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Originally Posted by ELA
A great deal of that (I took the liberty of bolding that part) is in reality nothing more than supposition, and while there might be "data" to back up opinion or supposition, in this case it might be an exercise in futility. 2yo's have been racing on dirt forever, and still are (and unless the standardbred industry is going to change, they will continue to do so as well). There's never been an alternative until recent times, hence the passion and the controversy so to speak.
Bucked shins will continue to happen and different people are going to blame and point to problems and solutions. That's what makes the world go 'round, LOL. This certainly isn't a Bob Baffert issue.
Many people have very passionate opinions on dirt, poly/synthetic/etc. and I think the verdict is still out because all of the evidence is not in. This is going to be a life-cycle and now it's still in it's infancy.
Eric
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It definetly is not a Baffert issue, other than Maimomides is the horse in question.
Also, it could be the surface, as per the following from the article
Racehorses that have trained and raced successfully in Europe
may develop bucked shins when they race in North
America on dirt tracks. It is interesting to note
that horses are running on harder surfaces in North
America than on the turf courses in Europe.
The above was from the first page of the article I previously linked too.
There are many results from artificial surfaces we dont know yet, speculation, arguments, etc, could all be moot until concrete numbers are in, and it could be a whole generation to get these.
What I dont understand is the knock on the west coast poly vs the Keeneland poly. It seems the critics of the races at Keeneland havent been as big as the races at DM or I just wasnt reading it as much.
I do think DM might tweak the poly for next year, as they had to get the horse mortality rate down.
On a side note, they really need to work on the turf course, which if you you go to the DM website, the cam showing the track shows the turf course has already been ripped up.