I know they didnt get outplayed, Im just taking the high road

LOL

Just giving you a hard time... the Gators were outplayed too. Don't feel lonely.

I know you are. On the other hand Pee Garden really thinks he knows something and wants to argue about Limestone, sand, synthetics, dirt, grass, and how he should be the head super at Santa Anita.

Kickback is kickback Pee garden, horses arent running through it and jockeys are wearing hockey visors now. What do you suggest they do? If you want I can get you a job at Murfield Village as an assistant if you have a degree in turf managment.

A degree that you could have recieve at The Ohio State University

Tis a difficult problem. Mainly because the dirt in dirt tracks actually holds a lot of the sand down. The sand is needed so the dirt does not pack tightly and absolutely ruin the horses legs. If the sand is too sharp edged, it gets more clay in between it and can throw up giant clods of dirt. If the sand is too smooth it holds very little dirt (dirt settles out towards the bottom of the upper layer) and the horses go slow as molasses because the sand gives so much.

Because many of the synthetics have different type of artificial fibers that contain various amounts of wax that are supposed to stop the large particles from forming (and prevent really good draining of water) behave differently with diff. temp and moisture conditions I would not have a clue as it is a difficult problem.

Throw in the diff types of sand and some organics... a mess.

Pee Garden,

Thankyou for the Turf Management lesson. Let me know if you are certified to cut greens and I will get on the horn to my guy at MFV

Actually I am very interested in Turf.
Texas ATM had some great experiments going
on at a golf course here with all these plots set
up of diff types of hybird bermuda, etc...

They were looking at which way the blades grow,
how short they could be cut without damage,
how much water they required, How well they came
back from winter dormancy.

ANd I sure thank you for trying to get me a job.
Nice having upper level CEO's like yourself watching my back.
I got one unfortunately that I like.

Keep it in mind if your job ever falls out. I could help you with a push in to the turf management program at The Ohio State University as well. Im a good friend to have

For some reason beyond me, firing public
school teachers and Junior College teachers,
even down here w/out
Unions, is damn near impossible.

Which is sad.

But to repay your generous offer,
I betcha I could teach you Physics.
If you ever catch yourself thinking
about putting satellites into orbit,
I can explain it free and online.

Heck maybe Steve could make
a section whereby we could all
talk Physics without learning to
hate it.

can you get me in the door?:D

Yeah Kev if you were serious

get on Yahoo tonight...after 8

In general, kickback is much worse on regular dirt than synthetic dirt. With normal dirt, it hurts when you get hit with those dirt clods. One of the big positives about synthetic is that you hardly feel it when you get hit with the kickback.

Santa Anita is obviously a different story. There are small rocks in the surface and from what I've heard when you get the kickback there, it feels like you are in a sand storm. So the kickback at Santa Anita is definitely a problem right now.

You won't get any argument from me about the track at Santa Anita. I think the track is horrible there right now. Even if the track drained perfectly, I would still say it's horrible. The track is way too hard. It's hard underneath and it's loose on top. You can't have a worse combination than that.

Now that management has realized that it would take about a month to put in a new dirt track, rather than a week like they originally thought, now it looks very unlikely that they will be putting in a dirt track right now. I don't know what they will do when the meet ends. But for right now, it doesn't look like they're going to do anything. They have been encouraged with the initial testing they have been doing with that liquid that they guy from Australia has brought over.

I don't think that this liquid will even come close to solving their problems, but I think that they are going to put their hopes on this stuff because they don't want to have to close the track for a month.

Rupe, I disagree with you.

The kickback on the dirt is nowhere near as bad as the kickback the horses face on synthetic, especially when its cold out. Watch a race at TWP in the evenings when the horses cock their heads and refuse to run through the kickback. Keeneland they go 10 wide to stay out of the kickback, and SA they were hockey visors. I would say the kickback is not only worse with the synthetic, its not even close.

jockey comments on synthetics from the recent Bloodhorse article.

