Track trends: Winning favorites and field sizes last week
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Winning favorites dropped for the second consecutive week, down to 34 percent for the seven days ended Feb. 20 from the previous week’s 38 percent. Total races run increased to 547 from 517. Field size remained virtually unchanged.
Tapeta time
Synthetic racing had a similar amount of action as the prior week, with many races rained off the turf once again at Gulfstream Park. More value was available to bettors, however, as favorites won 30 percent of the time on the synthetic in comparison to 40 percent the week before.
Of the three synthetic tracks, favorites won most often at Golden Gate. Turfway was where they won the least (26 percent) but also where average field size was the highest of any track across the country last week at 10.0.
Greener grass
Turf racing offered the most vulnerable chalk. Favorites won 19 percent of the time on turf last week in comparison to a much higher rate of 39 percent the week prior. Horses outran their odds on the grass at tracks across the country such as Fair Grounds, Sam Houston and Tampa Bay Downs. Sam Houston went from having some of the highest percentages of winning favorites to some of the lowest on both dirt and turf. Even at tracks such as Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita, the turf provided more value opportunities to bettors more so than dirt.
Overall for 2022, favorites have won 37.7 percent of all races, slightly up from 35.3 percent through the first 51 days of both 2020 and 2021.
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