'm 60 yo that were run on Tartan surfaces. They come on once a week I believe from a midwest track. Only reason I remember was you use to shop at a certain grocery store and they woulld give you pull tabs with a horse or horses number on it. And you watched the races and if you were lucky enough you won cash. BUT..If a track had a Tartan Track...Damn well I would have played it. Did some research and it was at Tropical Park in Fla.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Park_Race_Track

[Stillriledup]

Stillriledup.....All I was really trying to say was...It takes all kinds of tracks to play this game. Why bitch about them? It's been that way for as long I can Remember...Turf Paradise claimers use to run 108 and change like it was nothing back in the day. Hell...As kid I use to watch races on TV...and I'm 60 yo that were run on Tartan surfaces. They come on once a week I believe from a midwest track. Only reason I remember was you use to shop at a certain grocery store and they woulld give you pull tabs with a horse or horses number on it. And you watched the races and if you were lucky enough you won cash. BUT..If a track had a Tartan Track...Damn well I would have played it. Did some research and it was at Tropical Park in Fla.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Park_Race_Track

I think the way to get change in the game is to talk about it, complain about it if you have to, but its a situation that needs to be addressed. Horse and jockey safety is something that the industry allegedly cares about, so why not toss out a suggestion or two on how they can help the dwindling horse population?

I'm here to help! :D

[goatchaser]

I guess I was off in my memory from 45 years ago..But I did find the show.

Along the same lines were Off to the Races, Racing Spectacular, and It's Racing Time!, bringing the excitement of thoroughbred racing to the home. If you visited the sponsor that week you had a big money stake in the winners. Didn't score in the first race? The colorful scratch-off tickets from the grocery store offered 3 chances to win on every show.
Grand prize for It's Racing Time was 100,000 Green (or Gold) Stamps to the national weekly winner with the top local cash prize - that magical number $100.

Greyhound Derby was another promotion in the same tradition with championship canines racing around the dirt track.

Enterprising shoppers could, if there were enough participating stores in the area, spend two hours on Saturday evening playing Bingo and betting on the horses, so to speak.

A large tote board at the local store listed the winners from the community, often with a polaroid photo next to the name. The winners were real and, gosh darn it, every once in a while you or someone you knew banked a buck or two. Of course, all of these races had been run long ago and the promoters knew exactly how many winning tickets to put out there; nothing was left to chance.

S&H Green Stamps, TV racing and Bingo cards - anything to get the customers in the door and in front of the family's new color television set. These innovative half-hour shows aired Saturday evenings around 5:00-7:00pm, the dinner hour when people were most likely to be at home, sandwiched between Roller Derby and Wrestling.
As successful as these promotions were they were relatively short-lived as people tired of the novelty. The payout wasn't worth keeping up with it and regular viewers started to notice the same races being run over and over.

By the end of the 1960s there was much more compelling syndicated content available, that crowded these types of shows out of the major markets and eventually from the smaller outlets by the mid-1970s.