Another fine deflection.

So, dirt isn't natural to horses?

Therefore, why bother and just run over shredded tires and condoms?

That makes sense.

Yeah, she's never answered a question honestly and completely lacks integrity when trying to defend her POV.

Why is turf referred to as 'natural' like dirt is all manufactured? When people make these kinds of statements about 'other coutntries' they seem to forget that the scope of racing is so much larger in the US and the climates so much different that racing the majority of races on the turf is totally impractical.

And the breakdown rates ion synthetic are statistically insignifigant compared to the prior surfaces (mostly because the records werent kept so comparing is difficult)

Simply using breakdown rates to say that a track is/isn't safe or is safer is folly as it ignores the vast amount of influences beyond surface that cause horses to breakdown.

i think the fact that synthetic tracks have been installed means we aren't refusing to try, or to change.
however, how long does one stick with an experiment before deciding it's not working?
cali racing went into a decline, it continues to decline. the majority of horsemen have become vocal about the tracks being an issue. when the new tracks were first installed, you saw trainers ship in. that has dropped dramatically since people have decided those awt's just aren't what they want to deal with. field sizes there continue to shrink, with several days cancelled this year due to lack of entrants.

i don't see turfway changing back-in their case it seems the awt is working for them.

as for us going to all turf, turf tracks wouldn't hold up to the amount of racing we require.

"Be impeccable with your word. Speak with integrity."

My comments were not related in any way to the article. I was purely responding to the questions/comments of Riot.

Deflection of what? Spit it out. I addressed G1's run on synthetic.

No, a manufactured track of dirt: drainage, a base, a manufactured cushion - isn't as "natural" as turf.

Not evident, but nice try.

Turf courses don't have drainage?

You're a smart guy, figure it out. I'm not wasting anymore time on disingenuous posters.

Nice straw man. Isn't working.

I think that's why many dismiss any surface other than dirt out of hand. The above is what we are used to, the racing we in America know.

Keep spinning dude.

I agree with all you say. It would take a tremendous amount of land to install a great turf track facility in the US (a track would need multiple gallops, training areas, etc) and hold up to our use. It would be cool to see, though.

Consistent hysterics.

Yeah, "hysterical". Sure :D

Well, I answered this already, but self-deleted it by accident. Sorry.

Horses were designed to work on turf - hooves, legs, tendons, muscles, eyes, breathing, gut. Where do horses live on dirt?

Certainly turf courses are graded, grass types selected, drainage, divots replaced, etc. (less so with the centuries-old type tracks in Europe) But a dirt track is completely manufactured from scratch - drainage, base, and a mixture of soils (clay, loam, sand) specifically composed to a recipe (soils that may not even be local)

:zz: I'm not forgetting. It is what it is in the US. Horse racing started primarily in the upper east, was imported from England and adapted to what we have here. We even developed the speedball specialist to run on our different type of track (dirt)

That's something you just made up. It is not true. Go on PubMed, there's plenty there.

I agree. That's why I hate to see, when any horse breaks down on a synthetic track, the predictable few who sarcastically say, "I thought those surfaces were supposed to be safe?"

As I said (in my posts at the time, which I haven't time to go looking for), if the tracks had spent more time and effort and maintaining their dirt courses, the drive for synthetics would have gone nowhere. Instead of which, they took their dirt for granted and let it get hard and uneven, leading to the injury problems that fueled the chorus for replacement with synthetics out west.