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HANDICAPPING INSIGHTS OCTOBER 27, 2006 by Dick Powell Polytrack received its greatest endorsement last Friday at Keeneland when rain hit the Lexington, Kentucky, area. Thirteen sophomore fillies, including one also-eligible, were scheduled to run in the Valley View S. (G3) on the turf. When the rain came, the race was switched to the Polytrack and, not only were there no scratches, but with the addition of the also-eligible entrant there were actually more horses running in an off-the-turf race than had it stayed on the green. Been around a long time - never seen that before. None of the Valley View turf entrants had any experience running on Polytrack, yet all competed when the race was switched to that surface. Only the also-eligible, Pure Incentive (Fusaichi Pegasus), had ever run on Polytrack, recording a first-level allowance win at Keeneland five days earlier. One of the early trends we saw on Polytrack was that turf horses and turf-bred horses seemed to do well, especially going two turns. Here were 12 turf horses whose connections had no problem running on a new surface. Maybe at the beginning of the meet the confidence would not have been there to run over the Polytrack, but with the rave reviews circulating around the backstretch they all stayed in. And what could have been your typical small-field, off-the-turf event turned into a full field of three-year-old fillies running over an ersatz surface that their connections felt they would grab hold of. The winner of the Valley View took advantage of a pronounced closer's bias going two turns on the Polytrack. According to BRIS' Track Bias Stats, there were 28 races run at 1 1/16 miles through Sunday on the Polytrack at this meet and only one went gate to wire. The Speed Bias is an amazingly low 21 percent and the average winner was 4.6 lengths behind at the first call. In a field of 13, a 21-10 favorite is pretty solid and when the second choice is 57-10 it shows the betting public has singled her out. MERIBEL (Peaks and Valleys) broke from post 2 with Garrett Gomez, dropped to the back of the field around the first turn and then rallied 10-wide around the second turn to get up in time to win by a half-length as the chalk. For years, Keeneland's main track had a platinum rail that favored the inside and speed horses. Many of the races run over it were uncompetitive with large gaps between the finishers. Just look back on the last few runnings of the Blue Grass S. (G1). In the Valley View, eight fillies finished within three lengths of the winner at the wire with runners all over the track. So it's not just a quantitative success but a qualitative success with many exciting finishes indicating most of the entrants are getting a good grip of this version of Polytrack. This is unlike last Winter at Turfway Park, when large gaps between the finishers were the norm. John Ward unveiled a good one in Friday's 6TH race when GRAND ALIBI (Grand Slam) won his career debut by 1 3/4 lengths in the good time of 1:22.53. Beating 11 other well-bred juveniles, he rallied from far back out in the middle of the track, just like Meribel, to win going away under Gomez. Keeneland's Polytrack was listed as fast for Friday, just like it is every day. But with the rain during the day, it produced faster-than-normal running times. When you look back on horses coming out of Keeneland's races on October 20, be aware that even though the track was listed as fast (which has a connotation of being dry) there was moisture in it causing it to play quicker than normal. Not only will synthetic main tracks be in our handicapping futures but chicklets as well. What the heck are chicklets? They are color-coded tiles that represent each horse in a race displayed on the new Trakus Video Race Technology. Woodbine went to the Trakus system in September and Keeneland became the first American track to use it as a way of enabling bettors to know where their horses are in a race and providing additional handicapping information to them. Trakus works through a sensor chip, which each horse has in in his/her saddlecloth, and antennas positioned around the track to pick up the digital information from each chip. Rather than have placing judges guess the first four positions as the horse pass points of call around the track, Trakus accurately measures their placings. But Trakus goes even further. On Keeneland simulcasts that are currently available on TVG, the split screen coverage shows the live, pan camera shot on the bottom half and the Trakus chicklets on the top half. At first, the chicklets are distracting from watching the live race, but you can quickly glance up to see where your horse is and how far off the rail he/she is running. According to Trakus, "Horseplayers will know how many feet each horse traveled in a race, how many feet out from the rail each horse was, and even the precise path each horse took." The chicklets, obviously, cannot show how much horse a rider might have underneath him, and by displaying them the tight shot of the leaders is lost. But, for a sport that has great difficulty in attracting new fans, it should make it easier for them to follow their horse instead of having to rely on the infield tote board to update the top four horses every quarter mile. Trakus is more than a visual aid, though. By capturing the data it does, it can then accurately display exactly how many feet a horse ran in a race. Keeneland is showing Trakus data for each race on its web site and displays how many feet a horse ran and the difference from the winner. I was able to see Trakus displayed at the International Simulcasting Conference in Philadelphia last week. Capturing racing information digitally enables Trakus to display virtual runnings of the race in a variety of ways. Eventually, you'll be able to watch live, or on a replay, a virtual "blimp" shot of the race as well as a head-on camera angle. Ground loss is no longer guess work and trip handicappers can easily follow their chicklet. Hopefully, we can eventually go to a track's web site and pull up virtual replays of races that we choose with the view we want to watch. Next week I will analyze all eight Breeders' Cup races and make selections. In the meantime, I am watching as many replays as I can but won't really do any serious handicapping until the post position draw on Wednesday.
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