Not arguing whether it's good for Hollywood or not (actually fear the day the Ky Derby is ran on artificial surface) but just adding on to the handicapping points made earlier. If you do take time (a ton of time) then it can be a great handicapping advantage. Horses that ran once on the surface, or at least had a couple of workouts on it, often improve drastically the second time out. Another useful angle is how their form transfers to different tracks. This last spring, horses shipping from Turfway either did extremely well or poorly at specific tracks. I get the two confused, but I believe horses coming off Polytrack races won at around 25-30% at Keeneland, but started like 0-60 at Oaklawn (might have switched Keeneland and Oaklawn).
|
07-17-2006, 06:50 PM
Threaded Mode