A couple of new features in our race charts are now available.  The “continuum” of speed figures allows you to scroll through all of each horse’s career races to see the TFUS speed figures that they have run before and after the subject race.  Just click on the arrows on either side…

….and there you go; color coded as usual.

In addition, if you click on the arrows next to the race number (see the blue arrows in the upper left above), you can scroll through the entire card for that day, in order to see how your subject race compared to the others in terms of running style (possible track bias) and time (adjusted fractions available for all races).

And there is, of course, more to come.  We’ll be incorporating our track bias information (for dirt and synth races) in a way which will hopefully make it unnecessary to scroll through the races for that purpose, which will give you time to spend on other things. And, we’re working on making each and every one of those boxes link to the race chart behind it.  Well, at least for domestic races.

For you foreign race fans, another day of racing at Meydan on Thursday.  And because we really really want you to check out our foreign race past performances, we are offering the entire card for free for everyone.  Dig it!  More information on that is here.

– Always a lot of talk these days about field sizes, or the lack thereof.  Just out of curiosity, I set Race Finder today for all of the afternoon tracks (seven of them), all surfaces/race classes/purses/etc., and set the field size on ten and above.  This is what I got.

Pretty weak, eh?  Just seven races from the seven tracks; six of them in Florida.

Well, let’s take a closer look at one of them – the 9th at Gulfstream. Remember, our unlimited plans, daily or monthly, work great with Race Finder; just click on the Preview or Fast PPs box and go directly to any race.  As we’ve said, we like to start with the Preview page.

Morning line favorite Ack Rider (4-1) makes his second career start, for trainer Chad Brown.  This barn is nearly perfect in every category….except, curiously and for whatever it is (or isn’t) worth, a couple of categories relevant to this race.

This horse had all kinds of trouble before and during the race in his last as shown in our long chart comment.  (If you’re using the competition, you’d only know that he had a “poor start” and was four wide.)

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he encountered a sluggish pace which actually picked up towards the end, and still managed to improve position.  Here, he drops in class from a 75K maiden claimer to 35K (and from a race with a race rating of 70 to one with a 59). With a better start, he certainly figures to have a shot.  Still, I’d say that he is rather speculative given the lack of real data from his debut, and if he gets bet as his trainer’s horses tend to be, it may be worth your while looking elsewhere.

There are two horses tied for the top Spotlight Figure of 63.  Lincoln Zephyr, the #12 horse, is projected to be involved in the fast pace.  Valid Concept (#6, 8-1) is designated as a ‘Closer’ and therefore is more what we’d be looking for here. Here’s a horse who seems to thrive on racing….not to mention, and probably more significantly, a drop to the maiden claiming ranks.

Dropping to this 35K maiden claiming level two races back, Valid Concept got the kind of quick pace (denoted in red) that we expect to see today, and just missed, despite quite a lot of trouble in the stretch drive.  (Though if you’re using the competition, all you see is “Brief wait turn, missed.”)  The pace in his last race was not nearly as kind to his running style; still he rallied for third.  Figures to be good value in the win spot and/or using in the exacta with the Chad Brown horse if you can’t resist, especially with Lezcano jumping off to ride the latter.  Best of luck and have a great day.