Santa Anita Stats
With
the opening of the Santa Anita winter meeting this week, I thought it might be
a good time to analyze the Great Race Place — what kind of horses win there and
what kind of horses don’t.
In
a word, the name of the game at Santa Anita since the Pro-Ride surface was
removed is speed — as in early and
blazing.
But
before we get to that, let’s first take a peek at the configuration of the
track and get acquainted with some digits that every bettor should know — the
track takeout rates:
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| (Click on image to enlarge) |
In terms of the Santa Anita speed “bias” (I’ve grown to hate that word due to
its widespread overuse), below are my speed ration
pars and wire-to-wire win rates for both dirt and turf sprints/routes, along
with and some other interesting data:
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(Click on
image to enlarge)
|
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| (Click on image to enlarge) |
As you can see, the advantage of early speed on the dirt is pronounced, with over a third of those races won in gate-to-wire fashion — despite the fact that the average winning early speed ration (ESR) is healthy in both cases.
Hence,
it should come as no surprise that shippers from other speed-favoring venues do
very well at the Arcadia, Cal. strip. Among the tracks with the better ROIs are:
Belmont
Park (+61%)
Calder/Gulfstream
Park (+141%)
Remington
Park (+400%)
Saratoga
(+313%)
Conversely,
when horses ship to Santa Anita from tracks that favor stretch runners, the
results, like the Swallows of San Juan Capistrano, go south for the winter:
Churchill
Downs (-52%)
Del
Mar (-34%)
Keeneland
(-45%)
So,
when looking for winners at Santa Anita this winter, insist on horses that can
be in the mix early. If recent history is any guide, many of those horses will be
around late as well.
Weekend
Win Factor Reports
Saturday
