Last week I decided to eliminate most of the Thoroughbred Analytics proprietary metrics and focus solely on Speed and Lengths Gained. The experiment showed mixed results, but upon further analysis gave me reason to believe that I’m on to something.

I was under the belief that if the pace scenario seemed like it was going to be fast weigh the lengths gained metric more, if the pace scenario seemed like it was going to be slow weigh the speed metric more-this was absolutely wrong, but speed and lengths gained are crucial.

I handicapped 4 races at Hollywood Park’s all-weather track, 4 races at Aqueduct (3 turf, 1 dirt) and then on my own time 4 races at Gulfstream (2 turf, 2 dirt) The speed and lengths gained metric when combined offered me absolutely no help on the dirt- I failed miserably in all three races, it was embarrassing. Of course, just like how science stumbled upon penicillin and Viagra, I stumbled upon a new handicapping technique.

I bombed on all three dirt races and had mixed results on the all weather surface, but then there was turf. In 5 turf races the winner was accurately predicted 4 out of five times when weighing speed, post-position and lengths gained while weighing lengths gained the most. In four of the five races, the winner scored the highest or second highest in lengths gained!

What makes this all the more interesting is that the races that were studied all unfolded very differently with very different pace scenarios, but 4 out of five times the winner of the lengths gained metric was there at the end. It was also interesting to note that neither speed nor lengths gained seemed to predict dirt races very well, I found that traditional handicapping would’ve served me better.

So, what does this all mean?

It seems like my speed/lengths gained theory isn’t working well on dirt so there is no reason to pursue it further, but I want to see if the success I had on turf was a fluke or not. The problem is all the turf races were at a mile and a sixteenth, so it may be the turf or it may be the distance, who knows?

This weekend I am going to handicap only turf races at two different tracks at two different at a multitude of distances. If I am on to something, and that’s a big if, then this may be the biggest handicapping discovery of the decade. So, here’s the gameplan: I am going to use speed, and lengths gained while incorporating post positions as well. I’ll weigh lengths gained slightly more than speed regardless of the pace scenario. I would also like to incorporate horses passed as this may help as well. It seems that all of these turf races can be boiled down to a sprint from the three-eighths pole to the wire in spite of the preconceived notions of dirt handicapping more simplistic than turf handicapping.

I am going to recap each race on the blog next week. I’ll reveal the picks beforehand just so everyone knows that they are legit. I’ll reveal the formula I used to come up with them in detail in next weeks blog. Wish me luck!

Picks for Churchill Downs on Saturday, Nov. 16, 2013

Race 3

1. Win: Laser Cat
2. Place: Kicker
3. Show: Lemon Hero

Race 7

1. Win:Golden Sabre
2. Place: Dorsett
3. Show: Layton Register

Race 8

1. Win: H Town Brown
2. Place: Gambler’s Ghost
3. Show: Hat of Jacks

Race 9

1. Win: I’m Already Sexy
2. Place: Emotional Kitten
3. Show: Zero Game