Another breakdown at Turfway

[The Bid]

Rupert,

Do the three trianers I spoke with today count towards the "any trainer" you mentioned? I spoke with 3 today and each were less than satisfied with the clumping, and uneven surface at TWP.

Originally Posted by The Bid

Rupert,

Do the three trianers I spoke with today count towards the "any trainer" you mentioned? I spoke with 3 today and each were less than satisfied with the clumping, and uneven surface at TWP.

I can name 5 guys who have told me its ok to train on but that they hate it to race on.
Of course they can't tell the press that.
In any case, its been marketed as maintenance free and I can post links like Stud has, and its not stopping breakdowns.
And waht about Sadlers comments last week about the foot problems?
I can show you 2-4 trainers in Cali who now zoom every 6 days instead of every 7. They think its a liscense to beat on em even harder than they were already beating on em.
It aint gonna help em in the long run.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by oracle80

I can name 5 guys who have told me its ok to train on but that they hate it to race on.
Of course they can't tell the press that.
In any case, its been marketed as maintenance free and I can post links like Stud has, and its not stopping breakdowns.
And waht about Sadlers comments last week about the foot problems?
I can show you 2-4 trainers in Cali who now zoom every 6 days instead of every 7. They think its a liscense to beat on em even harder than they were already beating on em.
It aint gonna help em in the long run.

A lot of guys out here are a little concerend that the track has gotten so fast. They weren't expecting it ot be so fast. It wasn't nearly this fast a month ago. The good news is that the track still seems to be very safe.

I read Sadler's comments. If we start hearing this same thing from several trainers, then I would start to be concerned. But I'm not going to be too concerned about one trainer. Sadler paid $800,000 for that horse. That's a lot of money to pay for a horse that is by a sire(Millenium Wind) that stands for $5,000. We don't know what Sadler's motives are. Maybe Sadler doesn't want to take the blame so he is blaming the track surface. Who knows? I'm not saying that this is the case. I have no idea. Sadler may be correct about the track. Maybe we will start to hear similar things from other trainers. But as of right now, 99% of the guys at Hollywood are happy with the surface.

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

A lot of guys out here are a little concerend that the track has gotten so fast. They weren't expecting it ot be so fast. It wasn't nearly this fast a month ago. The good news is that the track still seems to be very safe.

I read Sadler's comments. If we start hearing this same thing from several trainers, then I would start to be concerned. But I'm not going to be too concerned about one trainer. Sadler paid $800,000 for that horse. That's a lot of money to pay for a horse that is by a sire(Millenium Wind) that stands for $5,000. We don't know what Sadler's motives are. Maybe Sadler doesn't want to take the blame so he is blaming the track surface. Who knows? I'm not saying that this is the case. I have no idea. Sadler may be correct about the track. Maybe we will start to hear similar things from other trainers. But as of right now, 99% of the guys at Hollywood are happy with the surface.

Richi you guys who use pedigree to judge a horse who has already run faster on the numbers than 99% of horses who will start from that crop just lose me.
His debut was VERY nice, and I don't think they overpaid based on that race.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by oracle80

Richi you guys who use pedigree to judge a horse who has already run faster on the numbers than 99% of horses who will start from that crop just lose me.
His debut was VERY nice, and I don't think they overpaid based on that race.

I loved that horse at the sale, but I wouldn't pay $800,000 for him. We would have gone up to about $350,000 or so for that horse if he would have passed our vet. He didn't even pass our vet.

By the way, I'm not particularly big on pedigree when I go to a sale. The main thing that I'm interested in is a horse's ability and you can tell quite a bit about a horse's ability from watching them work. That being said, I'm still not going to pay $800,000 for a horse with no pedigree. Even if he's a really good horse and he wins a couple of stakes races and makes a few hundred thouand dollars, you will still lose money on him. The horse would have to be a super-horse for you to make money on him.

