Santa Anita not racing Saturday?

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by The Bid

Stronarch should be able to sue someone for making him install that garbage at any of his tracks. Im sure he will when they tear them all out

The funniest part about Santa Anita is they were contacted prior to installation by someone who does roads, breathable paving, etc. At that time they were told IT WOULD NOT DRAIN properly unless they did it a certain way. Of course they disregarded that well respected professionals opinion, knowing full well the supertrack could handle water. Its not just the wax, they arent telling the story, its the base. They knew before they started and never gave it a second thought. Its a disgrace.

i thought it was the fine sand that they were using, that it was clogging the drain holes....

at any rate, whoever is responsible should be fired. santa anita will be a mess all racing season.
maybe the bc should seriously rethink the decision NOW to have the bc there this year. october would be a bad time to realize there's a problem that hasn't been resolved.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Danzig

i thought it was the fine sand that they were using, that it was clogging the drain holes....

at any rate, whoever is responsible should be fired. santa anita will be a mess all racing season.
maybe the bc should seriously rethink the decision NOW to have the bc there this year. october would be a bad time to realize there's a problem that hasn't been resolved.

They are definitely going to put in a new track at Santa Anita. This will be done well before the BC so you don't have to worry about that. They may wait until this meet ends in April to begin putting a new surface in, but I think there is also a chance that they made decide to move the meet to Hollywood and start work on the new surface right now. If they started right now, they would probably be done by mid to late February. That would be the best idea. That wouldn't be so bad to race at Hollywood for the next 6-7 weeks and then go back to Santa Anita in mid to late February for the last two months of the meet.

If they try to keep running at Santa Anita right now, who knows how many days they will miss. They will have to cancel the races every time it rains. They may miss 10-20 days.

By the way, even if this surface did drain properly, I still don't like the surface. The track is way too fast. I have been hearing about alot of horses getting sore shins there. It's because the track is way too hard.

[hoovesupsideyourhead]

take it to delmar...........rip it out put dirt back..its easy..lol or run all turf meet

[The Bid]

Rupe, if the CHRB/SA are dumb enough to tear that track out and install another Polytrack they are out of their minds. With the rate of breakdowns at GG, the least they can do is lay the dirt and wait to see if the tracks can be tweaked where performance is acceptable. Carnival of fools.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by The Bid

Rupe, if the CHRB/SA are dumb enough to tear that track out and install another Polytrack they are out of their minds. With the rate of breakdowns at GG, the least they can do is lay the dirt and wait to see if the tracks can be tweaked where performance is acceptable. Carnival of fools.

I can't comment on Golden Gate because I haven't heard anything. But I don't see any reason why they wouldn't put in another synthetic surface at Santa Anita. I know there have been problems with synthetic surfaces at some places but overall I think the pros outweigh the cons.

I think the track at Keeneland is a huge improvement over the old track. I think Hollywood's track is a huge improvement. Chuck says that Turfway is a huge improvement. I'm not crazy about Del Mar. I think it's much safer than the old surface but I think it's way too slow and many horses don't seem to like it. In addition, it's very hard to handicap. I hope they can slightly tweak it for this year's meet and at least speed it up a little.

Now just because these new synthetic surfaces were a big improvement to the old tracks, that's not to say that a new, natural dirt surface wouldn't have been just as big of an improvement. I really don't know the answer to that.

[The Bid]

I thought having to tear a track down to bare bones and the mass breakdowns at GG would be a little bit of a reason. Keeneland is better in which way? Because they dont have the speed bias, or because the injuries were way up significantly? As much as I respect Chuck's opinion, I would disagree completely with Turfway being a good surface.

Tweaking isnt ripping a track up, or adding a zillion gallons of wax and sneakers because you cant keep the kickback down, or its freezing, or balling up. Thats not tweaking, thats incompetance, and lack of forethought. Its amazing that this has happened considering the promises made prior to installation. Whether people want to believe it or not these tracks were sold as low upkeep, safe, all weather surfaces. Why now are people willing to accept the shortcomings?

