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Cold and Bold
In the upcoming very cold weather: SPEED is dangerous.
Many of these winter tracks have speed biases for weeks at a time, so if you are playing them, especially watch for earlies that have a habit of spitting the bit THAT ARE LASTING..... Historically, it has been so prevalent that at the old winterized Aqueduct oval as well as the late days of the Woodbine meeting, SOME DAYS the speed that shows itself OUT OF THE GATE, are there at the wire. It is important to differentiate weak speed that is helped by a bias, and legitimate speed that would have had a good chance to win on a fair course. When a bias is there, it will repeat race after race and is not isolated to a contest here and there. When I used to be based on the West coast (with weather being much milder and more constant) I did not believe that biases existed. A 5 year study of winter racing proved me very wrong in that contention.
Make a listing of which horses in each race have shown a tendency to quit, then, after the contests, see if they held on. If more than three races fit that description, particularly if these winners were NOT the logical choices, a bias may well be at hand.
WARNING: Biases are rapidly in genesis as well as rapid in their disappearance.
Speed biases can also be present when the track maintenance people compress the surface with these big water filled rollers. Aqueduct was famous for souping the surface for the Wood Memorial although with the new track there that might not be as prominent as it once was with the winterized inner oval. Churchill is also known for altering the track markedly on the Friday before the Derby and the Oaks program observations are a great leg up for the Derby speed character the next day. This is done the same way by compressing the surface.
On the whole, off going from weather (rain snow) works much the same way. Few horses will close into that sort of pressure. Many tracks, in freezing, start with a much greater kickback of frozen chunks of the track flying back at the mid pack horses too. Before the Polytrack was removed from Woodbine, big hunks of it flew back to the field in November and December bolstering the early bias there. The Polytrack people had to bring in thousands of gallons of mineral oil to break up these in the weather.
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"If this world is all about winners, what's for the losers?" Jr. Bonner: "Well somebody's got to hold the horses Ace."
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Bella Figura figures to set pace.
went out to a big lead, and was able to hold. 
