Three weeks into the Saratoga meet

So far there have been 16 fast tracks out of the 21 days of racing that have occurred. There have been 59 sprint races and a paltry 11 route races run on a fast track as well or roughly a 5/1 ratio of sprints to routes. There have been five stakes races run at a distance of ground which narrows the amount of route races down to six races. This inflates the margin to 9/1, which equates to one full day of racing between route races run. There seems to be a trepidation towards running horses around two turns by the racing secretary, the trainers, or both.

The fastest surfaces of the meet so far came up on July 28, July 29, and August 2 with the surface coming up a full second faster than normal. The slowest day of the meet so far was on August 15 with races going a 1 1/5 seconds slower than usual. These figures are based on the track variant I have been calculating on my own due to the fact the Daily Racing Form does not show the daily track variants in its charts online.

Also of note is the average internal fractions of the sprint races

5 furlongs (only two races)

5 1/2 furlongs (8 races) 1/4: 22 1/5; 1/2: 45 4/5

6 furlongs (26 races) 1/4: 22 1/5; 1/2: 45 3/5

6 1/2 furlongs (9 races) 1/4: 21 4/5; 1/2: 45 1/5

7 furlongs (14 races) 1/4: 23; 1/2: 46

The six and half furlong races are posting the fastest splits out of the sprints run so far, in my research before the meet using the 2009 charts the same anomaly showed up. A horse that showed speed coming out of a 6 1/2 furlong race or horses that ran at this distance could be a handicapping angle that could be of use for the next few weeks with horses running back from earlier efforts at the spa.