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Grand Prairie track plays host to the 2004 Breeders Cup World Thoroughbred Championships.

By GREG MELIKOV - author of our Horses To Watch weekly report.

The first time I saw Lone Star Park, my wife and I agreed it looked like a castle from the highway. It was two years after the track opened in 1997.

On that April 17, live racing returned to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex after Arlington Downs closed in 1937. The crowd of 21,754 wagered $1.4 million.

On April 18, 1999, I was among the 21,124 who wagered a record $5.6 million and witnessed Julie Krone’s first retirement. I also saw the state’s first graded stakes race when Littlebitlively upset 1998 Kentucky Derby winner Real Quiet in the Texas Mile.

But what stuck in my mind the most was how horses breaking from the outside performed. In the first five horse races that Texas afternoon, all winners came from posts 10 through 14.

The one-mile main track, 100 feet across with six-degree banked turns, plays fair for the most part except when it’s unusually hot and humid, and then speed rules. In dirt routes, early speed and stalkers sometimes hold a slight advantage.

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For October and November, the average high temperature is 72 ½ degrees while the Grand Prairie area averages about 3 ½ inches of rain for those months. The average high temperature on Oct. 30, the 21st Breeders' Cup Day World Thoroughbred Championships, is 72 degrees.

The distance from the oval’s final turn to the finish line is 930 feet. That’s up to 304 ½ feet shorter than tracks recently hosting the Breeders’ Cup: Churchill Downs, where the stretch is 1,234 ½ feet; Belmont, 1,097 feet; and Arlington Park, 1,049 feet.

Only two new track records were established during Lone Star’s spring-summer meeting: 2-year-old filly Ruby Be Mine ran 4 ½ furlongs in 51 1/5 on April 30 and 5-year-old mare Savorthetime covered six furlongs in 1:07 1/5.

Pacesetters don’t do well on the seven-furlong grass course, 80 feet wide with the same banking. The turf favors closers. During the April 15-July 11 meeting, about two-thirds of routes went to runners coming off the pace. All the track records on the grass were set in ’97 and ’98.

No matter the surface or distance, outside posts do very well. During another visit in 2000 on closing day, I saw three of the first four horse races go to outside horses: 12 twice and 11. For the entire 73-day meeting, horses from posts 11 and 12 won 24 times on the main track while post 10 accounted for 18 victories, with six scoring from posts 13 and 14.

During the final 18 days of the 2004 spring-summer thoroughbred meeting, 31 winners broke from posts 9 through 14. Ten came out of post 10 and another 9 from post 9. Six horses won from post 11, followed by 4 from post 12 and a pair from post 14.

One reason why Lone Star Park is hosting the Breeders’ Cup: it annually ranks among the nation’s top ten racetracks for daily attendance and on-track wagering, thanks to full fields.

Even with fewer full fields than usual in the first seven days of the fall thoroughbred meeting, outside posts held their own in sprints. While posts 4-7 on the main track produced the most winners with 22 out of 37 races, seven triumphed out of post 8 and outward, two less than posts 1-3.

A random sampling of all horse races on the dirt for two days, Oct. 7 and 10, showed horses breaking from the two outside posts captured eight of 16 races.

Related feature: Keys to Handicapping the 21st Breeders’ Cup. Handicapping the 2004 Breeders Cup is no walk in the park... . Handicapping shorts for all Breeers Cup races $2 Million Distaff, $1 Million Juvenile Fillies, $1.5 Million Mile, $1.5 Million Sprint, $1 Million Filly & Mare Turf, $1.5 Million Juvenile, $2 Million Turf and $4 Million Classic

Greg Melikov is a a retired newspaperman who has been writing about thoroughbreds for publications and websites for a decade. Greg says

"I’ve been a racing fan since 13 when I saw 1948 Triple Crown winner Citation whip 20 older horses at old Arlington Park."