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I rarely post picks here, because a lot of times I go to the track on short notice and can't pre-cap. Would you guys give them any credibility anyway lol? |
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http://1drv.ms/1k0enkx |
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Dirt is just a superior surface, perhaps not for snapping legs but certainly for making money |
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They took a shot and it didnt not work period. All the other nonsense is just noise. Now assuming they redo the track properly with all the latest and greatest let us see if it is as safe on horses being killed as poly as the pundits will now have an apples to apples comparsion.. IF it isnt racing has a decision to make. In a far fetched way its the only out they truly have save PMay |
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I've also heard rumors DelMar and Keeneland will be courting a Breeder's Cup in the near future.
NO to Keeneland and a HUGE YES to DelMar unless they move the BC date to Aug-Sept. Welcome to dirt nonetheless.... That said I will be betting Keeneland come Friday. Just venting! |
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Graham Motion tweet-
It's complicated but the facts are polytrack has been safer & that's my disappointment. Lets hope the new dirt @keeneland is much improved. |
"It's complicated, but the facts are???"
Oh boy. Facts are, dirt can be much safer than it is. |
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the people who like synthetics are outnumbered by those who don't, and the powers that be have decided to get the heck away from it. they wouldn't spend money on new surfaces unless they really felt strongly about this. it's the right move. |
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He's got a barn mostly full of turf bred horse -- and he trains them on synthetic at Fair Hill ... it would be a surprise if he disliked synthetic tracks. |
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The bottom line is the data on synthetic vs. dirt is inconclusive at best. Certain synth tracks (Presque Isle, Woodbine) have been markedly safer than the average dirt track, at least in terms of fewer catastrophic breakdowns. There are others (Del Mar, Hollywood) that have been as bad as the worst dirt tracks most years. Then there's the issue of soft tissue injuries, which many trainers have cited as more frequent on synthetic and which don't show up in the breakdown statistics. Another inconvenient truth for the synthetic crowd is that the circuit which concerted the most effort in making its dirt safer -- NYRA -- got drastically fewer breakdowns in 2013. AQU went from 3.41 fatalities per 1,000 dirt starts to 1.85. BEL went from 1.86 to 0.88. SAR had a slight uptick from 1.23 to 1.29, but that has the smallest sample size of the three tracks. The well-publicized breakdowns of Barbaro and Eight Belles were a flashpoint for this industry. Instead of getting out in front of the issue and using technology to make our dirt tracks safer, the powers that be cowed to the demagogues and turned the sport upside down with a drastic shift to unproven synthetic surfaces as a cure-all. It's been an unmitigated failure for the sport and marginally, if at all, safer for the horses. |
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You can make dirt safer, or riskier. Same as any surface. People who believe that synth is inherently safer than dirt are looking at this issue too simplistically. |
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Some ways I'd like to slice and dice the fatality data if I could:
1) age of dirt tracks the year before conversion to poly. 2) avg lifetime BSFs (and trends) for all fatalities...or some other well-used indicator of 'class' 3) trends on tracks where the material is nearing its service life and hasn't been replaced (unlike, say Hollywood Park which had its surface amended several times). |
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