Tampa Bay Plays for Saturday

[Bigsmc]

Originally Posted by GPK

It varies Jim, to be honest. In the very early part of the meet, in mid-December, the rail was quicksand...very dead. I have also seen days when the rail is golden. It is definitey not like Aqueduct, where there tends to be a prevelant bias a great majority of the time. The time it will show a fairly large bias (and I think Bigs will confirm this) is when it rains...the rail is much deeper than the outside, as the track is crowned in the middle and the sand will tend to flow towards the rail.

Absolutely correct on the rain deepening the rail.

The rail was good but not golden yesterday. The track was pretty fair and not necessarily lightning fast. The race times were quirky because they were running into a stiff headwind up the backstretch and a nice tailwind coming home. I think that's why some of the fractions seem off.