ODD SPEED BIAS AT KEENELAND

[blind squirrel]

i was reading the preview in AMERICAN TURF on KEENELAND
and the author,MARK SHRAGER pointed out something i
have noticed about KEENELAND on opening day:

opening day autumn 2004:first 3 races won wire to wire
opening day spring 2005:races 1 thru 4,wire to wire
opening day autumn 2005 races 2 thru 5 wire to wire

just something to consider.

[Valuist]

Let's enjoy it while we can. A year from now it will be Polyland.

[Joe L.]

Is that right? KEE going poly too?

[JPinMaryland]

Dude wake up and smell the bacon. My wife announced this morning the living room goes polytrack in 07.

[xfile]

I have polytrack installed around my pool. The juveniles love it :cool:

[Valuist]

Supposedly, cat litter is going polylitter as well. They claim less injuries to the cats claws because they aren't scraping the old sand like material. Whether or not polylitter will kill the odors is yet to be determined......

[Valuist]

Knowing that this is the last year of a regular dirt track, look for Keeneland to do absolutely nothing to keep the main track uniform. 4 races into the meet the rail appears to be the concrete highway once again and I think they will do nothing to change it.

[Valuist]

So far, every day the rail has been tremendous. It IS possible to close, IF you saved ground. But usually on rail biased tracks, you're better off in front.

Kind of sad that once the Polytrack gets put in, forget about payoffs like the Bushfire $32 win mutuel.

[bettheoverlay]

Why wouldn't Bushfire neccessarily win over the Polytrack? He had the highest CJ figure, the highest JCapper wFig (11 better than 1-2 Balance) and the J2 #. Good #s like these did well at Turfway. Maybe the bias helped him to win by six instead of two.

[AQUEBUCKS]

They're pushing an inch to an inch and a half of dirt towards the rail as we speek.

[Valuist]

Bettheoverlay-

Bushfire had a huge pace figure in her last (I had the race shape for the Tampa race as 110-83). But speed doesn't carry anywhere as well on the Polytrack as it does at Keeneland. She maybe could've won there but she also could've tired and even finished off the board if the race was at TP. I'm guessing we'll see many of these face off again in the KY Oaks. Sis City looked like a monster wiring a field at Keeneland in last year's Ashland but when they got to Churchill she was gasping for oxygen.

[kev]

Turfway is still Turfway right??

Past years wire to wire winners.
6.0F 33% this year 28%
6.5F 28% this year 31%
8.0F 24% this year 17%

The one-mile races took a drop, but the sprints held up ok.

I think I heard this on TVG same time at TP last year same meet 24 horses broke down ( bad breaking down ) this meet 3. I could have heard it wrong though.

[cj]

33% to 28% is a big dropoff. Also, they run many more races at 6f than 6.5f.

[sjk]

The first few weeks the polytrack at TP was in use the races looked very different and it seemed like the speed was at a big disadvantage.

This spring there was mush less of a closer slant and the races looked more like normal dirt races.

I understand that while there was almost no track maintainance in the fall by the end of the spring meet they were working the track all the time.

[BIG49010]

They haven't voted on Poly at Keeneland, let lobby for keeping it the same.

While were at it, kill the speakers and the anouncer also, and make it like it used to be.

And if you go for that, lets go back to 1 pick-3, pick6, two doubles and 1 exacta race, LOL....

[kev]

173 races for 6.5
222 races for 6.0

5% swing for one and 3% for the other distance. So for sprints that's 2% drop off. My point is I don't know if it's as big as people is making out to be.

Avg BL for 6.5
1st call 2.4 2nd call 1.4
Avg BL for 6.0
1st call 2.2 2nd call 1.5
Avg BL for 8.0
1st call 3.3 2nd call 1.5

[Valuist]

People only seem to remember the old Turfway being inside speed. But there were also days when closers 5 wide were winning race after race. But not many non-biased days.

[toetoe]

No knock on our boardmate, but cj's figure on Likely was way, way low. The probability of winning on a low-figure horse for reasons of bias will plummet when they're already running in a bucket of gel.

New and improved, safer Japanese papercraft: Polygamy.

The genius who decided California needs Astrodirt: a polymath. NOT!!

[cj]

No knock on our boardmate, but cj's figure on Likely was way, way low.

Likely? What race? I'll take a look and explain the reasoning behind the figure.

[cj]

Had you said the 2 horse, I would have known who you meant.

I would argue I had the figure right. The race he won was slow final time wise, but mostly because the pace was extremely slow. There was a big discussion at my site about these slow paced races. For lightly raced horses, you just don't know what they are capable of in a race with a more normal pace scenario.

There were three horses that fit this to a tee this weekend. Likely was one, Sweetnorthernsaint another, and Arson Squad a third. All three had never been in a race with a "positive pace", or a race where the pace figure was higher than the speed figure. I know that I predicted a huge race from Sweetnorthernsaint and Arson Squad.

Keilan actually tried to bet his whole $3,000 on likely based on his evaluation of my numbers, but was shut out as the contest was closed.

What I am saying is that subsequent performances don't always make a number "wrong". The free figures don't give the whole picture.

[toetoe]

Wow, the Keilan story is just like real racing. First place with $20,100. :bang: