Strong field shaping up for Woodbine Mile

[brianwspencer]

Originally Posted by CSC

I can assure you, I wouldn't waste 2 pages explaining the obvious. Nor would I ignore the fact that those races that were 3 seconds faster were run on a turf course that resembled concrete more than a turf course and somehow equating this to a race being run in a cut, induced bog. There are distortions and then there are distortions, I figure you should know better being that you are a public handicapper.

This is still absolutely crazy. If let's just say, 12-15 lengths worth of time is NOT grounds for admitting that a course is likely "good/yielding," compared to its "firm" counterpart, what is?

Would 7 seconds be enough to these silly arbitrary designations we have to make sense? 10 seconds? If they had run 5.5f in 1:34.4 would it then have been yielding enough for you to accept these clearly far-too-simpleton-for-your-taste designations?

If a "firm" turf course was producing times of, let's say, 1:00.3, and a "yielding" course producing times some 15 lengths slower, it certainly shouldn't matter what job someone has to be able to see that rolling your eyes about the latter being called "yielding" may just be someone with too much time to pass today looking for a "debate" of any kind, yea?

Those are the designations we work with, and the differences in times on the two courses listed as "firm" and as "yielding" seems perfectly appropriate to me to label them as such, no distortions necessary. If you want to change the game and rename turf conditions with your special moisture meter, then as I said, that's great and let's get used to that -- that's an entirely different conversation.

But given the framework from which we're working in, this is an abjectly frivolous and silly argument to even be having, because it makes the most perfect kind of sense when actually looked at from a time v. condition of turf course perspective.

If you really believe that a difference of that kind in a 5.5f race doesn't indicate a significant amount of give in the ground compared to a dry and firm course, then nobody can change your mind. But that, in my estimation, is not so much a problem of an American inability to rate turf courses as it is your ability to understand it.