News
Del Mar’s Biased Racing Surface and How To Handicap For It
Week four is in the books and we have reached the halfway mark of the 8 week summer season. And there is one thing we know for sure about where the turf meets the surf. The main track at Del Mar is a BIASED racing surface.
After playing relatively fair over Thursday and Friday this past week, early speed dominated on Saturday. Then on Sunday, that completely changed. The first five races on Sunday were all sprints on the main track, and each and every one of them were won by rally wide closers on the outside. The speed bias was completely gone, just like that.
They ran another sprint later on the program, race 9, and the same tactics were applied, a rally wide closer. I don’t know if it’s the moisture in the air, the tides moving in and out, the fog in the air, or if the maintenance crew just dug up the track, but the main track at Del Mar is hard to figure out day in and day out. Despite all of that, favorites on the main track are winning at 38.5% through 83 races at this meet, well above the national average.There is a bunch of savvy horse players that play this meet. The turf course continues to favor off the pace runners in route races, even if the rails are out at 24 or 30 feet.
The 5/8 turf sprints are fair for the most part with the advantage to horses with early speed. Favorites are winning on the turf at 32.8 % through 61 races at the meet.Track Bias is an elusive thing but if identified early enough it can pay off huge! The trick is understanding whether there is an actual bias effecting the outcome of each race and how to use it to your advantage.
To assist with uncovering a Track Bias, Today’s Racing Digest publishes a Post Position Winners by Size of Field Report that shows you which post positions have historically been favored to win in each race distance and surface. With this report you can quickly see the frequency of which post positions are expected to produce winners and compare that with the races running. Any unusual changes in the probabilities of horses winning in different post positions might indicate a potential bias for that post position.
A Track Bias can also positively or negatively effect the performance of different running styles in a race. It is helpful to understand how each of the different running styles are expected to perform in each race. Once you know that you can then compare the results you are seeing on the potentially biased surface. If you are consistently seeing closers winning in races typically dominated by front runners than there might be a bias.
To simplify this process, Today’s Racing Digest race sheets tells you how frequently each running style wins in today’s race distance and surface along with the expected running style each horse in today’s race.
To further verify if a current bias exists it is important to know what are the average and expected times for each race. This way you can quickly compare the final times of each race where you expect a bias with the expect times. Any significant difference might indicate a bias.
Today’s Racing Digest Race sheets give you the Expected Times (ET), Average Times for mid-level races (AT) and the Average Times for this level (AFTL).
Once a track bias is either discovered by the betting public or just disappears it’s important to take note of that bias and remember it in each of the horse’s next starts. Often times, the betting public will not be aware that a horse won or lost as a result of a biased track and while that horse may look good on paper it may also be a “false favorite” that is over bet and should be avoided on the totes.
To simplify this process, Today’s Racing Digest keeps track of any bias experienced in each race and publishes that bias in each of the horses past performances. That bias is then used to help speed up or slow down the horse’s projected running times for today’s race which can be found in the Digest race sheets. With the Digest running lines you can easily compare the final times expected for each horse to see which horses have a true advantage in today’s race
Today’s Racing Digest also publishes a weekly Track Bias Report for Southern and Northern California Racing. While not a necessary report for the casual race fan it can be a powerful tool when building your own handicapping models or as a quick reference for horse that may be coming out of a bias race.
| TRACK BIAS | |||||||
| Race tracks play differently every day due to weather, track maintenance, etc. Sometimes the track seems to favor no particular running style and no part of the track seems better than another. That’s not always the case, though, and trip handicappers have long made their money by noting whether the track favored one type of running style or another and then following the horses that ran ‘against the bias’. We divide track bias into two types on the main track. There are running style biases in which either horses with speed, we call them Front Runners in this table, or no early speed, Late Runners, have an advantage. There are also days when the rail is better than the outside and vice versa. These biases run from moderate to strong to dominant. We will code the biases as follows: 1= Moderate, 2= Strong, 3 = Dominant. The strong and dominant biases deserve the most attention. In turf racing, we report the position of the auxiliary rails, as the position of the temporary rails can affect which running styles win. Watch for our new track profile by position of the rail. It’s in the Digest most everyday now. | |||||||
