posted April 12, 2007 at 19:40 EST in Triple Crown Articles

Having the best horse is no guarantee that anyone will win a particular race and, when you add off tracks to the equation, there are just a lot of ways to get beat.

Like all races, there are different ways to approach racing on off surfaces, which include slop, mud, wet/fast, good, and heavy going.

Most of the time, bettors on the West Coast don’t have to put up with off surfaces and, with the advent of the synthetic track, which will be mandated for every major Southern California track by the beginning of next year, bettors will have evaluate the differences between Polytrack and Cushion Track and not wet strips.

In the East, it’s a whole new ballgame.

Just like with everything else, experience plays a key part in the equation. A well-versed gambler will be attuned to the pedigree profile of each entrant and therefore have a pretty good clue on what type of breeding will excel on today’s off surface.

There are a number of pedigree publications that can aid the bettor in evaluating sires and how their runners will perform on off tracks. Brisnet has information available and the Daily Racing Form has incorporated Tomlinson Ratings. Pedigree guru Lee Tomlinson has developed numbers based on the sire and maternal sire that will assess one’s likely aptitude on muddy or sloppy tracks and also on turf.

 

A mud rating of 320-plus suggests further consideration of a horse in muddy conditions.

Personally, I have never been quite at ease accepting a number as the cure-all, but there is a foundation for these figures, and Mr. Tomlinson has the credentials.

His ratings cover over 11,000 sires and, after years of investment banking, Tomlinson, who has been around the sport since he was a teenager, now devotes his time to the game and to his family. These are valid numbers.

Generally, a few sires that have positive positions on off tracks include Blushing Groom, Dixieland Band, Relaunch, Sky Classic, Flying Victor, Pleasant Colony and Two Punch.

Physical make-up of the feet also can come into play. Small feet, those less likely to be stuck in the mud, are usually preferred on off surfaces while large, round feet usually have a harder time of gliding over a muddy surface.

Getting to examine the runner is not easy, especially in this era of the simulcast where you are lucky to get a 3-second glimpse at a runner in a post parade rather than a full examination of his physical well-being.

For years, tracks in California have used a sealed surface for helping promote speed on off tracks. If the track maintenance chief can get a head start on the weather - in other words, have a forecast that predicts rain for the next day - he can seal the track after an afternoon’s races. The sealing process is a rolling of the track by huge machines that will pack down the track and not allow the moisture to seep in. These produce some of the more speed favoring tracks players will ever see.

If the rains come during the day’s racing program, the track superintendent has a much tougher job. He can’t seal the track during the races, that would be unfair, and it also wouldn’t work properly after the rain has started.

Muddy tracks tend to be tiring, and therefore kind to late-runners and stone-cold closers.

 

Before making dye-in-the-wool evaluations of a particular surface, know that they are not all the same. A muddy strip at Laurel will not be the same as a muddy strip at Aqueduct or Churchill Downs, where the Kentucky Derby is held. And a sloppy track can differ from venue to venue, depending on the way each region maintains its track.

If a horse has shown an affinity for, say, a wet/fast surface at Santa Anita, and gets a similar wet/fast strip at a later date, then players must assume that the runner is primed for a big race.

Bettors, if possible, should consider a runner’s siblings and if those siblings did well on off surfaces before going bonkers at the betting windows.

Before really throwing it down on races that are conducted on off tracks, a player has to also have a reasonable clue of how the track has played recently leading up to the off going and in the first couple of events of the day. If a suspect speed runner is allowed to glide along on say a wet/fast strip and just keeps on going, that can be a clue that the surface is speed-conducive and one should look for a runner with early speed.

Some horses are not brave, either. When they get mud or slop kicked in their face, some just refuse to run.

Finally, realize that all surfaces are not created equal and tread lightly unless you have all your off-track data ducks in a row.

Good luck.

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