Clearly Keeneland knew when they changed to dirt that they were likely to get smaller fields since they were getting a lot of turf oriented horses in the poly races which made for bigger fields there.
The decision they had to make was whether to go to dirt and have smaller fields as a negative and have their premiere race relevant again or stay on poly and destroy their premiere race of the meet. I would not be surprised if they knew that the Bluegrass may have been on the verge of losing its Grade I status with a future possibility of having little to zero impact on the trail to the Derby.
Also, I think the poly was having an impact on handle since many people felt it was very unpredictable and were taking the betting dollars they would put in the windows at Keeneland and betting it elsewhere. Personally, I began to embrace the polytrack there after admittedly criticizing it as it took me a while but I was doing very well with it. But I certainly understand if they felt they could have smaller fields on dirt but have bettors feel the races were playable and bring their betting dollars back to Keeneland's pools, so I have to think that factored in their decision as well. While it may not hapeen right away, people who were taking their dollar's elsewhere are likely to come back, it just may take a few meets.
The fact that they could get Breeder's Cup's there as well certainly factored into the decision and clearly they felt that the positives of installing a sound dirt course outweighed continuing to have a synthetic racetrack.
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