We need to get one thing straight...Marty Collins has never said that PolyTrack is "maintenance free." Keeneland and Marty Collins have all said the following; "Minimum maintenance is required compared to a conventional dirt track because the Polytrack surface needs less watering and less harrowing." No where in this statement does it state that PolyTrack is "maintenance free." You can get this quote from Marty Collins web site and here is the link: http://www.polytrack.com/advantages.html. Also, if you click on the below link you can view the PowerPoint presentation to the California Horsemen....http://www.polytrack.com/presentation/index.html. You should be not getting any other info from PloyTrack from anywhere else other than Keeneland or Marty Collins.

[The Bid]

Euro

If you are going to buy a horse privately should you get any information from anyone but the seller? Should you have it vetted, jogged, scoped, or just take the sellers word? How about when you buy a used car, just take the sellers word, dont even bother putting it up on a lift? How about with a house, any inspection, or just take the sellers word everything is up to code?? I guess we should just read and believe whatever Collins, or Keeneland says about the track they are selling and making millions on

[todko]

Originally Posted by eurobounce

We need to get one thing straight...Marty Collins has never said that PolyTrack is "maintenance free." Keeneland and Marty Collins have all said the following; "Minimum maintenance is required compared to a conventional dirt track because the Polytrack surface needs less watering and less harrowing." No where in this statement does it state that PolyTrack is "maintenance free." You can get this quote from Marty Collins web site and here is the link: http://www.polytrack.com/advantages.html. Also, if you click on the below link you can view the PowerPoint presentation to the California Horsemen....http://www.polytrack.com/presentation/index.html. You should be not getting any other info from PloyTrack from anywhere else other than Keeneland or Marty Collins.

They also never said that tracks had to do serious renovations to the surface -- like scraping the top 3 inches (March 2006) and spending even more money revising the top layer with spandex and cable coverings like TP did this summer.

And "Marty" as you call him clearly lied when he said the surface was "low kickback".

If you get information from Keeneland and Martin "Marty" Collins you'll never get the complete truth. They are in the business to sell Poly pure and simple.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by The Bid

Rupert,

Do the three trianers I spoke with today count towards the "any trainer" you mentioned? I spoke with 3 today and each were less than satisfied with the clumping, and uneven surface at TWP.

I have said that there have been real problems at Woodbine and Turfway. I don't know if polytrack(with the current ingredients) works well in really cold weather. For all I know, it may not hold up in cold weather. They may have a serious problem. I have read about the problems you are talking about. I'm not surprised that you have talked to trainers that are concerned with the clumping at Turfway.

The only thing I'm saying is that it works well in places where the weather is moderate. Here at Hollywood Park, it is a huge improvement over what we had before.

[SCUDSBROTHER]

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I have said that there have been real problems at Woodbine and Turfway. I don't know if polytrack(with the current ingredients) works well in really cold weather. For all I know, it may not hold up in cold weather. They may have a serious problem. I have read about the problems you are talking about. I'm not surprised that you have talked to trainers that are concerned with the clumping at Turfway.

The only thing I'm saying is that it works well in places where the weather is moderate. Here at Hollywood Park, it is a huge improvement over what we had before.

Richie,we are getting fields of 10,12,and 14 horses out here in December.Something is going right.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by SCUDSBROTHER

Richie,we are getting fields of 10,12,and 14 horses out here in December.Something is going right.

Yes, that is exactly right.

[SCUDSBROTHER]

I will tell you this much.With the weather SOCAL has from April -December,if you add in the cushion track(I don't know about what synthetic Anita is using,)this area is gunna have a lot (a whole lot) of healthy happy horses(and they are gunna feel like running more often, too.)We are gunna have big fields with highly competitive racing.It works here(may not work everywhere.)

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

I have said that there have been real problems at Woodbine and Turfway. I don't know if polytrack(with the current ingredients) works well in really cold weather. For all I know, it may not hold up in cold weather. They may have a serious problem. I have read about the problems you are talking about. I'm not surprised that you have talked to trainers that are concerned with the clumping at Turfway.

The only thing I'm saying is that it works well in places where the weather is moderate. Here at Hollywood Park, it is a huge improvement over what we had before.

And are you telling me that a better surface couldnt have been established at 1/4 the price by ripping out the cushion and putting down a new surface as well?
Magna spent 5 mill supoosedly to redo Gulf(and part of that was the cost of reconfiguration) and the horsemen rave about the surface there now.
Its a money game with this stuff.

