i just know that everyone was thrilled with hollywood, but not near as much with del mar.

i just hope oaklawn stays with their surface, churchill, saratoga, belmont as well....
keeneland probably needs to do something with their surface as well...of course their dirt track was showing a huge bias as well....

i just want to see a surface that is kind to no one particular running style. get rid of the bias!

Clearly, less Euro horses shipped to California because of the much longer journey and the warm weather. Most are turf horses anyway, so I don't think the surface had a whole lot to do with it.

I can understand the thought that tracks should be fair. However, I feel speed, and let us not forget we are talking about racing, should have some advantage. At a minimum, they should have the advantage of being able to establish position and make others go around them. That advantage has been turned into a big time negative at some of these places. Why reward slow horses?

not just euros, a lot of east coasters didn't want to go. they didn't like the track, and how hard it was. euro turfers generally don't do well, altho this was the year high chaparral and johar dead-heated. but it was only the cali connections who were happy to have the bc out there that year.
next year will be the first time on an artificial surface for the bc, i guess we'll see how it plays out...but i'm thinking you'll see more attendance by euros. after all, if for some reason the races get rained off, they won't have shipped all that way to scratch, they'll have a familiar surface to run on.

don't get me wrong tho, i'm 'old school' and was not thrilled to see dirt decried and replaced. but it's there now, so i just hope they get it RIGHT.

that's right, no one should get a early or late boost. the horses should decide the outcome, not the track.

Our Poly often gives the advantage to the speed horses, so why should it be any different over there? It is quite often the speed that gets the advantage, and then there are some days when the winners come from off the speed. It all depends on the weather and how it is prepared on the day.

If you're saying it isn't helping the speed horses, it is because it isn't being prepared for them. Maybe they are harrowing too deep, and making it hard for the speed horses to maintain those quick fractions?

The beauty of Poly is that is can be altered to make it fair on most horses no matter what the weather conditions.

wire to wire winner stats (SPEED) thru 8/16/07

Six furlongs
Saratoga 7/38, 18%,,,,DelMar 12/59, 20%

6.5-7 furlongs
Saratoga 2/13, 15%,,,,DelMar 7/29, 24%

1 1/16 – 1 1/8 miles
Saratoga 4/24, 17%,,,,DelMar 1/14, 7%



:rolleyes:

I was happy to see the CA tracks get synthetic, as I considered them notoriously biased in favor of speed. I was tired of seeing horses come out of CA and not being able to reproduce their racing form elsewhere (false speed).

I like the artificial surfaces, as they do what you want, they level the playing field. True speed can hold, false speed stops like a rock, closers have an honest chance, stalkers have to have that last good burst to pass. More of a tactical race, with horses that have to be prepared, than simply "gun 'em and go".

i like the cushion track better than poly.

hope to see more tracks go to it then poly.

As with all stats, they can be slanted any way the presenter wants to fit his opinion. Obviously, the horses at Saratoga are running much faster early than those at Delmar. I'm just trying to keep things fair and balanced. That said, Saratoga certainly hasn't been very kind to speed the last few years, and a lot of it has to do with the new superintendent.

This from Joe Kristufek in Sunday's (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald re: Polytrack.

"Polytrack has proven safer for racehorses, but not for jockeys. When a spill occurs on Polytrack, riders hit the dense surface hard, and since there's little slide to it, its nearly impossible for them to drop and roll."

In the past week or so, AP has seen Penalba go down in a bad spill; still in critical condition I believe. Israel Ocampo and Uriel Lopez went down in a spill on Friday and Ocampo suffered multiple facial injuries which required surgery while Lopez suffered a broken thumb and bruised ribs.

All i can say is that i'm shocked. I'm sick and tired of saying it, but if the track wants a speed bias, they can prepare the Poly to give a speed bias. The fact that the speed is suffering on the Poly suggests two things: 1. The tracks don't want the surface to favour speed 2. The tracks cannot prepare the surface properly to know what is going to happen with the races.

Over here before each race day the clerk of the course will usually give his/her idea on how the track will ride and whether it is likely to suit the speed or closers. With such changeable weather that we suffer in England, the track has to be prepared differently and that changes what horses that it favours.

Who is the person that is in charge of the surface at the track (i.e. what is his/her title). They should be the ones that should be able to tell the betting public what the track will be riding like. They are obviously not doing it though.

From what i have read on different threads so far, you American's are very hard to please. You seem to want the moon but aren't preapred to go and get it yourself.

Duscuss the problems that you are having with the tracks, speak to the person/persons in charge of the surface and ask what it is going to be riding like.

One question. How long has the surface been installed at Del Mar? Don't forget that Poly does take a while to settle in and become consistant.

you hit on it, its a new surface over here and people don't have sufficient experience with it yet like they do in Europe, and the other key point is its hard to please everyone over here. We excel at whining.

U are kidding right? The Europeans dominated the turf racing that year. Six Perfections won the Mile, Islington led a sweep in the F/M Turf and in addition to High Chaparral dead heating for the win in the Turf, Falbrav ran third.

The American Airlines commercial that they are showing over here backs you up there. I think it says "we have flown more Americans than any other airline...... and if we can keep them happy.............."

Great commercial.

sorry for going off topic.

Let me ask you this, when it first started over there, were people bitching up a storm?

No, and i'm being honest there.

I remember they had a trial raceday where they invited all of the trainers that trained within about 3hours of Lingfield to have at least one runner in the eight (i think) races that they put on.

I didn't go, but my father took a couple of horses there and he said it seemed "magic". The jocks loved it and so did the trainers. Ofcourse, a few of the big trainers didn't like it at first but it didn't take many months for them to be running their horses on the surface.

I know our races aren't all to do with speed unlike yours, but what i have seen from both Lingfield and Wolverhampton (Wolverhampton especially), the Poly can and does favour the horses on the speed now and again. If your tracks can get it right, which takes time, i'm sure the speed can be favoured on the surface.

Wolverhampton is more like an American track, Lingfield has a much longer straight (stretch) so it gives more time for horses that are closing off a strong pace.

Unfortunately, as patriotic as I am, that's true, indeed.

What is interesting to me is how the complaints about each track (or lack of them) vary by location. California seems to have more complaints than anybody, including Turfway (who suffered an extremely hard winter this last season) - Arlington virtually no complaints, and the temps this summer are much hotter and more humid than at Del Mar.

I don't know if that can be attributed to the individualization in the composition of the installations at these different tracks, or not.

Keeneland has their Poly fast enough to keep impressing buyers at the 2-year-old sales.

This may be one of the stupidest things that I have seen yet

Exactly, he is nuts. If you saw how he fell when this happened it is understandable why he is all jacked up.