Track tips for Wednesday, August 1

Trainer Wayne Catalano's quest to hit .400 for the meet got a boost the last two weeks. He's won with 10 of his last 21 starters, and amazingly, none of those horses have missed the board (four seconds and seven thirds). With roughly six weeks left in the Arlington season, the Cat Man is now batting .381.For the year, Catalano is tied for 36th nationally by wins with 65 from 191 starters, and of the top 100, only he and Oregon-based conditioner Johnathan Nance are winning at as high as a 34 per cent clip.

He's hit the board with 77 per cent of his Arlington starters and is at 72 per cent overall, easily the highest of the top 100 nationally.Arlington's Polytrack has been much more conducive to speed that the carpet laid down at Keeneland, where only 13 per cent of the race run there this spring were won in gate-to-wire fashion.

Of the 457 races run over the Arlington Polytrack (through July 29), 112 (24 per cent) have been won by speed horses, and another 76 (17 per cent) have been taken down by pace pressers. That means that 41 per cent of the Polytrack winners have been within two lengths of the lead past the opening quarter-mile.

The last four weeks, 45 of the 153 Polytrack winners have been speed horses (29 per cent), and another 31 have been pace pressers (20 per cent). That means that nearly half the races (49 per cent) run over the Arlington Polytrack the last month have been won by speedsters or pace-pressers.

Best bet: Frost Alert (1st)

Price play: Demarcation (8th)

Contact: joedakracing@aol.com

Check out Joe Kristufek's Arlington ParkCast audio files at www.arlingtonpark.com