By Noel Michaels - see profile

The Gulfstream Park meet is 2 1/2 months old and we are already approaching the centerpiece of the meet – Florida Derby Day – on Saturday, March 20. There is still one month left in the marquee East coast winter meet, but we have already seen more than enough racing at this point to give us plenty of valuable information to provide for a profitable month ahead for Florida Derby Day and beyond. The information we’ve gleaned at Gulfstream from early January until now should be enough to give us the framework for a profitable stretch-run through the end of South Florida’s premier race meet at Gulfstream.

Gulfstream offers the East’s top winter stakes program, which is headlined by Florida Derby Day and its 5 Graded stakes races including the featured Grade 1, $750,000 Florida Derby, which will be the final Kentucky Derby prep race for several promising Derby hopefuls. The Florida Derby will go as race 11 of a 12-race card that also includes renewals of the G2-Bonnie Miss Stakes for 3-year-old filly Kentucky Oaks aspirants, and the G2 Swale Stakes, a sprint for 3-year-olds, as well as the G3 Rampart Stakes and the Grade 3 Appleton Stakes.

And take note! For handicappers looking ahead to Saturday’s festivities, there’s good news in the weather department: Sunny skies are predicted for Friday and Saturday, and the track is expected to provide ideal fast and firm racing conditions for Saturday’s card.

Needless to say, the Florida Derby remains one of the most important stepping stones on the road to the Kentucky Derby now more than ever. In the decade of the 2000s, three Florida Derby winners went on to win the Kentucky Derby including 2001 winner Monarchos, 2006 winner Barbaro, and 2008 champion Big Brown.

This year’s Florida Derby was supposed to feature current winter book Kentucky Derby favorite Eskendereya until trainer Todd Pletcher threw everyone a curveball and opted to send Eskendereya to the Wood Memorial on April 3. Pletcher will still send out the Florida Derby favorite, however, which perhaps entered into his decision with Eskendereya. The new 5-2 morning-line chalk will be Pletcher’s Rule, the winner of four races in a row including back-to-back graded stakes victories in the Delta Jackpot at Delta Downs and the Sam F. Davis at Tampa Bay Downs.

Rule might be a quality standout and a truly deserving favorite, but unlike his stablemate Eskendereya, Rule certainly did not frighten anyone away from the Florida Derby field, and if anything might have been responsible for bringing new horses in. The Florida Derby field was drawn on Wednesday with a full wide-open field of 11 horses.

Some of the standouts in the Florida Derby field besides Rule include Richard Dutrow’s highly-regarded Radiohead, who exits an impressive mile win at Gulfstream last month, and, of course, the much talked about Lentenor, the little brother of 2006 Florida Derby and Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro.

The Florida Derby will be Lentenor’s first start on dirt, and Radiohead was unfortunate enough at the post position draw to land the far outside post 11, which has been nearly impossible to win from in the last several years (unless your name happens to be Big Brown, the eventual Kentucky Derby winner who overcame post 12 to win the 2008 Florida Derby for these same connections – trainer Richard Dutrow and owners IEAH Stables).

If history does not repeat itself, either with Lentenor or Radiohead, then the list of challengers to Rule consists of a field full of promising horses who have yet to distinguish themselves against top competition but still have enough time to step up and make a strong move forward in time to make them contenders on the First Saturday in May. That list of horses is headed by Nick Zito’s Ice Box, who had a tough trip en route to a fifth-place finish in the Fountain of Youth, and the Dale Romans-trained First Dude, who has never finished worse than second in four career outings so far. New York win king Ramon Dominguez will fly down to Gulfstream Saturday to accept the mount on First Dude, considerably raising that horse’s stock.

And as if that wasn’t enough 3-year-old action on the card for Kentucky Derby hopefuls, Saturday’s Gulfstream card will also feature the heavily-favored Hutcheson Stakes winner D’Funnybone in the Swale Stakes. When the day is done, between D’Funnybone and Radiohead, trainer Richard Dutrow is likely to have at least one and perhaps ever two serious Derby contenders on his hands heading to Churchill Downs.

Any big day of racing, including Florida Derby Day, is always a lot better from a horseplayer’s point of view when you are winning races and cashing tickets, and the best way to accomplish that task is to carefully comb the past performances for trainer angles and to pay attention to certain other meet-specific handicapping tips that have proven themselves to be profitable. At Gulfstream this includes running-style and post position biases that tend to prevail on a fairly consistent basis dating all the way back to 2005 when the main track was reconfigured to its current mile-and-an-eighth layout.

Here are some Gulfstream handicapping tips, not only to help you win on Florida Derby Day, but also to come in handy for the rest of the Gulfstream meet through the end of April.

In Gulfstream dirt races, the prevailing track bias tends to favor horses with early speed, or at least tactical speed, at all distances. Stalkers and mid-pack horses sometimes run well, but deep closers are generally not the best plays at Gulfstream Park, except on days when the temporary bias helps out closers and works against speed.

Beyond just the prevailing biases, don’t overlook those important daily track biases when handicapping Gulfstream, which can be filled with a variety of track biases that end up affecting the outcomes of the races in several different ways. Keeping track of biases can lead you to some interesting overlays that offer good value, while at the same time helping you steer clear of horses that have been aided by track biases in recent good efforts. Handicappers should not underestimate the impact that these biases can have on the race results. This bias information can be invaluable when it comes to evaluating the relative strength or weakness of the contenders in future races in cases where horses are exiting races where they ran with, or against, a noticeable track bias.

