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HANDICAPPING INSIGHTS APRIL 23, 2010 by Dick Powell Hollywood Park opened up its spring/summer meet on Wednesday and I'll be playing it a lot. After the interminably-long Santa Anita meet, moving the races to Hollywood will not only be a refreshing change of pace but a great scouting mission for Del Mar. Consistently sunny, warm weather provides conditions with fewer variables than Santa Anita with its rainy winter season. The turf usually stays firm throughout the meet. Racing is conducted at night on Fridays which gives you all day to handicap. At last year's fall meet, speed did extremely well at Hollywood. In 60 six-furlong races, an amazing 45 percent of the winners went gate to wire and the BRIS Speed Bias was 82 percent. However, outside posts have the advantage in six-furlong sprints as a disproportionate percentage of the winners came from post 8 and wider. In 35 races at 6 1/2 furlongs, 34 percent of them were won gate to wire and the BRIS Speed Bias was 63 percent. Unlike the six-furlong races, inside posts did the best with no winners coming from post 8 or wider. In 13 seven-furlong races, 54 percent of them were won gate to wire and the BRIS Speed Bias was 69 percent. With the smallish sample, it looks like inside posts have the edge. Even at the long sprint distance of 7 1/2 furlongs, 42 percent of the 12 races run at this distance were won gate to wire and the BRIS Speed Bias was 58 percent. Stretching out to two turns, speed continues to do well unlike many other synthetic racing surfaces where speed does well going one turn but not two turns. In 46 races run at 1 1/16 miles, 28 percent of them were won gate to wire and the BRIS Speed Bias was 61 percent. Outside posts won a disproportionate of these races. Hollywood Park's turf course is usually firm and features a very long stretch run. It plays very fair as pace and trips are more important than any course bias. At the commonly run distance of six furlongs, 38 percent of the 21 races run last fall were won gate to wire with a BRIS Speed Bias of 57 percent. Inside posts did particularly well. At one mile on the turf, 21 percent of the 19 races run last fall were won gate to wire with a BRIS Speed Bias of 68 percent. There really was no appreciable post position bias for one mile turf races. At 1 1/16 miles on the turf, only 8 percent of the 12 race were won gate to wire and the BRIS Speed Bias was only 33 percent. Mid to outside posts did best. With the speed bias of the cushion track, look for Tyler Baze and Joe Talamo to have big meets. They are superior gate riders and will be hustling their mounts to consistently gain early position. There has been a lot written about Martin Garcia and how well he's been doing, but his numbers on the turf are below average. Yes, he pulled off the upset in Wednesday’s Harry Henson S. on the turf aboard EXCESSIVE PASSION (Vronsky) at odds of 17-1. But, overall, he's only winning with 6 percent of his turf mounts and they show a negative ROI of -1.51. My guess is that these numbers will improve as Garcia is now riding for better outfits so we'll have to keep track of any improvements. Mike Smith might be known for his many victories on the main track, but he's been winning an extraordinary 19 percent of his turf races compared to 17 percent overall. No surprise that Rafael Bejarano is winning with 23 percent of his turf mounts, but Victor Espinoza's healthy 19 percent strike rate on the turf is an eye-opener. Joel Rosario is the picture of consistent excellence winning with 18 percent of all his mounts and 17 percent of his turf mounts. Tyler Baze wins 14 percent overall but even though he's only winning with 10 percent of his turf mounts, he shows a solid ROI of -0.04.
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