Plonk's article on synthetic surfaces

[brianwspencer]

Spent the day today with Jeremy Plonk and wound up reading his new ESPN column -- think it's interesting.

I'm still a believer that synthetics generally flatter turf horses more than conventional dirt would, but it's not entirely clear that turf horses have any significant edge over dirt horses on the stuff. It appears to be good evidence that it levels the playing field between them, and should probably be viewed as more of a "third surface" than anything.

Lots of interesting stuff here, and he's as close to a synthetic surface "expert" as you're going to find, having done tons of work and research on it.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/hor...emy&id=4582956

After a study of more than 7,300 all-weather surface starters from 60 of the most well-known barns throughout North America, I have found absolutely no factual proof that horses who move from turf racing to all-weather surface racing are any better off than those who switch from the dirt.

You want a freaky stat? Try this one on.

These 60 barns produced 668 winners from 3,887 starters when moving from dirt to all-weather surface races. That's 17.2 percent victories.

Those same 60 barns produced 591 winners from 3,443 starters when moving from turf to an all-weather surface. Survey says: 17.2 percent.