Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff P
I was recently interviewed by a reporter writing an article about the recent horse deaths at Churchill and how players might react to a resulting industry push for artificial surfaces.
The call lasted over an hour.
I mentioned Santa Anita's jump in breakdowns back in 2019 and the things Santa Anita did (pre-race vet inspections/medication reforms, etc.) to turn things around.
A day or two after the call I emailed the reporter a link to an article at USA Today covering how Santa Anita turned things around.
When asked about player reaction to a possible renewed industry push for artificial surfaces:
I told the reporter that when surveyed several years ago one third of players said they were strongly against artificial surfaces.
I said current handle data suggests players bet less on artificial surfaces than natural dirt and turf.
I thought Gulfstream Park makes an interesting test case because they race on all three surfaces - Dirt, Tapeta, and Turf.
After the call I ran year to date 2023 handle numbers 01-01-2023 to 06-04-2023 for Gulfstream Park and emailed them to the reporter who emailed back thanking me for the info:
Gulfstream Park 2023 YTD 01-01-2023 to 06-04-2023
Handle Per Runner by Surface:
$134,063 Turf
$120,071 Dirt
$102,501 Synth
Handle Per Race by Surface:
$1,214,509 Turf
$835,817 Dirt
$796,307 Synth
Avg Field Size by Surface:
9.06 Turf
7.77 Synth
6.96 Dirt
Don't know how much (or if anything) I said makes it into the article.
But to your point Ralph:
The Bloodhorse is owned by the Jockey Club and TOBA.
The industry is very much aware a significant percentage of players bet less on artificial surfaces than natural dirt and turf.
-jp
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This handle data is little misleading. Couple things.
-Total handle will include inter-race exotics only on the payout race. So for example, a P5 sequence that might have 2 synth races, 2 turf races and an ending leg on dirt will have the whole of handle be counted as dirt. GP runs more synth than any surface during this period, but it's way more even on the big Saturday cards that the close out race is equally on dirt and turf vs synth. This will skew the overall handle results.
-GP runs zero graded stakes on synth. For this particular time period, some of the single biggest handle races all year in the entire country - FL Derby and Pegasus - are run on dirt, which will skew these results quite a bit.
When GP had huge handle declines over the summer, everyone said it was because of synth. So I ran some numbers on that - just give me the intra-race handle by surface for the meet in question.
This is their summer meet for 2021 (4/1/21 - 9/26/21)
Dirt
531 races
7.35 avg fs
$243.4M total intra-race handle
$458.4K per race intra-race
Turf
400 races
8.65 avg fs
$242.4M total intra-race handle
$606.1K per race intra-race
This is their summer meet for 2022 (4/7/22 - 9/27/22)
Dirt
369 races
7.58 avg fs
$168.4M total intra-race handle
$456.6K per race intra-race
Synth
364 races
8.02 avg fs
$168.2M total intra-race handle
$462.3K per race intra-race
Turf
94 races
8.10 avg fs
$51.8M total intra-race handle
$551.1K per race intra-race
I thought this was a pretty fair comp since this summer meet is devoid of the big handle graded stakes you see at the "championship" meet. If we were only to look at intra-race handle for the time period Jeff is looking at, the numbers would be similar to what Jeff has for the overall. But - and this might be a bridge too far for some - if we discounted the big dirt graded stakes and only looked at intra-race non-graded races, this is what I have for the time period Jeff references:
Dirt
293 races
6.89 avg fs
$156.1M total intra-race handle
$532.7K per race intra-race
Synth
346 races
7.76 avg fs
$202.9M total intra-race handle
$586.4K per race intra-race
Turf
290 races
9.05 avg fs
$232.3M total intra-race handle
$801.0K per race intra-race
My own personal opinion is that the anti-synth people are overselling the handle effect. We have seen KEE set their own meet handle records with it. We've seen TP do well with it. WO is A track at the per race level with synth. We've seen Breeders' Cups with synth that have set handle records. While it may be easy to find examples of synth damaging handle, there are just as many examples where it's not the doom it's proclaimed to be. For GP in particular, they basically decided they couldn't sustain turf racing year round at one track and you are seeing that reflected in the handle, they basically blew up turf racing there last summer which will have a larger handle effect than whether the races replacing those turf races were dirt or synth.