Our Trakus series continues with a look at the numbers from last Saturday at Aqueduct and Gulfstream Park. Visually Aqueduct appeared to favor inside speed on January 25th. Gulfstream hinted at an outside preference down in Florida. Let’s dig deeper to find the answer.
Visually handicappers lamented the day of races about an inside bias at Aqueduct:
I guess inside speed rules the day.
— Andy Serling (@andyserling) January 25, 2014
With over 500 races in my database from Keeneland, Santa Anita, NYRA and Gulfstream, my numbers show the horses that travels the least about of feet in the race wins about 36% of the time. Indicating while distance traveled is important, it’s only important in comparison to other contenders. The horse that travels the least amount of feet in any race only wins 1/3 of the time. Lets look at the Trakus data from the NYRA website from last Saturday:
The Big A on Saturday produced 6 of 9 races in which the horse that traveled the least distance emerged victorious. Looking deeper in two more races they only traveled 2 extra feet in the 8th race and 3rd race. With an average of 36% nationally the statistical significance of 6 of 9 races indicates a possible bias.
Meanwhile at Gulfstream Park to put in context the winner traveled the least amount of distance 1 time in 5 races, which puts more emphasis on the Aqueduct winners and starts to question the Gulfstream observations from that day:
The green shading, represents turf races and only 5 of the races were on the main track. Again 1 of 5 races won with the minimum distance traveled. (20% Gulfstream vs 67% Big A). Visually horses like Big Ian, Cairo Prince, Conquest Titan and Financial Mogul made sweeping moves while running wide.
The Trakus numbers show further evidence when you compare the amount of feet off the rail in the stretch run for the winner in each of the dirt races at Aqueduct and Gulfstream:
The winners of the Aqueduct races were racing 2.7 feet of the rail and 2.1 feet off the rail in the 7th and 9th race, while 4th and 5th race winners were 5.3 feet and 5.7 feet of the rail. Calvin Borel would have loved riding at the Big A this day!
Meanwhile the data is a little more inconclusive at Gulfstream. The winners were further out than Aqueduct, but Cairo Prince with the big lead did stay closer to the rail in the stretch 1.2 feet. It’s possible the backstretch may have favored outside but not the stretch. I highlight the 2nd place finishers in the 6th race and 10th race. Conquest Titan finished 2nd while running 13.7 feet away from the rail and the 6th race finisher was 14.7 feet from the rail in the last segment of the race.
I’m pretty convinced that the Big A favored speed and inside on Saturday, making those winners less impressive and likely not able to duplicate their big efforts unless the same conditions. Gulfstream, I believe may not have been speed biased, but the middle of the track was not a bad place to be and it may have just been some wide trips that ran better than expected with pace flow and bias.
Using Trakus data and visually watching the races together can combine for a more in-depth analysis of the card. Many times handicapping the track and then the races is required on a potentially “biased” day.