Keeneland - 12.3% increase in handle

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Pointg5

I disagree, initial thoughts are that it's probably great for training and will keep horses sound and that's a good thing, that I do not deny. As for the racing, what about the owner that just spent millions on horses that are precocious and built for speed? Do you really think they are going to be happy watching their million dollar babies out there spinning their wheels? What do you think is going to happen out there when all of those Cali Speedballs are tanking, you think owners are going to be happy. Sure, they may have a healthy horse, that is not earning anything. What Kee has done is essentially made itself a training track and that trend will continue. I don't think that was their intention.

As time goes on, speed will start to do a little better there. The reason is because if all the jocks know that the track is anti-speed, nobody will want to go to the lead. They will all take back and the pace will be much slower. This will give the speed horses a better chance.

How has Keeneland made itself a training track? I think the field size was bigger than normal this meet. You can only say that a track has made itslef a training track if tons of horses are training there but field size is shrinking. That's not happening. Field size is increasing.

You are right that some horses may not like polytrack and there are some speed horses that won't do nearly as well over it. Nothing is perfect. The one negative about all the Southern California tracks switching to polytrack is that if you have a horse that doesn't like it, you're screwed. You have to ship somwehere else. But the same thing happenes right now if you have a horse that doesn't like the rock-hard tracks out here. You may need to ship him somewhere else.

Anyway, polytrack is not perfect. There are pros and cons but I think the pros far outweigh the cons. Don't get me wrong. I don't want all tracks to switch to polytrack. I think the track surfaces in New York are excellent. They don't need polytrack. Not only that, I want to have options for our horses that don't like polytrack. I want to have the option of shipping somewhere that has normal dirt, if a horse doesn't like polytrack.