Turfway Park is located in Florence, Kentucky, just on this side of the river separating Cincinnati, Ohio and the state of Kentucky.
Florence is like Whoville, in the Grinch stories, a fictional town created by Dr. Seuss.
Whoville, is very much like Florence, and Turfway put Florence on the map, just like the Grinch put Whoville on the map.
There is no Grinch at Turfway, however, just a lack of information from Turfway is what drives handicappers mad.
Turfway is in a void, a black hole.
A black hole has a great effect on the fate and circumstances of an object crossing it, but it has no locally detectable features according to general relativity. What goes in doesn't come out.
Relativity at a racetrack is the daily flow of information. No information, no flow, nothing shows up on the board, just a bunch of Whos throwing darts.
So why is it a black hole?
A thriving racetrack has a clocking staff, and private clockers trying to take advantage of their eyes and ears, along with their stopwatches.
At Turfway, there is only one clocker, he is like Robinson Crusoe or Tom Hanks in Castaway.
One handicapper I know as Dylan, but he is better known as the CEO has a unique view of Turfway
Turfway is an All-Weather track. Tapeta.
All-Weather tracks are different than dirt, as you now been accustomed coming to Racingwithbruno to catch this worthwhile piece of analyis, seriously though, its different because it takes the brilliant speed out of horses.
The institute of California racing made me go to school to understand the all-weather tracks, and maybe California synthetics were a poor choice to cut teeth at as every mistake, known to man, was made with those surfaces, in short, every corner was cut, making those surfaces 'hybrids'
Even a track sup who handled it every day told me one day at Hollywood Park," there is no way anyone can ever reproduce this particular surface'', it was one of a kind with all the additions and subtractions of materials, but there is a constant part of any surface that always prevails.
Let's get specific with Turfway.
The reason Turfway can be so hard is the lack of information, or maybe better labeled, lacking a network, coming out of Florence.
Anywhere you go in Racing abroad and Racing USA there is a chain of communication from the morning to the afternoon.
You go to Saratoga, for example, and the Turf Authority floods the communication lines with workout information, their network of clockers tips, there is always a story, an angle. The Turf Authority product is even busier than the Natural Spring fountain in the backyard. Handicappers from everywhere use that and stand in a virtual line to play whats on the pages, and thus, the universal good thing agreed by a village of clockers is always even money or less.
You can say the same about Gulfstream where a number of men stuff themselves in a clockers booth. The network of information flows from tracks in the morning.
Turfway is completely the opposite, when is it the last time someone has posted on mainstream media a workout report for Turfway. Well, I can tell you, never before, until Racingwithbruno started filming works in Florence on November 23rd.
Racingwithbruno, me, we are beginning to use that information on the daily Turfway cards. Last week we had at least three or four 4 star works and good 3 star works winning races.
You tell me the last time you wagered at Turfway based on workout info?
Absolutely nothing comes out of Turfway, zero, even Dylan who buys every workout report and has all the info at his finger tips has never posted about workout score from Florence.
Y'all need to understand that the backbone of information is deeply rooted in the morning works and on backstretch. You hear it daily, even from your friends "they like the 3 today,'' however, that is not information to wager on. They could mean anybody, and they could be nobodies with a megaphone, or are simply repeating somethings they heard in the mens bathroom, you know, 'urinal conversations'.
The who is they is the pertinent part of information.
Racingwithbruno is a network that provides exclusive information from tracks around they country, we added Fair Grounds videos last winter, and now have added Turfway and Oaklawn.
Well now you do, have information from those tracks.
Amy Kearns was angry with herself on Saturday, Amy does a wonderful job with our Turfway Park handicapping and others, felt the information sting and one specific one made her ''green around the gills''. She was not happy with herself.
"As soon as that horse, Buy The Rights, won I turned to {her Hatamoto] and said 'I fucked that one up'. Amy was bemoaning the fact we had a good work on that horse at Churchill Downs.
"I had the horse all written up and then I didn't use it on the sheet, and I didn't play it. Sweet Baby Jesus', I don't know why."
Amy has been known to wager a few bucks over the years. She plays small but she makes monies.
"I told my [hatamoto] that if Bruno called me up right now and chastised me he would be absolutely be in the right"
I didn't call her at that time, but I did discuss with her later, even though her reluctance to really want to talk about because she knew she completely 'screwed the pooch' , but she has excelled so many other times, no reason to beat a dead horse.
That's how stuff falls into a black hole and never seen again, Turfway is just like any other track, without maybe the bells and whistles every day. Buy The Rights had the info there it wasn't random.
Horses will win that are thriving, horses will win after they train well, but at Turfway is like the old saying, 'if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise?'
If a horse is training well at Turfway and the circle of the information of life is not being used you wouldn't hear any noise at all from its fall.
The information is now out there and its only going to get bigger and better, the same can be said about Fair Grounds and Oaklawn.
At Oaklawn the hardest horses to figure were the Arkansas breds, well now you can see their works, their gates and treat them like you do at any other track with workout information.
To be a good handicapper you need information, knowledge is power and even Sweet Baby Jesus would need a helping hand when it comes down cashing a ticket in Whovile.