Grass Ranks Thinning Because of Synthetics

[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

Turf track records are set on rock hard turf which is a faster surface than dirt ( real dirt that is ). Honestly, King, you should understand what I said implicitely.

I don't know that I believe that the only reason turf horses go faster than dirt horses are because the tracks are always rock hard. The record Secretariat set in the Belmont Stakes is 2:24. The next fastest time for the race is 2:26. Look at the BC Turf. The 2:26 mark has been bested many times:

High Chaparral/Johar 2:24 1/5 (Santa Anita)...Falbrav only 1/2 length back
Fantastic Light 2:24 1/5 (Belmont)....won by 3/4
Daylami 2:24 3/5 (Gulfstream)
Chief Bearhart 2:23 4/5 (Hollywood)....won by 3/4
Kotashaan 2:25 1/5 (Santa Anita)
Fraise 2:24 (Gulfstream)
Theatrical 2:24 2/5 (Hollywood)...won by a nose
Manila 2:25 2/5 (Santa Anita)...won by a neck
Lashkari 2:25 1/5 (Hollywood)

Ok, maybe that's not helping since six of the nine times were done on California tracks, which are usually pretty hard.

Let me take a quick look at the Turf Classic at Belmont, a track not usually known to be rock hard. I find that six times since 1980, the time has been under 2:26 for the race. A look at the Arlington Million, another track that's not known to be rock hard shows that since the start of the BC era, there have been five runnings of the race under 2:00 (out of 21 runnings) and the BC Classic has gone uner 2:00 five times (out of 24 runnings and one of those was around the one-turn Belmont course). The fastest Million is 1:58 3/5. The fastest Classic is 1:59 flat.