When we do handicap horse racing, we use factors or attributes to evaluate the horses and estimate each runner’s chances of winning. Races run on dirt often have a different form than races run on grass. The first place to start estimating the value of each handicap factor is to study your local track or venues where you play. For example, the indoor grass course at Belmont is played differently than the Widener grass course.
Playing horses with early speed on the indoor turf course at Belmont makes sense because the early ones do well. Therefore, pace is one of the two main factors in race dynamics. Speaking of racing dynamics, the dynamics of a race is what actually happens while the horses are in motion and the race is running. Pace is a way of estimating position and energy during competition.
Pace is important in all races, but those horses that can set up good early fractions and have a bit in the tank to finish the race are likely candidates to win on tracks like indoor turf and most dirt tracks. On other grass pitches, the pace setting, while important, is often very different. Slow first fractions and a leisurely pace lead to a furious charge at the end of the race. In those races class and speed are more important.
Class horses win on the turf when it looks like they’re outdone by a speedball. Cheap early speed steals far more races on dirt than on grass, where going heavy leads to late-race fatigue. Some riders try to steal grass routes by getting so far ahead that they can’t be caught, but that racing strategy rarely works. Again, if you know how your grass field plays, you’ll have a better chance of spotting horses that fit the race pattern.
Another angle that is sometimes overlooked is having a list of sires that produce winners at a particular track. The progeny of some bulls seem to do well in certain courses and it is useful to know which horses should receive special consideration because of their sire. When handicapping dirt racing, that can be the case.
Dirt racing and speed go well together. Using speed figures alone won’t keep you in the black as a handicap, but they do matter. Combining speed and pace is the best way to meet the challenge of mastering the racing dynamics on gravel. Class is still important, but if I could only use two of the three factors, class, speed and pace when handicapping on clay, I would go for speed and pace.
