As noted in some of the more recent posts and in the comments below, offspring of Kitten's Joy and owners Ken & Sarah Ramsey are off to a very nice start at the 2011 Keeneland fall meet.  Those conversations got me thinking about the overall record for Ramsey horses at Keeneland.

Below is a look at the record of horses owned by Ken and Sarah Ramsey since the start of the Keeneland Fall 2006 meet (and prior to the start of the 2011 fall meet).  I've separated horses sired by Kitten's Joy and those sired by any other horse.

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With the first day in the books for the Keeneland Fall meet it's time to turn to Day 2 and the four graded stakes races on tap in Lexington.  As is common for most days at Keeneland, today's card features a lot of races with big, deep fields; in other words, some really good betting races.

-There are two Maiden Special Weight races on the card (races 2 and 4), both at seven furlongs for juvenile fillies.  I've gone through each of the starters for those two races and pulled the data for each sire relating to how their runners have done on the Keeneland Polytrack since the fall 2006 meet.  The numbers do not include the first day of the 2011 meeting.

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Some items of note from the first day of the 2011 Keeneland Fall Meet (results via DRF.com):

-I really liked the performance of Aikenite to finish 2^nd in the Phoenix.  The distance of six furlongs isn't his best (he's better at 7f), and the track was playing heavily to the rail all day long, but he was able to use a late run in the three/four path to just miss the upset winner Hoofit at the wire.  Big run from Aikenite, a colt that appears to be in excellent form right now.  That race also flatters his Forego rivals - Jackson Bend and Jersey Town - and, in turn, the performance of Uncle Mo in the Kelso. Of course, it's important to note that Aikenite runs very well at Keeneland (5-2-2-0).

-Not to pick on Todd Schrupp from TVG, but sometimes his hyperbole is a little too much to take.  After Hoofit (NZ) won the Phoenix (a Win and You're In race for the Breeders' Cup Sprint), Schrupp went on and on about how "this is what the Win And You're In series is all about!", while quickly noting that Hoofit is not Breeders' Cup eligible and would need to be supplemented to run at Churchill. 

Look, I understand why the Breeders' Cup doesn't make the WAYI races a direct entry and still requires the horse to be BC eligible, but can TVG spare us with the over-the-top announcements that "this is what the series was designed for" when an allowance horse upsets a WAYI race and would require its owners to pony up $100,000 in order to run in Louisville?  What he should be saying is "this is why you want to make your horses Breeders' Cup eligible early in their careers - so you don't have to pay $100,000 to become Breeders' Cup eligible when they finally get good and win a big stakes race".

With his win in the Phoenix, Hoofit now has CAREER earnings of $175,000.  It's highly unlikely his owners are going to part with $100k to make him Breeders' Cup eligible.

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With the power of Excel/Access at my fingertips, and a wealth of Keeneland data to wade through, I thought I would look at first-time starters (specifically two-year-old FTS) and their performance at Keeneland since the conversion to Polytrack in the fall of 2006. 

Since fall of 2006, there have been 236 races on the Polytrack for two-year-old horses, with a total of 2,580 runners to contest those races.  1,103 of those horses were first-time-starters (42.8%). Juvenile first-time-starters have a record of 1103-83-93-93 during that time frame, winning at a 35.2% clip. 

A first-time-starter has gone off as the betting favorite 79 times in those 256 races, and won 38 of them (48.1%). The overall record for favorite first-time-starters is 79-38-11-7; if a FTS is the crowd choice, they seem to either win or miss the board entirely.

Something to think about with juvenile firsters that go off as the favorite on Poly: They represent 33.5% of all favorites, but only 14.8% of all winners (and only 4.3% of all Place horses and 2.5% of all Show horses). That's nothing earth-shattering (first-time-starters are volatile, unpredictable plays) but it re-enforces the notion that low odds on unknowns is a risky play. Sometimes the risk is rewarded, and sometimes it isn't.

Is there a time that a FTS is a slam dunk? Well, you could say that an "odds-on" FTS starter is almost a lock.  There have been 13 juvenile first-time-starters to go off at odds of even money or less over the Polytrack since fall of 2006. Seven have won, three finished 2nd, one 3rd, one 4th, and one finished 6th (13-7-3-1).

Odds-on juvenile firsters represent 15.2% of all FTS favorites, and 18.4% of the winners (if my numbers are correct).

