Praying for Cash retired

[kentuckyrosesinmay]

Most of my horses have done wonderful over the stuff. They get a ton of bounce off of it. Well, most of the horses that I have ridden are incredibly scopy anyway...

I don't think that it is any harder for them to pick their legs up out of than a dirt ring unless they have the ring incredibly deep with the stuff (I've actually ridden in a horribly deep dirt ring before, but not a horribly deep sand/rubber mixed ring). My horses bounce over it. At the big shows up here, that is not the case. The surfaces in the rings are always incredible. Otherwise, show management would have a lot of mad riders and trainers.

Originally Posted by kentuckyrosesinmay

Most of my horses have done wonderful over the stuff. They get a ton of bounce off of it. Well, most of the horses that I have ridden are incredibly scopy anyway...

I don't think that it is any harder for them to pick their legs up out of than a dirt ring unless they have the ring incredibly deep with the stuff (I've actually ridden in a horribly deep dirt ring before, but not a horribly deep sand/rubber mixed ring). My horses bounce over it. At the big shows up here, that is not the case. The surfaces in the rings are always incredible. Otherwise, show management would have a lot of mad riders and trainers.

In my opinion it is a huge balance issue with the horses....when you are running on a surface with the boyancy and give to it as Polytrack has in relation to dirt, it screws with the entire balance of what horses are used to - and for many - what they were bred for and what their bio-mechanics were genetically tailored to.....

[kentuckyrosesinmay]

Originally Posted by Cunningham Racing

In my opinion it is a huge balance issue with the horses....when you are running on a surface with the boyancy and give to it as Polytrack has in relation to dirt, it screws with the entire balance of what horses are used to - and for many - what they were bred for and what their bio-mechanics were genetically tailored to.....

Oh, there is no doubt about that. It definitely screws with their balance. It just happens that all of the horses that I have ridden have been positively affected by that type of surface. Of course, they are jumpers where boyancy and scope are very important. You want their weight back on their hind end, and really lifting their shoulders up so that you can adjust their stride easier and so that they can easily get their front end up over a jump. I can see where boyancy would totally **** with a racehorse's balance, striding, and overall movement who was not used to running on that type of surface or who wasn't built to run on that type of surface. A lot of racehorses are built slightly downhill because they are still maturing and their hind end grows faster than their front end. Boyancy would hinder these horses. I even believe that a synthetic surface may even prolong the susupension phase in their strides on some of these horses.