Hawthorne: Not quite speed favoring

It's December, the temperature is below freezing, and any Hawthorne winter regular is keeping a close eye on the track profile. Not quite cold enough to have a truly frozen surface that will produce two types of races: Early speed winner, or dead-closing winner in races that totally fall apart because all the riders are dead set on making the front end. Sadly, we're not quite in that easy-to-figure place yet, probably because its about 30 degrees, and we need around 20 or less to truly speed things up. Yeah, there have been a couple speed winners from the first five races, and inside-pace horses are holding pretty well, but stalkers coming a few paths wide are doing too well to merely try and play the track profile right now. That said, the track is very fast: Dots In Style won a low-level claimer in race 2 with six furlongs in 1:08.90!!!

Snow in the forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Racing as it was meant to be here Saturday. (If the world were Antarctica.)