| Date & Track | Race Type | Running Style | Inside/ Outside | Date & Track | Race Type | Running Style | Inside/ Outside |
| DMR 8/13/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Late-runners-2 None None | Outside-2 Outside-2 Rails Up 12’ | SR 8/13/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | None None None | Outside-1 Outside-1 Rails Down |
| DMR 8/12/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Frontrunners-1 Frontrunners-1 None | None None Rails Up 12’ | SR 8/12/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | None None None | None None Rails Down |
| DMR 8/11/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Frontrunners-1 None None | None None Rails Up 24’ | SR 8/11/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Frontrunners-1 Frontrunners-1 None | None None Rails Down |
| DMR 8/10/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | None None None | None None Rails Up 24’ | SR 8/10/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | No Racing | No Racing |
| DMR 8/6/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | None None None | None None Rails Up 18’ | SR 8/6/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Frontrunners-2 Frontrunners-2 None | None None Rails Up 10’ |
| DMR 8/5/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | None None None | None None Rails Up 18’ | SR 8/5/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Frontrunners-2 Frontrunners-2 None | None None Rails Up 10’ |
| DMR 8/4/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Frontrunners-2 Frontrunners-2 None | None None Rails Up 30’ | SR 8/4/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Frontrunners-2 Frontrunners-2 None | None None Rails Up 10’ |
| DMR 8/3/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | None None None | None None Rails Up 30’ | SR 8/3/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Frontrunners-1 Frontrunners-1 None | None None Rails Up 10’ |
| DMR 7/30/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Late-runners-1 Late-runners-1 None | Outside-1 Outside-1 Rails Up 12’ | SAC 7/23/23 | Sprints Routes | None None | Inside-1 Inside-1 |
| DMR 7/29/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Late-runners-1 Late-runners-1 None | None None Rails Up 12’ | SAC 7/22/23 | Sprints Routes | None None | Outside-2 Outside-2 |
| DMR 7/28/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Frontrunners-1 Frontrunners-1 None | Outside-1 Outside-1 Rails Up 24’ | SAC 7/23/23 | Sprints Routes | None None | Inside-2 Inside-2 |
| DMR 7/27/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Late-runners-1 Late-runners-1 None | Outside-1 Outside-1 Rails Up 24’ | SAC 7/22/23 | Sprints Routes | No Racing | No Racing |
| DMR 7/23/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | None None None | Outside-1 Outside-1 Rails Down | SAC 7/23/23 | Sprints Routes | Frontrunners-1 Frontrunners-1 | None None |
| DMR 7/22/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Late-runners-2 Late-runners-2 None | Outside-2 Outside-2 Rails Down | SAC 7/22/23 | Sprints Routes | Frontrunners-1 Frontrunners-1 | None None |
| DMR 7/21/23 | Sprints Routes Turf | Late-runners-2 Late-runners-2 None | Outside-2 Outside-2 Rails Down | SAC 7/21/23 | Sprints Routes | None None | None None |
Today’s Racing Digest tracks the long term performance of different running styles of at the different distances based on the rail positions on both turf and dirt. These reports can be found as add on features in the race sheets where space permits. If you can’t find them you can always email us and we’ll be happy to forward it along to you.
| Rail Position on the Turf | ||||
| The Track Profile at the top of each page is a general study of all races over the 15 previous racing days. This is a longer term analysis of how the turf plays based on distance and the position of the temporary rails. The stats represent: Total starters, frontrunners (F in PER Column 7), stalkers (P), mid-pack (M), and late-runners (R) | ||||
| SANTA ANITA TURF – FALL 2020 Thru June 18, 2023 | ||||
| DISTANCE | DOWN | UP10 | UP20 | UP30 |
| 5T | 8 0-2-4-2 | 6 2-3-1-0 | 4 2-0-1-1 | 7 5-2-0-0 |
| 5.5T | 8 2-1-3-1 | 6 2-1-3-0 | 5 3-0-2-0 | 4 2-1-1-0 |
| 6T | 86 21-28-24-13 | 62 17-23-13-9 | 63 15-20-18-9 | 51 8-6-22-15 |
| 6.5T | 42 8-17-9-8 | 38 10-13-11-4 | 38 9-9-9-11 | 32 4-14-10-4 |
| 6.5T Hillside | 41 6-13-16-6 | 22 5-5-7-5 | 18 5-4-8-1 | 9 0-3-5-1 |
| 1T | 146 30-40-46-30 | 100 23-34-20-23 | 104 28-33-29-14 | 107 29-40-29-9 |
| 1-1/8T | 58 7-14-24-13 | 27 6-8-7-6 | 24 7-8-4-5 | 31 8-11-2-10 |
| 1-1/4T | 23 10-6-2-5 | 5 1-1-2-1 | 5 0-3-1-1 | 3 0-0-2-1 |
| DEL MAR TURF – 2019 thru Aug 13, 2023 | |||||
| Distance | Down | Up 12 | Up 18 | Up 24 | Up 30 |
| 5T | 45 13-14-13-5 | 47 16-10-17-4 | 58 23-11-19-5 | 41 16-15-9-1 | 78 24-24-23-7 |
| 1T | 138 19-35-45-39 | 61 8-13-22-18 | 72 11-19-24-18 | 53 7-14-20-11 | 88 12-23-30-20 |
| 1-1/16T | 53 9-13-18-13 | 39 8-6-15-10 | 33 5-5-21-2 | 11 3-1-5-2 | 22 4-4-4-10 |
| 1-1/8T | 31 4-7-9-11 | 8 0-3-2-3 | 4 0-0-4-0 | 0 0-0-0 | 5 0-1-3-1 |
| 1-3/8T | 9 0-1-3-5 | 4 1-0-1-2 | 2 0-0-2-0 | 6 0-4-1-1 | 5 0-1-2-2 |
| DEL MAR TURF 2023 SUMMER MEETING | |||||
| 5T | 2 0-1-0-1 | 2 0-1-1-0 | 6 3-1-1-1 | 6 1-4-1-0 | 4 1-2-1-0 |
| 1T | 7 0-1-1-5 | 10 0-3-4-3 | 2 0-0-1-1 | 4 1-2-0-1 | 3 1-2-0-0 |
| 1-1/16T | 2 1-0-0-1 | 4 0-1-2-1 | 2 0-0-2-0 | 0 0-0-0-0 | 1 0-1-0-0 |
| 1-1/8T | 2 0-0-1-1 | 1 0-0-0-1 | 0 0-0-0-0 | 0 0-0-0-0 | 0 0-0-0-0 |
| 1-3/8T | 0 0-0-0-0 | 0 0-0-0-0 | 0 0-0-0-0 | 2 0-2-0-0 | 0 0-0-0-0 |