Below are my personal track bias notes for Gulfstream Park from mid-February through mid-March. On a day-to-day basis I have also followed the position of the turf rails on the Gulfstream grass course, which this season has been divided into inner and outer turf courses to help the condition of the course and thereby maximize the amount of grass racing that’s possible at the meet.

The notes on the position of the turf rails are included for a very important reason. This is because it is always very difficult for horses to go wire-to-wire on the turf at Gulfstream. For whatever reason, the Gulfstream grass course almost always favors stalkers or closers, or perhaps even pressers, and this has been the case consistently since the track changed configurations in 2005. However, this is not to say that speed horses and early pace horses cannot win at Gulfstream. There are three instances when pace horses tend to perform well on these turf courses: 1) The horse is the lone speed in the race, preferably from an inside post, 2) The horse has a large class edge on the rest of the field, and 3) When the turf rails are moved out from the hedge – the farther the better.

Gulfstream Track Biases and Turf Rail Positions (Feb. 15 – March 7)
March 7 – Turf rail 24 ft. races 8,10; rail 96 ft. race 6,9,11
March 6 – Turf rail 24 ft. races 8,10; rail 96 ft. races 5,7,9
March 5 – Turf rail 24 ft. races 4,8; rail 96 ft. races 6,9
March 4 – Turf rail 24 ft. races 4,6,9; rail 96 ft. race 8
March 3 – All dirt winners close to the pace; Turf rail 24 ft. races 2,5,9; rail 96 ft. race 7
Feb. 28 – Turf rail 12 ft races 7,9, rail 84 ft. races 2,8,10
Feb. 27 – Turf rail 12 ft races 6,9, rail 84 ft. race 5
Feb. 26 – Speed and the rail good on dirt; turf rail 12 ft race 6,9, rail 84 ft. races 4,8
Feb. 25 – Turf rail 12 ft races 5,9, rail 84 ft. race 7
Feb. 21 – Dead rail on the main track; turf rail 72 ft races 7,9
Feb. 20 – Turf rail 72 ft. races 1,5,9
Feb. 19 – Turf rail 72 ft. races 4,8
Feb. 18 – Turf rail 72 ft. races 8
Feb. 17 – Turf rail 72 ft. races 6,8
Feb. 15 – Turf rail 48 ft. races 5,7,9

Beyond the prevailing running style biases for Gulfstream to favor horses with tactical speed on dirt and stalkers and closers on the turf, the other primary Gulfstream prevailing track bias revolves around post positions.

Gulfstream one-turn dirt races favor outside paths, while Gulfstream two-turn races favor inside posts. When you are stuck between two or more contenders in a race and can’t make up your mind based on any other information, let these two rules be your guide to making your final decision and you probably will seldom go wrong. This particularly pertains to all horses breaking from the rail post position in Gulfstream sprints from 6F to one mile, and to horses breaking outside post 6 in two-turn dirt routes. These posts are always at a disadvantage, and this is no short-term statement. It has always been this way on Gulfstream’s current track layout, which has been in place since 2005.


2010 GULFSTREAM PARK WINNING POSTS
Sprints up to one-mile – Dirt
Post Wins Starts %
1 34 301 11%
2 44 301 15%
3 20 301 7%
4 36 301 12%
5 33 300 11%
6 32 291 11%
7 29 272 11%
8 26 233 11%
9 17 183 9%
10 15 134 11%
11 11 101 11%
12 4 61 7%

Two-turn routes – Dirt
Post Wins Starts %
1 5 28 18%
2 3 28 11%
3 4 28 14%
4 6 28 21%
5 3 27 11%
6 3 25 12%
7 1 20 5%
8 1 13 8%
9 1 13 8%
10 1 8 13%
11 0 4 0%
12 0 1 0%


Interestingly, unlike in Gulfstream’s two-turn dirt races, outside post positions have never been much of a detriment for horses in two-turn turf races. This is opposite to the way most tracks play where inside draws are key factors in winning turf routes. More often than not at Gulfstream, running style – not post draw – has been a key determining factor how well a horse is expected to run on the Gulfstream lawn.


2010 GULFSTREAM PARK WINNING POSTS
Turf Sprints
Post Wins Starts %
1 1 28 4%
2 0 28 0%
3 7 28 25%
4 2 28 7%
5 2 28 7%
6 0 28 0%
7 6 28 21%
8 4 26 15%
9 2 23 9%
10 4 15 27%
11 0 12 0%
12 0 6 0%

Two-turn routes 7-1/2F and longer – Turf
Post Wins Starts %
1 20 137 15%
2 12 137 9%
3 10 137 7%
4 14 137 10%
5 14 137 10%
6 10 137 7%
7 8 135 6%
8 9 128 7%
9 13 118 11%
10 15 106 14%
11 8 91 9%
12-14 4 67 6%

All the handicapping angles in this article are for a horseplayer’s general information and are intended to help bettors identify which of their selections might be in better positions to perform optimally than others who may not be in quite as good situations due to either their running style, their post positions, and whether or not their recent past performances were earned with or against the help of any track bias.

Good luck on Florida Derby Day, and I hope you enjoy a profitable final month of action at Gulfstream Park.

(printed with permission from Nassau OTB)