Weren't Empire Maker's feet his undoing in the Derby? could be the same with Big Brown...

*head explodes*

Didn't Spotsgone win a Grade 3 at Hoosier last summmer?

The synethic vs dirt conversation is getting crazy tiresome. There will be tons of arguments for both sides of it. It is basically comes down to two things, people either changing their handicapping or not changing, and the fact that it benefits spread players (because of the lack of consistency). And if you play polytrack like you play turf (I contend that cushion, while the results are a little squirrely sometimes, plays like a dirt track alot more then polytrack does) then who gives a ****, handicap it like a turf race and be done with it.

Personally, handicapping is handicapping, surface aint changing that. And I love all surfaces, and quite honestly, I love Polytrack because it is more like turf racing, and I like betting on turf racing, so it fits me well.

You know what else I like about it, some of these guys actually have to TRAIN a horse instead of putting all this damn speed into them and taking advantage of bias. Look at Baffert, where you at now that you actually have to put wind into your horses? I could train on a california old track. "Work the horse 34" and on race day "Get to the rail and GO"

Except in the case of this Derby it is probably the single most important factor to determining the outcome of the race.

And every Derby after this, or until Churchill goes synethic, which I doubt will happen.

By that point I think there will be a lot more information available. It is hardly a topic that has been as well discussed as every other angle in the game. For instance, I had no clue how poor Pulpit's have been on the synthetics until I went and looked it up myself. I didn't realize how good Tiznow has been on the synthetics until someone (I think Drugs) mentioned it on here and I went to look at the data. For other surface switches this sort of info would be well known and readily available on the past performances. For the synthetics there is still a severe shortage of information on the topic as the answer to the question of what is good synthetic breeding is still being learned.

This is why the Thorograph are valuable, the full sheets have this very exact information, for both sires AND trainers, and jocks I think.

Asmussen is like 12% on this stuff, 25% everywhere else, although that should change now that he is in Canada this year