Oh, my scientific mind loves it, and senses opportunity here - let's do a controlled study!

We'll assemble all the casual turf writers together, get them going at 16 m/s(2), and drop them from a height of 6-7 feet onto Polytrack. We can measure the distance they "roll" :)

As an aside, I've seen other jocks comment in the press that they prefer falling on it, versus dirt. Having fallen myself onto turf, sand, wood chips, and into fences - looks inviting enough to me :D

That someone spent time thinking of a theory that would suggest that polytrack would be more unsafe for riders to land on is troubling.

If Kristufek had any small knowledge regarding the biomechanics of the surface, and why it is much safer for 470kg animals striking it during a race at 35-40mph on a slightly concave 4-5-inch round foot, he wouldn't have written anything so silly regarding what happens when 115 pound men strike it at the same speed.

When he publishes his opinion that, "Polytrack has proven safer for racehorses, but not for jockeys", stating it as a fact, unfortunately alot of people are going to believe anything they read, and take it as inviolate truth.

No surface is going to be safe to land on head first going 35 mph and if you get stepped on it is not going to matter much either way.

no, i was saying they weren't happy with it being out there with the heat, and the hard track. i know who won it. don't you remember the weeks leading up to the bc, when a lot over there were saying they weren't coming? you think johar could have dead-heated with HC any where else?!

Getting back to the comment that Americans are always complaining or whining or whatever was said, it should be pointed out comparing our synthetic racing to Europe's is ridiculous.

We Americans were "sold" on the idea that this would be dirt racing, just safer. The Euros had nothing to compare it to, since they've never had conventional dirt. They were getting a chance to race in the winter, when they wouldn't otherwise. We've had winter racing here for years. And while Poly makes sense for a mostly winter track like Turfway, its plain stupid for tracks like Santa Anita and Keeneland to have it. Almost all the horses with 5 or more races here have established dirt form. When you see a horse like Sun Boat become a graded stakes winner on dirt, or Student Council absolutely bury Lava Man, you know there's something wrong. Its not just the running styles that people don't like; its the lack of transferability of conventional dirt form to synth that is bizarre. And while the strong acceleration of early speedballs and deep closers were admired, it appears those styles will give way to the "preferred" one-paced grinding style that wins so many synth races.

Give me Mountaineer, Ellis, Hawthorne any day over the carpet tracks.

Is the safety and longevity of the horses of any concern to you?

He could have dead heated with him at Delta Downs on the dirt probably. Anywhere else and he gets crushed.

I don't think anybody has claimed artificial surfaces will cure breeders breeding horses that can't stand up to the rigors of racing.

Let's take a group of completely sound and race-trained horses. Would you like to see the surface they race upon improved to be safer for them, to be less likely to cause injury?

Race horses often wear front shoe toe-grabs. Enables them to grab the track (obviously). If they don't wear them, they generally don't run as fast, as their footing may not be as "sure" on the track. Some horses may seem to slip and slide around a bit, which can vary from track to track according to the surface.

The height of toe grabs are measured in millimeters. A millimeter is very tiny (it's very roughly 1/25 of an inch). "Regular" toe grabs are 6.4 millimeters in height. "High" toe grabs are 9.5 millimeters in height.

These are relatively tiny physical differences to the eye, especially compared to the size of the horse wearing them.

If you were betting on a certain horse at Mountaineer repeatedly, you might be surprised if he suddenly couldn't seem to get ahold of the track, and put in a bad performance, if he ran up the track? What if you learned his trainer didn't use his usual toe grabs for that effort?

There is a model rule to ban toe grabs over 4 millimeters in height.

Would you vote in favor of this rule, seeing that the horse you bet on may suddenly, without the regular or high toe grabs he's used to, flounder around and run up the track?

It has been found (by a researcher at UC Davis) that a race horse wearing high toe grabs is 16 times more likely to suffer a catastrophic breakdown. That's due to the toe grabs alone - not any predisposing factors.

Should a ban on toe grabs greater than 4 millimeters be supported?

How will gamblers react, if this rule is put into place universally, when certain horses who always "ran well" now can't seem to pull off the same performance repeatedly under the new rules?

Should we rather just keep the high toe grabs, and, "try to make the dirt surfaces safer" ?

How would you feel if you owned a race horse, and your trainer regularly put high toe grabs on your horse?

Oh, no, I'm sure the polytrack is at fault. The jock could have rolled out of the way of the other horses in the field if the track were dirt. I know it's true, I read it in the Daily Herald.

i've read several studies on toe grabs, i think they should be done away with. was not happy when woodbine caved and allowed them after initially saying NO. chrb has been back and forth on it. they should not be--but part of the problem would be owners who have horses who run on them, and don't want to do away with them--which makes you wonder just how much 'horse' is in those horsemen! and how much is $$$.

I have yet to see one of these studies and until I do I remain skeptical about their claims. I know a few real horseman that not only like toegrabs but regularly use mud caulks even on dry tracks. 2 guys you may have heard of. Jerkens and Zito.

Sigh ... I'm just going to have to get you subscriptions to the Equine Veterinary Journal and American Journal of Veterinary Research so you can keep up with it all! :D

PS - always bet the horse wearing mud calks

Where do they get their data?

Contessa almost ALWAYS uses mud caulks, especially on the inner track. I asked him about it and he said it's the only way the horses can grip on the half-frozen dirt in the winter. Makes sense to me.

From research. They are both peer-reviewed journals. You do some research, write up your findings, then send it in, and hope it gets accepted for publication (if it has something to offer). The editorial board of specialists in your field review it, if it passes their scrutiny (they often send it back to you for revision) then it gets published, then everyone else in your field can write letters to the editor telling how your conclusions were in error, your methodology was suspect, etc. If it survives challenge as to the validity of the findings and/or conclusion (people often disagree on the conclusions to be drawn from valid research datum), it becomes accepted as part of the current scientific knowledge base.

Or you could read the Daily Herald.

If you read the original work by Watson and Crick as published, it's alot more fun to look in the next issue of the magazine. There are a couple of letters to the editor questioning the validity of their conclusion regarding the double-helix structure of DNA. Fighting scientists are fun :D