The Breeders’ Cup is 14 races – including 6 relatively new events, some of which have few if any comparable stakes earlier in the year. This adds an extra dimension of complexity to the Cup compared to other big stakes festivals.
Each Breeders’ Cup card offers a large number of divisions to study, and this a large number of new winner’s profiles to try and come up with. This year includes a new mile and three quarters dirt marathon, stretched out from a mile and a half in 2008. Aside from turf racing there is little in the way of mile and a half races for stakes horses in America. It has been decades since North America offered stakes races beyond twelve furlongs to dirt stars. The effort to rekindle the modern equivalent of the great Kelso. Until there are more marathons to prep in, however, the American runners will be at a disadvantage.
There is also a renewal of the down-the-hill 6 1/2 furlong Turf Sprint, and the second Juvenile Filly Turf Mile. It is also only the third running of the Filly & Mare Sprint, the Dirt Mile, and the Juvenile Turf Mile. These six newer races augment what was already the busiest day of race handicapping made up of the 8 races with more history.
With four juvenile events, and no 1 3/4 mile dirt marathons to study, there is very little form to analyze in 5 of the 14 races, so you have to asses the situation based on other data, such as track surface data, shipper data, trainer data, jockey data, etc. A review of the Breeders’ Cup Stats site is crucial, at http://stats.breederscup.com.
Breeders’ Cup winners come from all over, just not dirt tracks . Last year, the eight Breeders’ Cup races run on synthetic were dominated by non-dirt runners. The age of synthetic racing surfaces continues to influence the Breeders’ Cup this year. The horses that have Pro-Ride experience, especially those that ran in the first four weeks of the Oak Tree meet, have a real advantage.
- Last year horses going from dirt to synthetic were 0 for 24 in the Breeders’ Cup!
- Last year only 3 of the the 8 synthetic winners had ever won a dirt race!
- This year 24 horses pre-entered in the synthetic track events will be trying a synthetic surface for the first time.
The synthetic bias is not unique to Santa Anita, and classy horses are not immune to the bias. Even at the recently concluded world-class Keeneland meet, which is run on Polytrack, only 2 of the 20 stakes were won by horses that last raced on dirt, and both of those runners had past victories on Polytrack.
The two dirt-to-poly winners were Fatal Bullet in the Phoenix S GIII, and Blame in the Lafayette S GIII. Fatal Bullet was coming off a bad 17 length loss on the dirt, but his career has been strictly as a synthetic runner, with all three non-synthetic tries ending in double digit losses. Blame had won on both surfaces, including a previous Keeneland Polytrack win. No runner making it's synthetic debut was able to win a stakes.
This writer is one of the biggest supporters of the synthetic revolution, yet there is still no reason to support dirt runners in synthetic stakes. The stakes run at the Keeneland fall meet were won by horses coming from a wide variety of tracks, yet two -- just two -- winners last raced on a dirt surface. What an important change from just a few seasons ago! It is still being underestimated by the general public. New racing surfaces are an important innovation to racing, but they are a puzzle until these exotic materials are better understood.
With so much to study, it makes sense to draft a game plan, and have an idea about what to bet on each day. Trainer/Jockey analysis is also critical for the big events. In the next blog we will analyze some key stats, as well as the game plan for Friday’s card.