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HANDICAPPING INSIGHTS JANUARY 6, 2012 by Dick Powell Gulfstream Park's meet is about a month old, and even though it began a month early, not much has changed. It is still the speed-favoring main track that it was last year. Last year, after about a month of racing, after four weeks of racing, there were 45 six-furlong races run and they had a speed bias of 82 percent -- 27 percent of the six-furlong races were won gate to wire, and the winner was an average of 1.5 lengths behind at the first call. This year, there have been 37 six-furlong races and they had a speed bias of 78 percent -- 32percent of the six-furlong races this year were won gate to wire and the winner was an average of 1.3 lengths behind at the first call. The next most popular distance run on the main is one mile, and here the results are remarkably consistent. Last year, there were 50 races run after about four weeks of racing and 20 percent of them were won gate to wire and they had a speed bias of 62 percent. This year, there have been 35 races run at one mile on the main track and they had a speed bias of 66 percent -- 17 percent of them were won going gate to wire and the winner was an average of 1.9 lengths behind the winner. The turf races have been speed-favoring in sprints, but not going two turns. Last year there were 12 five-furlong races run on the turf and they had a speed rating of 67 percent -- 42 percent of them were won gate to wire and the winner was an average 1.3 lengths behind at the first call. This year, there have been nine five-furlong races run on the turf and they had a speed rating of 89 percent -- 11 percent of them were won gate to wire and the winner was an average of 1.5 lengths behind at the first call. At one mile on the turf, there were 15 one-mile races run and they had a speed bias of 7 percent -- 7 percent were won going gate to wire and the winner was an average of 6.1 lengths behind at the first call. This year, there were 29 races run at a mile on the turf and they had a speed bias of 41 percent -- 21 percent of them were won gate to wire and the winner was an average of 3.6 lengths behind at the first call. At 1 1/16 miles on the turf, there were 25 races run at the distance last year and they had a speed bias of 32 percent -- 20 percent of them were won gate to wire and the winner was an average of 3.8 lengths behind at the first call. This year, there were 31 races run at 1 1/16 miles on the turf and they had speed bias of 36 percent -- 19 percent of them were won gate to wire and the winner was an average of 4.3 lengths behind at the first call. I've given up on studying the effect of rail placement has on how the turf races are run. Just when I thought I had it figured out, last year's meet defied the trends I had noted. It still pays to know where the rail was placed since Gulfstream essentially has two turf courses and if it were Belmont or Saratoga, you would want to know if the race was run on the inner or main turf course. *** Rick Lang passed away this week at the age of 62, and for those of us who knew him, it hit hard. The amazing thing about Rick was how sick he was 12 years ago and at that point his situation looked hopeless. We spent an hour talking in the Saratoga box section one day that year and he was very candid about the outlook for his cancer. Luckily, he went out of the country and participated in some radical treatments for it and wound up not only surviving but living a full life. If you didn't know him, you would never know he had been that sick. He looked great and never even lost his hair. As a member of the bald community my entire adult life, you notice such things. Rick knew just about everybody in horse racing and even more outside of it. He knew the backside, front side, press box, owners, trainers, jockeys, hot walkers, etc. When Rick dropped a name, which he was prone to do, it wasn't like he was making up a relationship with someone. If Rick said he knew them, he knew them and they knew him. Back in the glory days of the New York newspapers covering horse racing the way they did, the person that sat in the seat for the New York Post had as much clout as anyone. For years, it John Piesen who was the lead handicapper and gave his impressions of the races the day before with his "through the binocs" piece. Rick took that over and did a great job. He also won handicapping contests all over the East Coast and always had an opinion. One thing I never saw Rick do was big-time anyone. He would talk to other people and give their opinions the same value as his. I was talking to Jeanne Wood of Capital OTB the other day after the news of Rick's death became public and she said that Rick was always nice to her when she joined the business. A lot of times newcomers to the racing media are met with resistance by those that are already in it, but not Rick. If there was a Danny Aiello look-a-like contest, Rick would have won it hands down. He even sounded like Danny Aiello. We would always catch up when I saw him in Saratoga and this year's meet will definitely be different without him.
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