I'm actually going through withdrawal pangs right now as I type this... because closing day at Saratoga was yesterday.
All kidding aside... Hell, who am I kidding? I actually AM going through withdrawal pangs....
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I thought the Saratoga dirt surface had a unique (sometimes significant) bias for most of the 2016 meet.
I came to this conclusion pretty early on in the meet.
Part of what got me there is numbers based... The other part of what got me there was watching EVERY race over the course of the meet live... And then watching replays of every race over the course of the meet many times over. (Shout out to EMD4ME for the suggestion.)
I saw the meet as (mostly) speed favoring with a negative or dead rail.
Visually - In my opinion for sprint races at all distances: Horses sent from the gate by their riders (generally) had an edge over those whose riders ahem... shall we say did something other than send.
Visually - In my opinion - again for sprint races at all distances - so far as bias determining race outcomes: Being sent from the gate was only PART of it.
In my opinion - The OTHER part of it - so far as bias determining race outcomes had everything to do with WHERE on the turn said sent horses ended up.
In race after race - I noticed that horses sent from the gate whose riders were content with taking the shortest way around the track:
MOST OF THOSE horses were stopping about the time they hit the top of the stretch.
In race after race - I noticed that horses sent from the gate whose riders AVOIDED taking the shortest way around the track... either by tipping out at the first opportunity on backstretch... or who tipped out at some point on the turn... or who were handed ideal positioning because some other rider aboard a primary pace foe purposely glued his horse to the rail:
MOST OF THOSE horses were full of run when the field hit the top of the stretch.
Still speaking visually - In my opinion - again for sprint races at all distances:
The WORST position seemed to be setting the pace - while through some subtle herding by the horses just to your outside - you found yourself pinned against the rail on the turn.
Still speaking visually - In my opinion - again for sprint races at all distances:
The IDEAL position seemed to be pressing the pace while just to the outside of the leader - who through some subtle herding - was pinned against the rail on the turn.
That's what I saw visually in race after race.
I have no way of knowing for sure whether or not Jose Ortiz or his agent were aware of this pattern...
But after watching replays of enough races I began to suspect that he was.
If he wasn't aware - I firmly believe he is the one rider who benefited the most from this pattern - simply because of his style.
Still speaking visually, I saw this same pattern unfold not just on the dirt - but on BOTH turf courses.
Comment to Cratos: I did read the position paper you posted about awhile back. I'd be interested in your thoughts about whether or not your group noticed this pattern too and what you think about the possibility of there being a physical cause behind it, etc.
This post is already a bit too long winded (apologies for that.)
I did run some database queries - and the query results suggest (at least to me) that the pattern (or bias) mentioned above was real - or at the very least a deviation from a big picture look at all tracks everywhere.
I'll come back later and provide those db results in a separate post.
-jp
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