Yeah Point I read that as well. It chilled me out 100 degrees when I read that.
Nyer's are about the best alive at spotting complete and total con jobs. Its been so obvious to me that that's what this stuff is, a complete con job. It may be a bit safer, but a deep cushion and deeply harrowed surface will get you the same thing, and no matter what you do horse will always break down no matter what we do. Noone wants to see that, including me, but its part of the game. Same way that guys getting hurt on Sunday playing NFL football is always gonna happen despite the changes in rules to protect players and new hi tech pads that are stronger and lighter.
I'll let up on my rants now. So long as trainers are addressing the fact that many horses just don't like the stuff.
I have no problem with and understand why guys may want to train on it, at all. Can understand why owners of cheap crippled claimers who shouldnt even be racing(which is the real issue here) would wanna run on it.
The problem is that its being marketed as a dirt replacement surface, because there isn't any way that a track can have both. Its always gonna replace the dirt.
I think in the future should new tracks be constructed that perhaps they could build a track with a turf course, poly course, and dirt track. That I have no problem with.
But the people who market this stuff at 8-10 million per track, have made claims about the stuff haviing no bias at all(yeah right, good luck with the speed today at Keeneland again 1-22 and counting), and never needing maintenance at all. Yet Turfway has had to redo the track 3 times in 1 1/2 years. That sure doesn't sound maintenance free to me!!!!
If they have made false claims about those things, what else is there? And more than one trainer has expressed in my presence serious concerns about the kickback and what having that stuff go into the lungs will do to the horses in the long run.
The marketers used tragic breakdowns to pound the table that we need the stuff, despite the fact that horses do break down on Poly and we don't know if it would have prevented those breakdowns or not. They also painted anyone in the horse business a horrible guy who didn't want the stuff, as if they supported cruelty to animals. So long as trainers just aren't afraid to say they or their horses don't like it, and express that to the media, thats fine with me.