Robbie Albarado
"If I can go around there every day with one pair of goggles and one pair of pants and not have sand hit me at 35 mile per hour, yeah, I will take that every day"

Garrett Gomez
" The polytrack doesn't have a lot of kickback, which is good for the horses."

Patrick Husbands
"The polytrack to me is the best thing to happen to racing. It is easy on the horses and a more patient racetrack."

Rene Douglas
"What I like about it is that you don't have to get that dirt in your face. Its easier for a horse to ride through and easier to control your horse. I would 100% prefer synthetic surfaces"

I think I got a possible answer. The kickback on syn. looks especially bad from a sand point of view. Hard sand coming at 40 mph (relative velocity as the horse is moving usually a little less than 40 and the kickback is moving much slower but in the opposite direction the horse is going) might sting a heck of a lot. The syn. stuff is very bouncy and the sand really seems to pop up.
I totally agree with Rup about dirt clod kickback, especially on the track I frequent. If the moisture level is right, clods are produced and those hurt like hell. Any jock will tell you that at this dirt track. They do their best to reduce the size of the clods on grooming after each race, but then the horse impacts the mixture and this again compacts the dirt/sand mixture into clods DURING the race.
But of course I think very little about this stuff and know absolutely nothing. I am only a golf course expert... didnt know that, but what the hell.

Let me tell you something, ArlJim. Those quotes are spot on and should put an end to this ridiculous witch hunt the big people are on. Little people should be in charge of horse racing.

I call for a vote right now to make Gary Stevens Ruler of Horse Racing. All those in favor?

Yes, that is correct. Santa Anita is the exception to the rule. In general, there is far less kickback on synthetic tracks. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there is no kickback on synthetic tracks. There is kickback but it is not nearly as bad as on regular dirt. In general the jocks even come back much cleaner after the race. On regular dirt, if a jock is on a come-from-behinder, the jock usually comes back covered in dirt after the race.

By the way, if you have a horse that has only run on synthetic surfaces and he is about to run on dirt for the first time, it would be a big concern how he will handle getting hit in the face with real dirt. It stings quite a bit. If it was the other way around and you had a horse that had been running on regualr dirt who was running on a synthetic track for the first time, you would not have to worry about that issue.

I am a little person, height (and brain wise according to some).
I wish to be ruler.
Napoleon... of the single toenailed animals.

Goats have two toenails so I can avoid them.

Nobody is debating the kickback at Santa Anita. There are rocks in the track. That is why the jocks are wearing the protective masks. The jocks say that at Santa Anita it feels like they are in a sand storm right now. It's really bad.

There is definitely a problem at Santa Anita. There is no doubt about that. The only point that ArlJim and myself are trying to make is that in general there is much less of an issue with kickback on synthetic tracks as compared to regular dirt.

One issue that could be a concern with synthetic tracks is the long term health risks of swallowing rubber and synthetic fibers. The chances are that most come-from-behind horses are going to swallow some dirt whether they are on a synthetic track or a natural track. I can't tell you what the long-term health consequences are of swallowing rubber and synthetic fibers but it seems like it certainly could not be good.

Well they won't be the first animal on the track to swallow a rubber.

I would not worry about that a bit. Pass right through. I would be much more worried about swallowing dirt.

My agenda is the truth.

Gomez says that and straps on a hockey visor, lets just stick to the facts.

jamie sanders?

Here is the latest update. As I said earlier, they are optimistic that the polymers developed by the Australian guy will allow the track to drain. He did a demonstration yesterday for some owners and trainers and they were impressed.
Even if this stuff works and the track does drain properly, I still think the track is awful. It wasn't great at Oak Tree but it was definitely better at Oak Tree than it is now. As bad as the dirt track was at Santa Anita the last few years, I still think it was better than what they have now.

Here is the link to the story with the latest update:

http://www.drf.com/news/article/91578.html

Rupe, thanks for posting that

Why is the guy fixing cushion track a representitive of proride?

