One of the supposed advantages to this surface according to its website is that "it maintains unifomity in all conditions".
I guess its just a uniformly speed killing surface.
I only bring this up because most great thoroughbreds in history had great speed.
I don't think Affirmed, Spectacular Bid, or Seattle Slew would be in the hall offame had they been raced on it. They may have ended up as claimers.

They would have been mediocre racehorses, but sound claimers. What a great invention this polytrack is. It will kill all the history of this fantastic game.

yeah, playing lone speed is the oldest most reliable stratagey around........ so you throw out all speed??? f@#k that bro...... i would rather play los al.

I don't think it will Bid. Imagine being a trainer of a really fast racehorse and being asked to run on that stuff? I'd say find someone else to train him then.

Cali racing is in trouble. And they aren't gonna be helping matters a whole lot with this stuff.
If you are an owner whose spent big money on horses who are bred for speed, and you watch them stagger home, those puppies are gonna be on the next plane out of town pronto. People who are "sportsman" don't tend to act so sporting when millions of dollars worth of horses are running up the track. What good is keeping them "extra sound" if they can't run fast or do what they are bred to do?

What do the numbers look like in BC races? I don't doubt that 1 in 29 seems low but with big fields it greatly decreases the number of wire to wire winners you'll see. It may need a little tweaking or it might just be that the frontrunning horses aren't that great and are getting more pace pressure because of the bigger fields.

As would I. I bet it once, on the big day at Turfway back in march, and that was enough for me.

Even on turf, speed wins a decent percentage of races.

Its really common sense that most good horses have speed, hence they run fast. This isn't advanced quantum physics here.
So basically if you are fast, you can't win. Gee, that sounds like a game I wanna play!!!!

I'll pull up the last 5 Bc's and see ok? I havent checked yet and will only look at the dirt races from the last 5 years.

Its very sad for me to see countless tracks switching to poly. When Keeneland decided to switch to poly my heart sunk. It was probably the worst feeling I have ever had. I would equate it to walking in on a wife sleeping with your best friend. Just sickening.

Of course Keeneland hasn't had Ghostzapper yet!

Gonna need 6 years to get a 30 race sample comparable to the 29 run so far.

2005- Folklore wired em 1/5

2004- Ghostzapper wired em 1/5(2/10)

2003- Adoration wired em 1/5 (3/15)

2002- Vindication wired em
Azeri wired em 2/5 (5/20)

2001- no wire jobs 0/5 (5/25)

2000- Tiznow wired em 1/5 (6/30)

Ok so thats 20%, with big fields at 5 different race tracks, some who are regarded as closer favoring tracks moreso than others, some with no noted bias, and some with a noted speed edge. Ho hum.

I'd think 15-20% should be about right. I think you need a few more than 29 races to draw a conclusion but if it gets to 100 races and you still have less than 8 wire to wire winners then they might want to tweak it a little. Didn't Turfway have similar problems at first and then fixed it?

So by the last few days of a 3 week meet things oughta be just fine!! LOL!!!!

I did not even take it that way.

I don't know how much you want to tweak it during a 3 week meet. If it keeps up all meet though it is something they would definitely want to address before the April meet. Who would have ever thought Keeneland would be where frontrunners go to die?

Damn, the marketing material said it required no-minimal maintenance. Foiled again!!!

This must be where the minimal comes in.

As Sent To Stud said, I bet this sure wasn't in the California power point presentation, you know the part about wiring a field being harder than an inmates prick.

Pgrad,
I'm glad you didn't but its still in poor taste and i wish I could edit the thread title.
A bunch of horses quitting in the lane is quite insignificant compared to a 34 year old man with a child dying in a horrible crash.
I have a flying phobia and only fly when completely necessary.
I've driven to Ky and back for the Derby every year since 1994 with the exception of 99 when I couldnt go and 2003 when I flew.
I will be heading down the highway for the Breeders Cup shortly, right in the ole Honda.
I always thought that the moments before a crash would be the worst thing, when you would be plunging with the knowledge that you are about to die in a fiery ball and that there is nothing you can do about it.
All crashes get me shaken, just reading about them.

Bertrando and In Excess babies should do well at Hollywood. Can't wait to see how the speedsters take to cushiontrack.

I would have. When Turfway first went to Poly, u might remember that I was on the other forum talking about how the horses were staggering home in every race. The opening fractions were close to normal but closing ones have been ridiculously slow, an indicator to me that the track is a lot more tiring than regular dirt and puts speed at a distinct disadvantage. As Oracle has pointed out, this is contradictory to what breeders are looking for these days. The game is killing itself. Breed horses for speed and then build tracks that kill speed horses. Brilliant.