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Originally Posted by Danzig
thus far del mar has no breakdowns on their track, only on the turf. of course not everyone is happy with how the surface is playing.
of course bid is located near turfway and arlington, so i doubt he cares much about del mar. i know turfway had many more problems last year than their first with the artificial, and arlington has some work to do. but i think arlington is ahead of where they were.
i'm just not totally sold that a good poly is better than a good dirt surface. unless of course you've got a turf track and hope to keep full fields when they come off due to weather.
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Turfway had the problems because of freezing track temperatures, and the main reason for that is because they thought they only had to harrow it once and everything would be okay. Surely everyone knows that if something is kept on the move, it will not freeze up and 'ball' together.
Wolverhampton had problems with the freezing track in the winter, but they just about managed to get through it by harrowing it after EVERY race to kep the surface moving. However, they also found that heavy snow fall can find out the Poly. Really heavy snow will settle on the track and cause it to freeze under the layer of snow. There was nothing they could do about that.
From all the stats i have seen, Poly is a much safer surface than dirt, but that doesn't give a true reflection because, as you say there have been some great dirt surfaces and some truly awful ones. What i will say is that the dirt was often a very fast surface, and made fast because that's how the track wanted it. If that dirt surface becomes too fast there is very little cushion in it and that is no good for half a ton of horse.
The Poly can ride fast or slow, depending how the track preapre it, but however it rides, it will always have that much needed cushion to minimise bone concussion in the horse's limbs.