These new surfaces are not only a great failure, they havent improved anything except initial handle, then they dip back to normal. Infact TWP took a huge decline, of course Ellison said its due to contracts which is understandable. However, even with that the handle is down a considerable amount.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by The Bid

I thought having to tear a track down to bare bones and the mass breakdowns at GG would be a little bit of a reason. Keeneland is better in which way? Because they dont have the speed bias, or because the injuries were way up significantly? As much as I respect Chuck's opinion, I would disagree completely with Turfway being a good surface.

Tweaking isnt ripping a track up, or adding a zillion gallons of wax and sneakers because you cant keep the kickback down, or its freezing, or balling up. Thats not tweaking, thats incompetance, and lack of forethought. Its amazing that this has happened considering the promises made prior to installation. Whether people want to believe it or not these tracks were sold as low upkeep, safe, all weather surfaces. Why now are people willing to accept the shortcomings?

These new surfaces are not only a great failure, they havent improved anything except initial handle, then they dip back to normal. Infact TWP took a huge decline, of course Ellison said its due to contracts which is understandable. However, even with that the handle is down a considerable amount.

From all the reports I've been getting, the injuries are way down at most of these tracks. The injuries are way down and the field size is way up. I think Arlington is another track where the synthetic surface has been a huge success.

If the injuries are way up on these synthetic surfaces, then the field size would be going down. That is not the case. The opposite has been happening. The field sizes have been increasing.

You say that injuries are way up at Keeneland. I know that injuries were way down initially. I would like to see the data that you are looking at. I'm not saying that you are wrong. I haven't seen the data. There are many ways of analyzing data. Where did you get the info? I would like to take a look at it.

[Cannon Shell]

Originally Posted by The Bid

As much as I respect Chuck's opinion, I would disagree completely with Turfway being a good surface.

I didnt say it was good, just better than what previously existed there.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I can't comment on Golden Gate because I haven't heard anything. But I don't see any reason why they wouldn't put in another synthetic surface at Santa Anita. I know there have been problems with synthetic surfaces at some places but overall I think the pros outweigh the cons.

I think the track at Keeneland is a huge improvement over the old track. I think Hollywood's track is a huge improvement. Chuck says that Turfway is a huge improvement. I'm not crazy about Del Mar. I think it's much safer than the old surface but I think its way too slow and many horses don't seem to like it. In addition, it's very hard to handicap. I hope they can slightly tweak it for this year's meet and at least speed it up a little.

Now just because these new synthetic surfaces were a big improvement to the old tracks, that's not to say that a new, natural dirt surface wouldn't have been just as big of an improvement. I really don't know the answer to that.

hearing that quite a bit lately...and it's true.

hollywood showed the other cali tracks the right way to do it, hopefully the others can follow suit. i expect del mar will make a move in the right direction, they'll be better this year ( but then, how could it get worse??).

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Danzig

hearing that quite a bit lately...and it's true.

hollywood showed the other cali tracks the right way to do it, hopefully the others can follow suit. i expect del mar will make a move in the right direction, they'll be better this year ( but then, how could it get worse??).

At Del Mar, I think if they put just a tiny bit of water on the track in the afternoon that it would make a huge difference. It would tighten the track up and speed it up a little up. One of the major complaints is that the track at Del Mar is different in the mornings from the afternoons. In the morning, the temperature is much cooler and there is much more moisture in the air. The track is much tighter under those conditions. In the afternoon when it is much hotter outside, the track loosens up and gets very slow. I think just slightly watering the track in the afternoon would help quite a bit.

[The Bid]

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/nat...d-meeting.aspx

In this article Beasley says the weather played a factor. Why would the weather play a factor on an all weather track?

Rupe, the one stat that was mind boggling to me was Golden Gate a few weeks ago. They had a 6 day stretch where 12 horses were eased, 7 were vanned off lame, and 5 were euthanized on track.