Churchill Downs dirt today

The Indomitable DrugS · #1 10-31-2010, 09:37 PM

5 of the 9 dirt races today were won by winning margins of 4 lengths or more.

Here are the final times (by way of Formulator) of the 2nd place finishers in today's nine dirt races:

Race #1: 1:13.50

Race #2: 1:13.60

Race #3: 1:39.65

Race #5: 1:49.93 (<-- 8.5 furlongs)

Race #6: 1:12.96

Race #8: 1:38.93

Race #9: 1:19.27

Race #10: 1:39.54

Race #11: 1:13.68

Basically - the track is significantly slower than par...and races are breaking apart.

The Iroquois Stakes was the slowest edition of that race in the last 25 years.. and the field was still strung out by a city block.

The Pocahontas was the 3rd slowest edition of the race since '94 and it featured an even money favorite winning in blowout fashion.

These much slower than par laboring dirt racetracks rarely favor deep closers like people always assume. More often than not they favor speed and pressing types who can relax well - if they favor any style at all.

If the track is like this for the BC days - I don't know how it will impact my betting - other than I'd feel like races might become more wide open for the 3rd and 4th slots in single race exotics. I will probably put a little more emphasis on playing P3's and P4's than tri's and super's.

This trend of always trying to slow down the track annoys me. I think it's complete BS that it somehow makes a track safer.

You've seen the NYRA tracks become markedly slower since the new track super was employed.

AQU's big 3yo race was won by Eskendreya in blowout fashion (3rd slowest Wood since 1991 - he never ran again) Belmont's big 3yo race was won by Drosselmeyer (slowest Belmont since 1994 - he never ran again) - Saratoga's big 3yo race was won by Afleet Express (slowest Travers since 1998 - he never ran again) ... the King's Bishop winner Discreetly Mine won the slowest ever edition of that race and hasn't run again.

I don't know if Churchill has this track like this because they think it might help Zenyatta's chances - or because they think slower tracks somehow translate to safer tracks ... but if the track stays like this .. some of these battles for 3rd and 4th place will look like battles of attrition and perhaps the edge in these stagger fests might go to the fittest and not necessarily the most deserving.