Plonk's article on synthetic surfaces
 

For several years now, I've saved every column I've come across about synthetic surfaces. I've bought and read "Betting Synthetic Surfaces" by Finley. Plonk's article seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom. I guess I'll have to chalk up all those seemingly weird results on plastic as just more of the ordinary, run-of-the-mill weird results that occasionally occur in horse racing. Then again, maybe I'll just skip betting the BC this year.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/hor...emy&id=4582956

With due respect to Plonk, at a cursory glance, isn't he missing, or avoiding, the bigger picture regarding the MAKE-UP of the horses succeeding on synthetic? Focusing willy-nilly on dirt/synth and turf/synth moves is hardly research about success of certain kinds of horses on synthetic surfaces.

In fact after going back and reading it again, I'm slightly horrified. Why and how, would or should, surface switches be the sole measurement of how synthetic does or doesn't play favorably with those perceived as turf-inclined horses?

Maybe I'm not properly interpreting the data as presented, but arbitrarily using surface switch statistics, without consideration of class levels, distance, locale and complete past performance records by the horses on all surfaces on which they competed, renders the 'research' totally irrelevant.

Yep.

I think once horses establish form on synthetic surfaces - they're every bit as formful as any other surface.

But any true racing fan that has witnessed enough of these synthetic races - just has to hate seeing synthetic replacing dirt on great circuits like in Southern Cal .. and especially in events like the Breeders Cup.

The people who don't dislike seeing synthetics at all 3 So Cal tracks - and don't dislike seeing no dirt at a Breeders Cup event - I have no idea in hell how any of them ever became horse racing fans.

Dirt racing is fascinating because of the demanding nature of it - and because of the complexities and the extreme impacts pace and bias have on it. It's the ultimate surface for a serious racing fan.

Turf racing is fascinating because of the big field sizes, the pedigree elements that come into play, and the strong impact trips have on outcomes. It's the preferred surface for a serious bettor.

Synthetic racing is mostly about how strong you can finish. All the variables that make the game so fascinating don't impact the outcome as strongly. It's a better surface than dirt for bettors because the betting public is going to screw up a lot more .. but it's a terrible surface for fans unless they are litterally just fans of watching big animals run in a circle with small people on their back.

It's a surface that belongs in Northern type places that run at times of the year when extreme weather causes cancellations.

DS,

Brilliant! Really succinctly put...

Horse racing is a mystery and confounding in many ways . We'll keep looking for that key in the hay stack .

I would agree with this, I don't think I have done any worse in Socal with this surface....its a little more tricky in Ky because of the dirt shippers and Elp and CD mixed in.

Plonk on Synthetic Angles
 

Spent the day today with Jeremy Plonk and wound up reading his new ESPN column -- think it's interesting.

I'm still a believer that synthetics generally flatter turf horses more than conventional dirt would, but it's not entirely clear that turf horses have any significant edge over dirt horses on the stuff. It appears to be good evidence that it levels the playing field between them, and should probably be viewed as more of a "third surface" than anything.

Lots of interesting stuff here, and he's as close to a synthetic surface "expert" as you're going to find, having done tons of work and research on it.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/hor...emy&id=4582956

After a study of more than 7,300 all-weather surface starters from 60 of the most well-known barns throughout North America, I have found absolutely no factual proof that horses who move from turf racing to all-weather surface racing are any better off than those who switch from the dirt.

You want a freaky stat? Try this one on.

These 60 barns produced 668 winners from 3,887 starters when moving from dirt to all-weather surface races. That's 17.2 percent victories.

Those same 60 barns produced 591 winners from 3,443 starters when moving from turf to an all-weather surface. Survey says: 17.2 percent.

Couldn't agree more -- at least as it relates to performance over the Santa Anita surface at the BC last year.

The one thing that ZENYATTA and MIDNIGHT LUTE had in common was that they both had really strong conformation behind, each having noticeable length to the tibia. The result was strong pushoff behind when in full stride. The dynamic of the poly surface seems to reward a more even distribution of energy -- runners with the better balanced conformation appear to produce the type of finish that matches the optimal energy distribution that the surface appears to favor.

I looked up something real quick. I checked out all of the horses that have won main track graded stakes at Keeneland since they went to poly. I didn't look at the grass races that were rained off the grass though. I wanted to see how many other graded stakes wins they had that weren't on the Keeneland poly. Here's what I found:

They have won 19 other dirts stakes
They have won 17 other synthetic stakes
They have won 17 other grass stakes

I don't think there's a dirt track in the country that you'd find as many winners that had as much success on grass as they have on dirt. But I think there's more reasoning than simply grass horses like poly more than dirt horses. I think it has something to do with opportunity and self-fulfilling prophecy. Here's what I mean. Pretty much everyone considers Monmouth to be a speed favoring track. So what happens is a trainer with a horse like Rachel will look to the Haskell before he looks at Saratoga's Jim Dandy. On the flip side, a trainer with a horse like Mine that Bird will think Monmouth doesn't suit his horse's style so he won't go there. What ends up happening is more speed horses run at Monmouth than at another track so of course more speed horses will win there. It's kind of the same thing with breeding. If I sent you 25 2yos by Yes It's True, chances are you would try the majority of them out in dirt sprints because you think that's what they are best at. What would you do if I sent you 25 2yos by Saddler's Wells? Would you be looking for dirt sprints? Probably not. The majority of them would be immediately put on the grass. Of course then you'd have dirt sprinters by Yes It's True and turf horses by Saddler's Wells and you won't know what they could have done if you reversed them because you didn't even try it. The stereotype leads to the continuation of the myth. The question is how does the myth start in the first place? Early on, we saw more grass horses entered to run on the polytrack. If they had not performed well, we wouldn't be seeing as many as we do now. But they did perform well. We saw Asi Siempre and Silent Name and Street Sounds and Eccentric all taking important main track races. Everyone saw it. So that encouraged others to try. So we see the Raven's Pass' and the Gio Pointi's, the Einstein's and the Ventura's. These are all good horses that may or may not have been able to win if the races were on real dirt. But if they were, some of these horses wouldn't have even been tried on it so we'd never know. What Plonk and others are missing is not that we are saying that grass horses win more than dirt horses on synthetics but that grass horses win more on synthetics than they do on dirt. It's pretty clear also that the best grass horses usually beat the best dirt horses on synthetic tracks. The tracks are more an alternate turf course than they are a dirt substitute.