I didn't see any public handicapper that rated Lava Man higher than third place, at best.

There is this little local paper, The Daily Racing Form, and three of their four Del Mar handicappers had him picked second. He was the consensus selection to win.

if you call two of them 'a bunch', you pretty much described mine.

I've read them,and.............. I will stay quiet! I'll let you guys do the talking.:D

Lava Man should be pointed tactically toward Grade 1 and Grade 2 turf races in California - avoiding After Market. These artificial surfaces don't serve him well. Think of his last 4 starts on Turf in Southern Cal:

1) Wins Khaled in course record time
2) Wins the Whittingham going away
3) Wins the Sunshine Millions Turf easily
4) Finishes second to After Market in a 1:59 going 1 1/4 while clearly ahead of the third place horse.

Turf is where his future lies.

According to his trainer at the start of the year, turf was going to be his primary surface this year. I was looking forward to it as I have felt that he runs better on the grass. I guess they just looked at the slim pickings in the California older male division on dirt and couldn't resist. It's kind of hard to blame them though when they've been able to win the another SA Hcp and another Hollywood Gold Cup in the process. I think that because of that, they had to take a shot in the Pacific Classic. But it's got to be turf from here on out. I think he could even handle up to 12f on the grass.

I love when people complain when a horse like Student Council wins a grade I on a synthetic surface but when horses like Wilko, Sarava, Sinister Minister, Lemons Forever win a Grade I then a long shot wins the race. Also, there was only 1 Grade I winner in the Pacific Classic field (I believe). Would a victory by Times Squared or Big Booster made it better?

You don't get it, do you?

It has nothing to do with the quality of the winner, IMO, who while untested at this level and beaten on the east coast in lower was not much behind the rest of the field besides Lava Man in ability. It has everything to do with the way the race was run and the consistently inconsistent results. there is no way a horse of Lava Man's stature should be staggering down the lane after 6F in nearly 1:15. The track is garbage.

What's interesting to me is I played some Arlington this weekend and it played absolutely fair with a little moisture in the track.

Exactly. I think it has become obvious (or at least it should have) by now that blanket endorsements AND/OR condemnations of polytrack - or any other artificial surface - no longer make sense. Each track has to be taken on its own merit. Arlington's poly surface is pretty fair I believe. Keeneland is bad, and Del Mar is just ridiculous. I almost fell asleep yesterday watching that crap.

How can you be the consensus selection to win if nobody places you first ? :D

I didn't look at the DRF consensus (never worked for me <g>). I saw that Brad Free, the main DelMar DRF guy, placed him third behind Hello Sunday and Big Booster; Ellis Star from Equibase put him third behind AP Xcellent, Tiago. I didn't see the rags, TG had LM very vunerable, and the exacta results as very, very likely based on their analysis.

Interesting comments on the Siro's handicapping show this morning, from Cary Fotias. He said he noticed that at Keeneland, the times over the Polytrack are good (meaning reasonable for the class and ability of the horses), but that Del Mar Polytrack is indeed playing extremely slow time-wise. They ran out of time, so couldn't talk about it further, wish they could have.

I think the Del Mar poly to turf is going to be an extremely strong angle on this horse next time he runs in CA.

It's based on a point system. A horse that is selected first gets five points, a horse that is picked second gets two and it's one point for third. The selections went:

Hello Sunday-5, Big Booster-2, Lava Man-1
Porfido-5, Lava Man-2, Tiago-1
Albertus Maximus-5, Lava Man-2, Awesome Gem-1
Sun Boat-5, Lava Man-2, Tiago-1

Total points
Lava Man-7
Hello Sunday-5
Porfido-5
Albertus Maximus-5
Sun Boat-5
Tiago-2
Big Booster-2
Awesome Gem-1

I definitely don't think that Lava Man would be able to handle 12f on grass, but I do think that he'd be able to run the same race as Out of Control did yesterday, except Lava Man would have continued running in the stretch, and supposedly Out of Control is a top miler/middle distance turfer.

get this crap off and pour in dirt!
 

I don't care that Lava Man lost.

In fact I wagered for him to lose, and I expected him to lose.

I still didn't hit! Everybody and their mother boxed Lava Man and the two Mitchell horses, so the 3-10 exactas were pitiful and I felt they had a decent chance. I didn't want to box 7 horses in an exacta and get a $25 payout. I kept my wagers to a 10cent super and bet 4 horses to win.

Too bad I didn't handicap purely for pedigree. Student Council is simply a solid horse. He has a good pedigree for the surface and had a lot of stamina. Awesome Gem was moving but Student Council had better position.

This surface wasn't exactly kind to closers either. Horses just got exhausted and the couple that could keep going, or took to the track carried on. Gem must have loved the track because he was the only real deep closer.
Sun Boat couldn't swim , and Booster actually ran well to be able to close a little in this type of surface/distance/race

Gem should dominate at a cut back in distance at Del Mar but he won't be a price.

This isn't sour grapes , even if I won i would say this was garbage. Terrible aesthetics! I don't wan't to watch and wager and handicap european polytrack racing.

I honestly believe that the horses from the Arlington Million and Sworddancer would have bested the dirt horses on this surface and distance.

It was a big money-making joke to install these surfaces. All under the guise of "safety". With all the breakdowns on turf will they rip that out and just run polytrack races ONLY? yeah right

Next year the Breeders Cup is going to be on Santa Anita synthetic track...

Yes, and I agree that that is rather unfortunate. I wish they wouldn't run BC races on that stuff, BUT as I said earlier, it is important to remember that Santa Anita and Del Mar aren't going to play the same way simply because they both have polytrack. I think it is fair to assume that they will be breaking 2:07 in next year's BCC.

To judge Lava Man off this race is just silly. The horse will do just fine on dirt or turf next time. Unless today's race is on poly/cushion, just draw a line through all those Hol/AP/Kee/Dmr/TP/WO races. You'll make yourself some cash.

I see what you are saying, but do you really think the racing at Arlington and Hollywood is even comparable to the so-called "racing" going on at Del Mar and Keeneland.

Santa Anita is installing Cushion Track (the same stuff used at Hollywood). Hopefully, they will listen to the people at Hollywood on how to maintain a fair surface. Unlike the jokers at Del Mar, who are going to run the whole meet and then decide what to do. I think I have bet 1 race at Del Mar this year so far. If I wanted a crap shoot, I'd go to Las Vegas.

That is what would make sense. I don't think anyone expected that they would get it exactly right from the start. But the comments from Harper that he wasn't going to do anything to the track till after the meet were irresponsible, IMO. I think that they should listen to the concerns of the horsemen and tinker around with it during the meet, like the other tracks have done, to get it to a consistent level. But it's like they don't want to admit that it's not totally maintenance free. It feels like if they admit that, they think they would be admitting failure and that's just not the case. It's a work in progress and should be treated as such.

It is certainly not on the same level. Still, I would say racing at AP and Hol is closer to Kee than a normal dirt track. The pace times of the winners, when adjusted for overall track speed, are two to three lengths slower in sprint races and three to four in route races at AP compared to the old dirt. Hollywood is very similar to AP.

At Delmar, sprints are similar to AP, and routes are way, way slower early. The average winner has to run 1 and a half seconds slower to the pace call while recording the same final time. That is about 9 lengths or so!

FYI, WO and TP have sprints nearly identical to the dirt tracks they once had. Routes have changed a few lengths, but not to the degree of the others.