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Originally Posted by SCUDSBROTHER
I am not going to try to make sense of anything that happens in Chicago.I don't think they are going to be very careful with Illinois bred horses...PERIOD!!........I do know we have had much fewer horses breaking down on the synthetic in SOCAL.We were having 5 and 6 horses fields in most races out here at one point.So,don't tell me dirt is better for the horses.They come right back to race on synthetic,and they couldn't do that nearly as quickly on dirt.It put us in the position where we didn't have enough horses to race unless we went to synthetic.Stronach wanted to put dirt back in at Anita,but the majority of trainers here favor the synthetic(and so he is leaning towards synthetic.)Over n' over again,you are going to see that when trainers get to use the synthetics like the cushion track,then the majority will favor it over dirt.Their horses have less injuries over it,and can race more often.Most fans just ignore that.They want to keep studying to see what's safer,but the trainers are already making it obvious which they think is safer.People just ignore the obvious,though. I guess they think the majority of trainers out here are wrong about what's best for their animals....I don't think that.
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The California tracks were terrible. We have no clue what sort of a safe dirt surface could have been put down for the same price it cost to put in the synthetic. It could have been just as safe or safer, who knows? The reality is the tracks that have switched to synthetic have been the tracks with the highest breakdown rates. I have no doubt with a new safer dirt track in that the breakdown rates would have dropped significantly and possibly even as much as they dropped on the synthetics. To blindly say that synthetics are safer is not accurate. Safer than a crappy dirt track, sure. But we've seen when synthetics have gone wrong they are the least safe surface out there. Comparing the least safe dirt tracks to the synthetics that replace them is like comparing the least safe synthetics to the safest dirt tracks, completely meaningless.