In this week’s installment, I’ll share my thoughts on a timely issue, raised in a recent question which I received on the site. Bob from Canada writes:

Some people who I respect a lot have advocated not betting during the winter, a fact which I totally disagree. Historically, my most profitable time at the Meadowlands is always the winter. Let’s look at some of the various factors that affect winter racing, one by one…. Then we’ll put them together and see how they work themselves into the handicapping and betting equation. Some of the factoids I put in here may be surprising to most of you. The following are not in any particular order, certainly not in order of importance:

1. In nature, horses are more prepared for cold weather than warm weather - I know the race times are slower, but horses are bred for cold weather. They don’t get cold, as their coats are prepared for it and insulate them nicely. Further, the have a very long nasal passage which warms up the air they breath before it gets to their lungs. It’s actually easier on them, from a natural perspective. Strangely, summer racing is much more stressful on the horses. Those humid, 85 degree nights or even worse, those 90+ degree days at Freehold (day racing) take much more of a toll on the horses system than winter racing. As such, the rationale for a "cooler" (an easy race or two after a series of hard-use efforts) is less in the winter. In the summer, rather, every time a horse gets used very hard in a race, it makes it that much more likely that it has taken a toll, and that an intentional easy one may be thrown in. Worse yet, that he may be burned out. Further, I am particularly suspicious in the summer of horses who suddenly wake up with a giant mile and lifetime mark. I’m suspicious because of what this may have taken out of him. In the winter, when the horses are actually under less natural stress then in the hot summer, I’m less concerned about these things.

2. An aspect which can affect racing and shape dramatically is the fact that colds and other illnesses travel best in cold air. Therefore, sickness among horses is more rampant. It also tends to spread within barns of a specific trainer, particularly if they stable at the track. You see a lot more late sick scratches in the winter. Also, unless they train a horse particularly hard, they may not know a horse is sick until he comes up short unexpectedly. Then they scope the horse, see all kinds of fluid, and the horse misses 2 or 3 weeks, followed by a lackluster effort, then suddenly, a wake up mile! Naturally, it can be frustrating if you bet on him tonight, but if this pattern does happen, you can use it to your advantage in later races by excusing the poor performance, even though there’s no "scr ill" line on the program. Also, at some tracks, early scratches due to illness do not show up on the program at all, leaving a time gap with no explanation. So if you are actually at the track, you can see or hear the program change, but it might not show up on the program. Be sure to make a note of it, and be sure to make a note of the stable, as it is rare that only one horse from a track-stabled outfit comes up sick. Be wary.

3. Another thing that occurs with the coming of winter is a lack of visibility due either to blowing snow or fog. This has a strange effect on the racing. Gaps seems to appear in the racing alignment for no apparent reason. Often, drivers in behind do not realize how that a gap has developed and how far back they are until it’s too late. Front-runners often get it easier here, as the flow develops too late and weakly to matter.

4. As I mentioned in my recent article on "Class", 2 of the less useful items shown on the program are final times and season(s) marks. These become even more useless in winter racing. Times are often slower and fluctuate more widely from night to night, even on fast tracks. Accordingly, times are useless. Further, certain horses are winter killers. They do it every year. They are turned out in August, take a full month or so off, then take 2 months training back are ready to roll in late December and January. If you look at "marks" for these horses, you might say, "eh…he’s not so fast, after all, he only had a mark last year of 155.2." But he did it in the dead of winter, with a 20 mph stiff wind blowing.

5. I’ll hit more on this later on, but depending on the layout of the track, particularly on 5/8 and mile tracks, a substantial portion of straight-away may be lined up directly into the face of the prevailing winds. It pays to know the directional orientation of your track. This can seem to make certain moves look less impressive than they really are.

6. The track surface is subject to more variance during the winter too. Again, this varies from track to track. An interesting phenomenon at the Meadowlands occurs in December - February, when the sun stays lowest in the sky. What happens is that during the day, the full winter sun hits the backstretch and softens that up, deepening it somewhat. But the grandstand provides shade from the full sun so that the stretch itself doesn’t get that much, and stays more frozen and harder. This can be particularly troublesome in evaluating qualifiers, which are raced during the day. These variances can greatly influence the effect of a move that a horse attempts.

My answers to winter racing are several. First of all, because times are erratic, and the bias of the track can gyrate greatly, not just between nights, but even during the night itself, becoming a student of bias-analysis and fraction-analysis is a very big weapon. No moves can be taken at face value. You must look even more carefully at the charts of the racing for that night and see what parts of the races were live, and which were not. Which moves were working, which were not. It’s not as simple as noticing a fast quarter. Every night, I take the charts and look for the horses who performed well in the stretch, and see where they came from.. I put a little summary directly on the charts, looks like this:

I do this not only for the winners, but for all horses who show good stretch energy. I really want to understand deeply where the action was. This is always valuable, but particularly so in winter because it varies so widely.

So while times can be incomparable from night to night, you can always get a true picture of the relative strength of a performance by closely examining the relationships between the fractions of races within a given night, as well as from night to night. Notice, it’s not the speed of these fractions, but the relative relationships that matter. A horse can be dull and come home in 29.2 one night, then the next week, in a much sharper effort, storm home in 31.4. Under summer conditions, there is often no way that one can justify the latter and understand it as a better stretch performance, but it the winter, we can. And this fakes out the people who look at the little "final quarter" column in the program. Even that little helpful tidbit of information must be ignored in winter racing. So it is even more important to compare the various races on a given night to see where the key portions were comparatively, without paying any attention to the actual time...relative speeds are much more important in the winter.

Another interesting fact, and it’s a very contrarian one, is the whole aspect of what constitutes good position. Ordinarily, 3rd on the rail might be a dead spot, forcing the horse to go first over and brush, or sit and risk being shuffled. In winter racing, my observation is that the winning moves are often the toughest ones - the ones that don’t work during the summer. Again, using the Meadowlands as an example, when the wind blows straight against the backstretch, it would seem that you wouldn’t want to make a move there, especially without cover. My observation over the past few years is that the "first-over-into-the-teeth-of-the-wind" move is the big winning one in the dead of winter at the Meadowlands!! And in order to do this, you need to be there, in a nice spot - like 3rd or 4th on the rail, with dead horses in front of you! Just where you wouldn’t want to be during the summer!

So if you are there, you’ve got to watch the race with a wide perspective to see what is working. You also have to watch the replays, so you can see what you missed. Even if you’re horse is in the photo and you’re waiting to see if you got it, if they start the replay on the TV, you’ve got to be watching it - heck with the tote board, you can’t learn anything from that now - it’s ancient history!

The other way to be effective in the winter is to keep track of which horses come alive, and how many starts back it takes them, and how they race before it becomes obvious they’re in shape. You’ve gotta know who those winter killers are at you’re track. 2 and 3 year olds, you don’t know. But the older horses tend to follow the same patterns, year after year. I’ve got my Meadowlands list ready baby - I’m ready to kill ‘em. I’ll know exactly when Eroticus is ready. Same with Danger of Fire, Mob Scene and a whole bunch of others. They’re like clockwork. It’s uncanny how they repeat the same patterns winter after winter. It’s almost unfair. You’ve gotta learn who these winter killers are at your track, and what they’re patterns are. One of my favorites is a dead-stone closer. I know he’s ready because, after about 3 or 4 starts, they wing him on the front end and he collapses. Next week, I pray for the 10 hole so I can get a big price.

And the biggest reason of all, the one thing you can only do at a racetrack in the dead of winter that you can’t do in the summer - the biggest reason of all to be there --- hot chocolate! You can sit out there, freeze your nuts off and grab a nice, hot cup of this stuff, man….yummmmmm does it taste good. It just don’t taste the same in the summer!!