| RANDOM THOUGHTS FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA | ||||
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| Friday, 24 August 2007 | |
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By Patrick Hagan With the Del Mar meet now in its 6th week, I have to say that my interest in the sport is as high as it’s been in the last 10 years. The Southern California racing circuit, in general, is currently enjoying a renaissance that was certainly long overdue. It all started with the 2006 Fall Meet at Hollywood Park. Investing a little more than $8 million dollars on the “Cushion Track” Hollywood Park has an extremely successful fall meet – one that saw average field sizes spike up 8.3 horses a race – the highest it had ever been in more than a decade at the venerable Inglewood facility. Horses were coming out of their races better and fatalities were reduced twenty-fold. With the anticipation of the new racing surface, trainers Ron Ellis and Vladimir Cerin moved their entire operations over from their longtime Santa Anita base to Hollywood Park. That moved paid off handsomely for both trainers (as I’ll touch on later). Let’s fast forward to the 2007 Spring/Summer meet at Hollywood Park. For the first time in over 20 years, the barn area on the Hollywood Park backstretch was completely full. They actually turned away many applicants because every stall was taken. Who would have ever imagined that Hollywood Park would ever turn stall applicants away? The meet was a resounding success. Hollywood Park averaged 8.8 horses a race (the highest in a very long time there), Friday night attendance shot up 35%, Lava Man became the 2nd horse ever to win the Hollywood Gold Cup three years in a row (tying Native Diver), a world record $10.8 million pool in the Pick Six on July 2nd (after a 5-day carryover), the youngest rider to win the leading jockey title (Michael Baze) in 50 years and a tie for leading trainer (Doug O’Neill and Jeff Mullins shared the honor). That leads us to Del Mar – where “the surf meets the turf”. Del Mar unveiled its much publicized Polytrack racing surface after years of equine fatalities on its much maligned dirt surface. After 5 1/2 weeks of racing, my thoughts are that it plays eerily similar to that of Keeneland’s. The times are obviously slower than those that have been yielded at the polytrack surfaces at Arlington Park and Woodbine. To further elaborate on the similarities between the polytrack surfaces at both Keeneland and Del Mar, here they are: · Speed/pace pressers dominate in sprints.· Mid-pack/closers have fared extremely well in routes.· The 4-5 wide path plays like a conveyor belt. Back to Southern California-based trainers Ron Ellis and Vladimir Cerin. I brought up the fact that both Ellis and Cerin moved their base from SantaAnita to Hollywood Park before the 2006 Hollywood Park Fall Meet. It was no coincidence that both trainers were winning races at a high percentage clip Ellis had an amazing 2007 Hollywood Spring/Summer meet. He won at a 40% clip, sent out a stakes winner in Buzzards Bay and posted a winning ROI (Return on Investment) with his starters. Cerin won at his usual 22% clip and excelled with high-end claiming types and even popped with a first-time starter (Leonides). To see how much the Polytrack/Cushion Track era has changed the landscape in Southern California, consider that both of the Grade 1 races so far contested at Del Mar have been won by out-of-town shippers. New York-based trainer Christophe Clement sent out crack turf sprinter In Summation in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby on the 2nd weekend of the meet and scored at 8/1. Last weekend, Midwest-based 5-year-old Student Council, a classy Kingmambo horse, shipped West and took the Grade 1 Pacific Classic at 23/1 in convincing style. Any guesses as to who the trainer of Student Council is? Vladimir Cerin. While Cerin, Ron Ellis, Jeff Mullins and Doug O’Neill have adjusted their training methods due to the synthetic surface era we now live in, trainers Bruce Headley and Bob Baffert – formerly 30% trainers on this circuit, have not adjusted their training techniques and their winning percentages are less than 10%. Baffert has all but disappeared and relocated his stock to New York, while Headley continues his losing ways in Southern California. Handicapping is a game of adjustments. Just as trainers have had to adjust to the synthetic racing surfaces here, so do we as handicappers. Follow the trends and you’ll come out of it better than you entered in. |
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