So you have handicapped the upcoming horse race and see that rain has poured on the track shaking things up. Its time to recalculate your selections as a sloppy track can lead to a parade of long shots or some diamonds in the rough. There are some things to look for when handicapping a sloppy track that will help you pick the strongest horse.

When looking at the program for the days race on a sloppy track there are a few things question on each horse in the race:

Is the horse a front runner? In the many races that have taking place on a sloppy track its shown that many times a horse with front running ability and speed win more than their share of races. This happens for a few reasons~ one is that some horses do not like to have mud thrown up in their face. So if a horse can get a good lead and likes to stay in front it will put the extra effort in to simply not get mud thrown up in its face and eyes. However if the horse is a front runner but is outmatched or in a race with many speed horses failure to get that lead can be very destructive. After the horse falls behind a bit the mud aggravates the horse to where its not a factor. So when looking at front runners look at the speed ratings to see if the horse can get a clear break from the field then go with him.

What is the bloodline? On the program that is loaded with all kinds of statistics and figures there is a spot where it will have the sire and dam listed. This will also have the term mud along with %. The higher the % the better chance of that horse running very well in the mud. Anything over 20% is very good whether it be next to sire or dam. This shows the horse has a bloodline that does very well in sloppy or muddy conditions. Definitely something to take note of.

Has the horse raced well on a sloppy track or muddy track before? Go through each horse in the race and highlight where it raced in a muddy/sloppy track in the past. Look at how the horse raced and where it finished. If the horse has raced in these type of conditions before and finished in the top 3 fairly close the winner this should tell you that the current track conditions do not bother the horse. Note each race and workout under sloppy conditions.

After you go through these three steps they will help you with your selection process. Now some races will be hard to judge and if a long shot is going to step up many times its when track conditions are less than favorable. Recently at Fairmount Park the rainy and snowy conditions made for a sloppy track and the 1st race of the season payed a $20,000 ticked to someone playing the trifecta. These were two huge long shots so if you were a gambling man it will not hurt at this point to do some $1 crazy random trifectas because it could lead to a very nice pay day.