What significance does a bottle of water on a small isolated area of racetrack have with an inch of rain on a mile of racetrack?

Its pretty obvious once it rains out there you guys are doomed. Hopefully Santa Anita moves quickly to install a highgrade dirt once racing is cancelled again.

To answer your first question, the people from Cushion Track tried to fix the track and they were not successful. They worked on the track for over 2 weeks in December to try to make it drain and their efforts failed. So I guess they talked to this guy from Proride and he thought he might be able to fix it, so they are giving it a shot.

To answer your 2nd question, in theory it shouldn't matter the size of the area that they test. If they pour an inch of water over a 50 square foot area or a 200 square foot area, if it drains then it drains. If it doesn't, then it doesn't. But as I said before, even if this new liquid solves the drainage problem, the surface is still horrible. It is rock hard underneath and loose on top. Alot of horses aren't handling the surface but worse than that, they are coming out of the races with injuries. At Del Mar, there were alot of horses that didn't handle the surface, but at least the surface was pretty safe. Most of the horses were coming out of races in one piece which is more than I can say for Santa Anita.

Thanks Rupe

There is cause for concern anytime 12 claimers are breaking the sound barrier.

Yes, I agree 100%. At Oak Tree they were running very fast too but the track seemed to have a little more bounce to it than now. But even though the track looked alright at Oak Tree, it wasn't alright. One of my trainers had two different horses win and both horses came out of their races with fractures. In both cases, the fractures weren't discovered until a few days later. When they run that fast, something has to give. When they are running that fast, you know that the track has to be hard underneath.

And both of those horses were really good horses and really sound horses. They weren't claimers. They were both stakes horses.

Pshew, thats a shame. Its tough when any of them get injured, having a couple sound stakes horses get hurt would be a hard pill to swallow. Especially when you know the sole reason for the injuries are the track thats been mandated by the CHRB. Hopefully they get the situation resolved in a hurry for you guys.

The agena's for those that might actually have to change
their handicapping techniques... they might a actualy have
to show a little ingenuity is
indeed hard to overcome.

Extinction is possible for those not able to adapt.
Good luck to the species.
And congrats to those that can play with the
cards they are dealt. Dirt or syn.

This is pretty interesting stuff, the website for ProRide: www.prorideracing.com

They installed it last year at a TB training facility in Louisville.

not necessarily.
they caution you about feeding hay from the ground, especially if you have particularly sandy soil, as a horse can injest a fair amount of sand over time and develop sand colic.
i also read about a horse who was a cribber-they had used belts as fencing material, and the horse damn near died. they removed an almost soccer-ball sized ball of rubber from his gut-it didn't pass thru, but kept getting larger the more he nibbled.

Horses cannot breath through their mouths, so I doubt much is getting in through the mouth and then swallowed during or just after a race, as the epiglottis is closed down over the esophagus so the horse can breath. So ingestion isn't anything I'd worry about, be it synthetic, turf or dirt.

Nostrils are a concern, obviously. Vets routinely find alot of dirt in the trachea and larger bronchi after races, but particles of any composition (dirt, smog, AWT, dust, whatever) have to be very, very tiny (there is a particular micron size) to get further down the airways than the "supply tubes".

From the little available that I have read vets are seeing less mucus post-race days on the synthetics vs dirt (mucus is the body bringing irritants up and out of the larger airways), and less stuff in the larger airways. Maybe Chuck can comment on what his track vets have seen.

Obviously any dry, powdery surface (think dust) is a greater threat for stuff getting deeper into the lungs than a damper, heavier, larger particle (which gets caught upon inhalation in the sinuses and upper airways as it should be).

Sand isn't going to go very far generally, it's a big particle as far as the airways are concerned.

I, too, would be more worried about the dried manure, organic matter, fungal spores, etc in dirt than in a synthetic, if inhaled deeply.

I removed an intact set of pantyhose from a Labrador's stomach and intestine once :rolleyes: