Saratoga 2021: 7 angles to win bets at the Spa this summer

Fans will be back for the first time in nearly two years. The newly laid main track is a year old. And the Pick 6 has a new $1 minimum.

Those may be the easy-to-spot talking points for Thursday’s opening of the Saratoga summer. Eventually it gets back to basics – handicapping angles for the 40 days of racing at the Spa.

Horse Racing Nation surveyed handicappers and insiders for a series of preview stories about both Saratoga and Del Mar, which also opens next week.

Part 1: Seven winning angles that may be the among the most important to consider before betting at Saratoga.

Belmont success may not transfer

Jeff Siegel, Xpressbet. Obviously, past success – or lack thereof – over the Saratoga dirt track and, to a lesser extent, the two turf courses provides a reason to anticipate form reversals from recent outings at Belmont Park, a.k.a. the “horse-for-course” theory. Two-turn, main-track events can be much more taxing than their one-turn equivalents at Big Sandy, so in races at nine furlongs and beyond, horses that have proven to be “true” routers are strongly preferred. The sprint-to-route angle always is enticing, but it can be vulnerable at Saratoga. Keep close tabs on any apparent track biases, especially over drying-out surfaces.

Who is really training?

Andy Serling, Fox Sports and NYRA TV. When I look up trainer stats, I will look up their numbers in Saratoga to see if they have significantly different numbers in Saratoga than they do at other racetracks. Steve Asmussen is somebody who I think is very important to separate figures between Saratoga and the other two NYRA tracks. The Asmussen horses at Belmont and Aqueduct are trained by (assistant) Toby Sheets, and they are the New York horses all year round. It’s a different situation in Saratoga for them shipping horses up, and Steve and/or (assistant) Scott Blasi are there. That’s a barn where I think their Saratoga numbers matter more than their New York numbers and their overall numbers in general. I try to separate and see if there’s a difference. For a lot of trainers it really isn’t that significant a difference, and obviously the number of starters is not necessarily as big. But I think with some trainers, you’ll see that they do better or worse at Saratoga than they might at other tracks.

Maintaining conditions

Tom Law, Saratoga Special. Maybe some trainers who don’t have that great of a Belmont meet in terms of wins, they keep a lot of conditions for their horses. They run a lot of maidens or first-level allowance horses at Belmont that are finishing second or finishing third. They still have the opportunity to run back in that condition when they get up here to Saratoga. They can be a force in races like that. Chad Brown has a ton of ‘other than’ grass horses that he can run – fillies and colts – and be a big factor in a lot of races. These horses have a little bit of experience under their belt, they come up here, and they’re ready to win.

Look past the big training names

Mike Shutty, HRN Super Screener. While Brown, Todd Pletcher, Christophe Clément and Bill Mott provide a huge volume of runners and winners for the Saratoga meet, keep an eye on trainer Jorge Abreu. He came out of nowhere last summer to win at a 31 percent clip from 32 starters, many of whom won at odds of 5-1 or higher. He appears primed for another strong meet this year while still flying under the radar.

Speed rules at 1 1/8 miles

Jarrod Horak, HRN. I have had success in recent years playing speed horses in nine-furlong races on the main track at Saratoga, and runners breaking from the three inside post positions can be especially dangerous.  Closers are able to win in dirt routes at Belmont Park due to the large circumference of the main track and the wide, sweeping turns. When those horses ship to Saratoga, they frequently take too much win action and are not able to duplicate their Big Sandy form.

Speed carries a certain edge

Ed DeRosa, Brisnet. Looking at data from the last four seasons (2017-20), it looks like a speed edge is most valuable in dirt routes and turf sprints. In dirt routes, if a horse has even just a one-point Quirin advantage, it has won at a 29 percent clip with a flat-bet profit of plus-36 percent. In general, non-maiden dirt routes are the most formful races as the top-ranked Brisnet Prime Power horse also has a flat-bet profit. In turf sprints Quirin Speed Points are especially potent. If there is any advantage, then it is a plus-3 percent flat-bet return on investment. So basically, I am definitely keen on early-speed routing on dirt and sprinting on turf.

Nuances with turf sprints

Shutty. The turf-sprint game at Saratoga is a whole different ballgame than the sprinting conducted on the turf at Belmont Park. The shortest turf sprint distance run at Belmont Park is six furlongs.  When they race at that distance on the inner-turf course, horses that close perform very well. Contrast that to turf sprints at Saratoga that are run at 5 1/2 furlongs around a much tighter turn. Horses that press are the much preferred Energy Distribution Profile at Saratoga. Horses from the outside posts perform far better than those that are leaving from the inside posts, and this is particularly true for races in which there are more than seven starters. Front-running sprinters that were favored but failed to score at Belmont Park often come back to win sprinting on the Saratoga turf course – and at better odds.  Learn more about the Super Screener advantage here.