Why is it harder to win gate-to-wire on turf?

[Clocker]

Another factor is distance. On dirt and on turf, the percentage of wired winners is greater in sprints than in routes. But at a lot of tracks, a much greater percent of turf races are routes, while the sprint-route ratio is much more even on dirt. So both surface and distance contribute to the low percentage of wired turf races.

[cnollfan]

I think it's about acceleration. In almost all dirt races the last half of the race is run slower than the first half of the race. Even the closers are running slower in the second half, just not as much slower as the front-runners are. But on the grass the last half is often faster than the first half. It's not that the front-runners get tired, it's that the closers accelerate past them.

[EMD4ME]

Depends who you ask.... if you bet the 12 in the 12th at GP 2/22/14, you could also factor in the stewards......