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HANDICAPPING INSIGHTS JULY 11, 2014 by Dick Powell Love them or hate them, turf sprints are here to stay. And because of the geometry of the Saratoga turf courses, they are run at the same 5 1/2-furlong distance and all are run on the Mellon Turf Course. Turf sprints are impossible to avoid if you are playing horizontal wagers. For some reason, they are criticized by many handicappers but I find them to be great opportunities for pari-mutuel value. If you are spending July trying to get ready for Saratoga, you better be getting ready for turf sprints. Last year, there were 62 of them and they comprised more than 14 percent of the total number of races run on the flat. The first thing that sticks out in analyzing last year's Saratoga turf sprints is how bad post No. 1 does. In 62 turf sprints run in 2013, only four horses won from the rail. Even though the rail horse gets to save ground going into the turn, it seems that the horses that break well from there are under severe pressure throughout the race. There is no place to get a breather and even though the race is only 5 1/2 furlongs, speed horses from the rail do not tend to hold. For horses breaking from the rail that drop back early, the risk of getting shuffled back is high since the outside speed horses are all trying to get over to the inside to keep from blowing the turn. At that point, the rail horse has to drop back and rally wide or get lucky trying to find room in the deep stretch. Because Saratoga turf sprints have an average field size of 8.8 starters per race and the races are so short, the fields tend to bunch up and provide less room to maneuver. It's hard to gauge on paper but horses that have a quick burst of acceleration do best in Saratoga turf sprints. The rest of the winning post positions show that the outside is as good as the inside and post 4 produced the most winners -- 11. Here are the number of winners from each post position:
Despite many claiming that turf sprints are chaotic and hard to figure, the public is doing a pretty good job betting them. In 2013, favorites won 22 of the 62 turf sprints for a healthy 35 percent win rate. The average winning mutuel payout was $13.86. What's not to like? Among the trainers, Chad Brown won five turf sprints at Saratoga last year. Kiaran McLaughlin, Linda Rice, Jason Servis and George Weaver all won three each. The jockeys were dominated by Javier Castellano, who won 13 turf sprints at Saratoga last year. Cornelio Velasquez came next with seven and Irad Ortiz Jr. won five. Junior Alvarado, Jose Lezcano and Joel Rosario each had four winners. This year, what bears watching is how well Taylor Rice will do in turf sprints at Saratoga. She only began riding last August and this will be her first season at the Spa, but she gets her horses out of the gate well and does get a lot of business from her aunt, Linda Rice. Her presence will bear watching. Another rider that should do extremely well in these races is Jose Ortiz. He's coming off a great Belmont meet and has all the attributes for success. Running times for Saratoga turf sprints are historically fast. Last year, the fastest was 1:00.81 while the slowest was 1:04.18. Of the eight fastest Saratoga turf sprints run in 2013, six of them came when they raced on the hedge. Of the 12 slowest Saratoga turf sprints, seven were for New York-breds. There are four rail positions for turf sprints at Saratoga: 0', 12', 18' and 27'. Just counting races run on firm turf, the average winning time for 12 races when the rail was down was 1:02.31. When the rail was set at 12', 18 races were run in an average of 1:02.79. For 10 races when the rail was set at 18', the average winning time was 1:02.54 and for 14 races when the rail was set at 27' was 1:02.97. Finally, pedigrees play an important role in turf sprint success. The leading sire of turf sprinters at Saratoga last year was Freud FREUD (Storm Cat). He sired four individual winners and none of them were favorites. Street Boss (Street Cry) had three individual winners. Street Cry (Machiavellian) had two winners himself and Street Sense (Street Cry) had one so this is a sire line that bears watching.
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