Why do horses end up in races which are “not the ideal spot”?

Sometimes a horse goes in a race that is too short, too long, claiming instead of allowance, allowance instead of claiming, turf instead of dirt, etc. etc. In a perfect world to use one example, we’d only run a horse like Big Apple Brit for $10,000 - $16,000 claiming long. In the real world, if we enter in that perfect race and it doesn’t go and the horse is doing well and ready to run and something else reasonably close is offered, we usually enter. ‘Brit’ has been 2^nd, and 4^th recently in races at 6 & 5.5 furlongs, when we’d much rather run him at a mile or over.  Better to run 2^nd and make some money or 4^th and pick up almost a month’s training bill, rather than sit in the barn. At least that’s how we see it.

That said, there’s a huge difference in any stable’s win percentage with races that are less than ideal, and races where the horse really fits. If only races listed in the condition books at various racetracks were used with even reasonable regularity, this would be a MUCH easier and more manageable business. Instead, the 9 or 10 “book races” are usually just half (if that) of the races the racing office chooses from that day, including “sub races”, “extras”, etc. The result is, you point your horse to a race listed in the condition book weeks in advance, without having any real idea if that race will actually ever be used. How does that effect your winning percentages? Let’s look at Kenwood’s results for the first quarter of 2014 for starters. Admittedly a limited time frame for one stable, but it will give you some idea of the difference. Here’s a list of all our races for January – March 2014 in chronological order. On the far right of each race we list if it was a good spot (a race we planned to enter in) or a marginal spot (a race we entered in only after one or more races we planned to enter in didn’t go). Take a look….

Totals;        Starts         Wins           2nds           3rds

Marginal     10              0                 1                 1

Good          14             2                 3                 2

It doesn’t take much to see the difference. Actually, the ‘Good’ percentage should be even higher, Hug a Tree won and was disqualified to 4^th (a terrible decision by the stewards by all accounts) on March 12^th. Not to say that horses didn’t run poorly in some of the ‘Good’ races too. Listening Ears ran twice in very good spots and plain ran bad. Same for Love That Kelly, a new claim that just didn’t fire for us. Good to Gold’s 9^th on January 18^th was the last race in her fine career, she came up with a breathing problem and was retired to a good home. Big Apple Brit was badly bumped on January 25^th, so much so a horse was disqualified for impending him. Had that not happened he almost certainly would have hit the board. That’s all racing luck. Bottom line, our percentages in good races were dramatically better than in the marginal ones. The marginal races did include three 4^th place finishes as listed above. Even with no wins in 10 marginal starts our 1 second, 1 third, and 3 fourths certainly earned sufficient purse income to make the entries worthwhile.

Again, this was just a brief snapshot in time for our own racing operation. A review covering a full year for several different stables might look a little different, but probably not dramatically so. One thing that WAS obviously different about the first quarter of 2014 is it was a particularly tough time to find ‘Good’ races. All the northeast tracks lost a huge number of racing days due to weather, Parx was hit by a quarantine, and racing at Gulfstream Park in Florida always offers very limited opportunities to run in the right spots. A more normal time period would certainly have a higher percentage of good spots, at least for us. Typically, 70-75% of our races are at least reasonable spots to run in, perhaps not ideal races, but realistic given what the horse is capable of. When you see over 40% of starts in marginal races as above, you can be almost certain your overall percentages will suffer, as they did for us in the first quarter of 2014.

Bottom line here is simple; as the old saying goes, you keep yourself in the best company and your horses in the worst company. You look to run in logical, realistic spots, on the right surface, at the right distance, against company the horse can compete with. The more often you do that, the higher your winning and in-the-money percentages will be. That said, the way the game is structured, it’s simply not possible to always run in the kind of race you want to, unless you want to sit in the barn for months at a time with $800.00 - $1,000 a week in training bills and no purse income to offset them. Sometimes, you run in a marginable spot, knowing you aren’t likely to win, but can use the race as a stepping stone while waiting for the next good race to come along, hopefully picking up enough purse money to pay some bills in the meantime.