Betting Assiniboia Downs

Throughout the Assiniboia Downs meet, Matthew DeSantis from NYRA Bets will provide updated weekly track trends. Updated through 8/28/24.

What are track trends?

Track stats provide two levels of data for bettors and handicappers. First, it analyzes how frequently favorites are winning different levels of races as well as looking at how favorites perform at different distances. Second, they analyze how different running styles (leaders, trackers, closers) perform to have the ideal winning trip.

Use the data below to help identify helpful trends for handicapping and betting through the current week of racing at Assiniboia Downs. Obviously, as the number of races increases, so will the reliability of the statistical trends we see throughout the meet.

Post Time Favorite Analysis

Overall, post time favorites are winning at a 46.9% rate during 15 weeks at Assiniboia Downs. Looking beyond just favorites, 73.3% of winners have been 4/1 or lower at post time. Meanwhile, 7.0% of winners have been 10/1 or higher come post time.

From a betting standpoint, a flat $2 win bet on every post time favorite would return $1.92 (-4.0% ROI) during the meet at Assiniboia Downs. Meanwhile, here are how favorites performed at different odds.

Average Field Size – 6.60

Favorites by Level

• Maiden Special Weight race favorites – 51.90%
• Maiden Claiming race favorites – 31.80%
• Claiming race favorites – 49.20%
• Optional Claiming race favorites – 39.50%
• Allowance race favorites – 54.50%
• Stakes race favorites – 48.10%

Winning Trips Analysis

HISTORICAL TRACK TRENDS

To get you ready for Canada’s most fun track, NYRA Bets handicapper Matthew DeSantis dives into some handicapping angles he has picked up through years of playing Assiniboia Downs and provides trainer and jockey trends as well. Make sure to come back each week during the meet at Assiniboia Downs as Matthew will have updated Track Stats that provide thorough winning trip analysis by distance and class.

All Dirt, All The Time

Assiniboia Downs, like Oaklawn Park and Charles Town, is strictly a dirt track. While we all love turf racing, handicapping and betting on a track that is exclusively one surface simplifies the process. Assiniboia Downs is a great track for beginning players as it allows you not to be overwhelmed by huge fields and varying turf conditions. Generally, early speed plays very well over their dirt course and inside early speed, specifically, can be extremely tough to beat on occasion.

Another thing to keep in mind when playing is the track configuration. Even with a chute, the one-turn races max out at six furlongs. Therefore, races that are seven furlongs or longer will be run at two turns, which might be a new factor for some sprinters shipping into Assiniboia Downs who are accustomed to one-turn racing and now suddenly must deal with the dynamics of two turn races. As the races stretch out to two turns, inside post positions are critical. You do not need early speed to win going long at Assiniboia, as opposed to sprinting, but saving ground from an inside post is critical. It is often common to see a mad dash to the first turn from the horses posted further outside, which can lead to some rough trips and/or fast paces, which sets up beautifully for the horses saving ground on the inside.

Seasonal Features

Assiniboia Downs runs from mid-May through Mid-September and many of the horses running early in the meet have not raced since the meet ended in 2023. To accommodate so many horses coming off significant layoffs, the first few weeks of racing will feature almost exclusively five-furlong sprints to help the horses improve their conditioning. As the meet goes on, the races will get longer and you will see more six-, seven-, and eight-furlong races.

Due to the distinct nature of early meet racing at Assiniboia, you can feel confident relying on your past performances to see who is going to fire off the bench and who will need to run into shape. Many of the local Assiniboia horses will have gone through this cycle of layoffs before, so looking at how they have handled it in the past is important. Also, do not get suckered into early meet success translating later in the meet. By that, I mean some horses that win off the bench going five furlongs might peak at that distance and even stretching out to six furlongs could be an issue. Just because a horse reels off a couple of wins early in the meet does not translate into dominance when the nature of the races starts to change.

A final note regarding the seasonal nature of Assiniboia Downs is that due to trainers using the abundance of sprints early in the meet, it is quite common for horses to run back on 10-14-days rest. Expect to see your favorite horses run seven to 10 times in a span of four months. This regularity in running provides players with the opportunity to learn more about the horses and develop strong fan (and bettor) connections.