[The Bid]

I gotcha Rupert.

I dont understand why a track like Hollywood wouldnt just reinstall a conventional dirt track. I think all of these tracks jumped the gun on mass installation of synthetic surfaces. Like Oracle said.... I think they are fine to train over, I just dont care for the racing over them. What really pisses me off is the tracks cracking down on the trainers to the point they cant speak their mind. If they are going to have a polytrack they need to take the trainers opinions to heart, work together to perfect the surface. When Poly was first laid at Turfway the jockeys bitched about the kick back, they wanted it watered down....managment basically said if you dont like it dont ride here. That is the attitude from Turfway, whether the people in here want to believe it or not.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by The Bid

I gotcha Rupert.

I dont understand why a track like Hollywood wouldnt just reinstall a conventional dirt track. I think all of these tracks jumped the gun on mass installation of synthetic surfaces. Like Oracle said.... I think they are fine to train over, I just dont care for the racing over them. What really pisses me off is the tracks cracking down on the trainers to the point they cant speak their mind. If they are going to have a polytrack they need to take the trainers opinions to heart, work together to perfect the surface. When Poly was first laid at Turfway the jockeys bitched about the kick back, they wanted it watered down....managment basically said if you dont like it dont ride here. That is the attitude from Turfway, whether the people in here want to believe it or not.

They definitely needed to do something out here in Soutern California. They definitely needed to put in new surfaces at all the tracks here. Maybe they should have just put in new dirt surfaces. I don't understand why it would be so hard to put in a good, safe dirt surface. I guess they just weren't very confident that they could get it right with new dirt surfaces. I think they were more confident that they could do it right with artifical surfaces. I think they thought it would be much easier too.

Originally Posted by Rupert Pupkin

They definitely needed to do something out here in Soutern California. They definitely needed to put in new surfaces at all the tracks here. Maybe they should have just put in new dirt surfaces. I don't understand why it would be so hard to put in a good, safe dirt surface. I guess they just weren't very confident that they could get it right with new dirt surfaces. I think they were more confident that they could do it right with artifical surfaces. I think they thought it would be much easier too.

yeah easier, and I wonder if anyone ever gets a nice Christmas present for steering a 12 million dollar contract someplace.
Not much money in dirt you know?
Thats my point Richi, How come for years noone at these tracks "cared about" the horse welfare and just didn't spend 1/4 the cost of the poly on a new safe dirt surface?
My suspicions stem from the fact that as soon as there was a whole lotta cash in it, people all of sudden cared so much.
How come keeneland never put in a new dirt surface for YEARS to replace the surface that was very criticized?
All of a sudden they cared? And it had nothing to do with money?
I'm willing to bet that a lotta folks get some nice stocking stuffers this year.

[todko]

Originally Posted by oracle80

yeah easier, and I wonder if anyone ever gets a nice Christmas present for steering a 12 million dollar contract someplace.
Not much money in dirt you know?
Thats my point Richi, How come for years noone at these tracks "cared about" the horse welfare and just didn't spend 1/4 the cost of the poly on a new safe dirt surface?
My suspicions stem from the fact that as soon as there was a whole lotta cash in it, people all of sudden cared so much.
How come keeneland never put in a new dirt surface for YEARS to replace the surface that was very criticized?
All of a sudden they cared? And it had nothing to do with money?
I'm willing to bet that a lotta folks get some nice stocking stuffers this year.

Very well said. Poly was originally sold as "saving $500,000 in yearly maintenance costs". Now it's sold as saving horses. The jury is still out on that.

It was also sold as having a 10 year lifespan. That may be true on gallops or training tracks but highly doubtful for a racetrack.

Turfway had an extremely mild winter in '05 and '06. They wouldn't have had to cancel days even if they kept the dirt surface -- yet they ignore that fact and say it was the poly that saved racing days. Total misinformation. They also ignore the fact that the weather (also FG being closed) helped handle.

We'll see this season how the poly reacts to tough weather. So far it doesn't look good.