Dylan Thomas points for Jockey Club Gold Cup

[Cajungator26]

Originally Posted by Bold Reasoning

What do you think of A.P. Indy?

Nice head. Sway backed IMO or a bit high in the rump (never seen him in person though, so going by pictures) and a little too straight in the shoulder for my liking. To be honest, he reminds me a lot of Storm Cat himself conformation wise, although I think that A.P. Indy has better legs than Storm Cat. I'm no expert though.

[Hwjb]

Dylan has been entered for the Kentucky Cup Classic at Turfway next weekend as well as the JCGC. Obviously the 9f there would be insufficient and the race would amount to little more than a public experiment (although that would be on polytrack, and my experience of that surface is that almost any horse acts on it). O'Brien was suggesting the BCC straight after the Irish Champion, so they must have some idea of his ability to handle the dirt...although one would imagine that the plan has also been devised so as to keep Hurricane Run and Dylan Thomas apart in the BCT.

[King Glorious]

I don't understand the thinking here that running in Kentucky over Polytrack would give them any clue as to how he would handle real dirt?

[blackthroatedwind]

Originally Posted by King Glorious

I don't understand the thinking here that running in Kentucky over Polytrack would give them any clue as to how he would handle real dirt?

I couldn't agree more.

Originally Posted by King Glorious

I don't understand the thinking here that running in Kentucky over Polytrack would give them any clue as to how he would handle real dirt?

Completely agree. Havent seen a horse yet in the US who excels on both dirt and poly. But have seen many who just flat out dont handle it or dirt duds who like it.
I guess they wanna keep them apart. Or they feel the transition from grass to poly to dirt is a better plan than just grass to dirt.

[blackthroatedwind]

Originally Posted by oracle80

Completely agree. Havent seen a horse yet in the US who excels on both dirt and poly.

There's hardly a real sample size. There's only one track that has had Polytrack for any period of time and not too many good horses have raced there ( in fact just about zero ). I'm sure there will be some that are fine on both.

The point is if they want to see if Dylan Thomas can handle the dirt you would think they would try a true dirt surface.

Originally Posted by blackthroatedwind

There's hardly a real sample size. There's only one track that has had Polytrack for any period of time and not too many good horses have raced there ( in fact just about zero ). I'm sure there will be some that are fine on both.

The point is if they want to see if Dylan Thomas can handle the dirt you would think they would try a true dirt surface.

I realize the sample size is limited, I'm not an idiot.
But I'm using the stakes races run on it at Turfway as a basis for that.
It seems to me that using the highets quality races would give you a decent base on which to examine that.
Last year's KY Cup day gave us nothing that has returned at any level on the dirt.
And the Lanes End(spiral jim beam galleryfurniture, etc) day gave us nothing either.
The inverse would be that both lawyer Ron and Lemons detested it and achieved grade one status away from it after not being able to hit the board on it.
If you look at the two big days which Turfway has hosted, and all those stakes, and the fact that noone who ran well in those stakes came back and did squat on the dirt, I'd say its a rational statement.

High Cotton would actually be the poster child for Polytrack at this point, how scary is that?