Praise For Del Mar

[miraja2]

I think the addition of a third surface has to help good handicappers in the long run. Being able to track the patterns of dirt-to-poly and poly-to-dirt performances is crucial.
At Arlington, for example, there have been a number of horses coming in off nice performances at CD or Hawthorne that have been seriously overbet (especially on Saturdays when there is a lot of dead money at the track) because the switch to poly wasn't given enough consideration. I also think the "turf horses love poly" angle has been seriously overblown, so horses with good turf form are often severely overbet in their poly debuts.
So like I said, I think the addition of a third surface helps the good handicappers. That, of course, is why I hate it. I need something to help us crappy handicappers.