Dangerous Shippers

While most of the horses running at Assiniboia Downs are based at the Manitoba track, you will occasionally see shippers coming in for the duration of the meet. Traditionally, shippers have come from one of three tracks: Woodbine, Golden Gate Fields, and Turf Paradise. There are a few things to note regarding using these shippers in different spots.

First, horses coming in from Woodbine and Golden Gate Fields are switching from running over their all-weather surface at those tracks to running on dirt. The synthetic-to-dirt angle is a good one to use as you typically see those horses take to the new surface and turn in good efforts. We see this same angle work when horses go from Turfway Park to Churchill Downs, so the synthetic-to-dirt angle is not unique to Assiniboia Downs, but it is accentuated due to the nature of the horses shipping into the track.

A second note about horses shipping in from both of those tracks is how “class” translates. Class refers to the level of races horses enter from maiden to claiming to allowance to stake races. It is not uncommon to see a horse coming in from Woodbine or Golden Gate Fields who have been running in $40,000 claiming races suddenly step up and win against allowance or stakes competition at Assiniboia Downs. I would pay more attention to the purse sizes the horses have been running for rather than the class of races in which they have been entered. A horse running for a $40,000 claimer going to a $50,000 stake or allowance race is not that significant of a class jump.

Horses coming out of Turf Paradise can have an advantage in early meet races since they have been running regularly and come into Assiniboia Downs in good form. They might lose that advantage as the meet continues, but using shippers, particularly active ones, can be an effective play early in the meet.

TRAINERS

Like any track, there are a handful of trainers that do very well at Assiniboia and run most of the horses. Trainers like Jard Brown and Wendy Anderson have good percentages while running a high volume of horses, but make sure to pay particular attention to jockey/trainer combos as there is a clear pecking order. Brown nearly always puts Jorge Carreno on his top horses whereas Wendy Anderson had a lot of success with Damario Bynoe last year who came over from running at Century Mile.

Meanwhile, trainers Marvin Buffalo and Mike Taphorn are always dangerous despite having limited entries over the last three years. Both trainers will have horses ready for the stake races later in the meet, but Buffalo will have entries in the maiden races throughout. His entries are always live and can provide great value.

Trainers like Brown and Pruitt tend to be effective at getting their horses ready to run well off longer layoffs whereas Wendy Anderson usually runs them into shape. Obviously, there are exceptions to every rule, but trainer stats and past performances of the horses tend to be highly predictive in the early weeks of the meet.

JOCKEYS

There has been significant turnover in the jockey colony at Assiniboia Downs over the last few years. You see less and less of jockey Stanley Chadee Jr. and Sheldon Chickeness did not ride during the 2023 meet after being among the top riders in 2021 and 2022. With the infusion of new faces, you have seen the hierarchy get shaken up a bit as Antonio Whitehall has unseated Jorge Carreno as the top jockey on the circuit in terms of the volume of mounts.

Last year was a fascinating one for Whitehall who was winning at a 30% clip early in the meet before going cold for nearly a month in the middle of the meet. Meanwhile, Carreno’s gaudy numbers were largely padded during dominant 2021 and 2022 meets, but he was a pedestrian 17% last year, which corresponded with a slight downturn for trainer Jared Brown who typically has Carreno ride his top horses.

At smaller tracks you can get cult followings around lesser-known jockeys and that is certainly the case with Assiniboia Downs as jockeys like Antonio Whitehall and Jorge Carreno get bet like they are Irad Ortiz Jr. and Flavien Prat. Whitehall is one of the better jockeys at getting speed out of horses and following the playbook of putting your horse up front while moving toward the rail. Jockeys like Chavion Chow, Renaldo Cumberbatch, Damario Bynoe all have had success as well, with Bynoe bringing home a lot of higher priced horses in his first meet at Assiniboia Downs last year. He would appear to be a jockey to keep an eye on early in the meet as he has become the top choice jockey for a couple of barns.