Looking at those 83 first-time-starter winners on the Polytrack with an eye on pedigree, here are the top 10 sires for those winners:

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I finally got my super Keeneland database put together, which is a collection of every starter and result since the beginning of the Polytrack-era in the fall of 2006.  I'm a little pressed for time today so I'll have to dive into the numbers more in the future, but I wanted to highlight a couple of quick stats with respect to two-turn graded stakes races on the eve of the 2011 Fall meet.

Since the Fall 2006 meeting, there have 46 Graded stakes races contested at a mile or longer on the Polytrack surface.  Those 46 races have had 453 total starters. Of the total amount of starters, 92 are horses that have never started on a turf or synthetic surface, or roughly 20.3% of all starters.  Of those 92, only three have won and the total record for "dirt only" horses in those races is 92-3-9-10.

Those three winners were Great Hunter (G1-Breeders' Futurity; 5.80/1), Little Belle (G1-Ashland; 16.10/1), and Grilla (UAE Cup; 3.70/1). That UAE Cup is an Arabian race, so the numbers are actually even a bit worse. (If you take out the Arabian race, it's 87-2-9-9 for dirt only horses).

Furthermore, 11 dirt-only horses have gone off as the favorite in those 46 graded stakes races, and none have ever won.  The record for dirt-only horses that have gone off as the betting choice is 11-0-3-0.

While the Polytrack at Keeneland is fairer than you might think to dirt-only horses in many of the events (especially sprints), two-turn graded stakes races have seen those types of runners win less than their fair share.  Dirt-only horses make up 20% of the starters in two-turn graded stakes races, but only 6.5% of the winners. Conversely, horses with a start over turf and/or synthetic represent 79.7% of all starters (361), but 93.5% of all winners (43).

Since the Yearling Sale is maybe the best off track indicator of the strength of the sport, I wanted to take a quick look into the specifics of the sale to see if any trends could be identified. I picked up on three things immediately: 1- Medaglia d'Oro is being bred to for near 100% commercial reasons; 2- the public loves Hard Spun even though he's only a Freshman Sire; and 3- buyers really like Big Brown and Curlin, despite the fact that neither has had a runner since their oldest crop are yearlings in 2011.

There hasn't been a full sale summary article published from Bloodhorse or Thoroughbred Times, that I've found, as of yet. But I'll link to them once they're posted either late Saturday or early Sunday. (And Bloodhorse posted theirs before I was done writing. I should've waiting a hour to start the article).

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Below is a quick at the first day of the 2011 Keeneland Spring Meet, celebrating the Keeneland Association's 75^th anniversary.  The feature race on today's opening day card is the Grade 3 Transylvania Stakes for three-year-olds on the turf course.  First post is at 1:15 Eastern.

-Keeneland's spring meet kicks off with a traditional 4 ½ furlong baby race, a condition that is typically dominated by trainers Wesley Ward and Steve Asmussen.  Ward has a coupled entry in the first race: 1-Gentlemans Code and 1a-Everyday Dave (Even). 

Over the last five years, Wars is 11-for-36 (29%, $1,79 $2 ROI) with two-year-olds in Maiden Special Weights at Keeneland.  Of those 11 winners, all but one was a first-time starter.

-The fourth race is a two-turn, mile and sixteenth Maiden Special Weight for horses four-year-old and up and features some of the lightest raced four-year-olds you have ever seen.

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If the Kentucky Derby and the Breeders' Cup are my two favorite events on the horse racing calendar, then the start of the Keeneland spring meet every April is a close third.  Nestled just outside of Lexington, Kentucky, Keeneland is one of the more player friendly tracks you'll find in anywhere in the country.  And while some bettors have lamented the arrival of the Polytrack surface and the fundamental change in the way races are run and won at the track, the truth of the matter is Keeneland provides tons of fantastic racing and wagering opportunities on a daily basis.  Additionally, the track offers a excellent handicapping information free to everyone; the data I used throughout this post comes from the Keeneland PolyCapping database, an absolutely fantastic wealth of information provided at Keeneland's official website.  You can find similar race data at the official sites of Turfway Park, Arlington Park, and Del Mar.

Before I get into some of the statistical trends to look out for during the spring meet, let's take a look at the races Keeneland has on their stakes calendar this year:

As usual, the Keeneland stakes schedule is an impressive list for a 15-day meet.  The pinnacle of any Keeneland meet is the Grade 1 Toyota Blue Grass, although that race has become an incredibly difficult race for handicappers since the installation of Polytrack.  The last four winners of the Blue Grass have gone to post at 8/1 (Dominican - 2007), 9/1 (Monba - 2008), 14/1 (General Quarters - 2009), and 40/1 (Stately Victor - 2010). 

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