My Prediction for Santa Anita

[Riot]

Windshields installed on jockeys at SA ... see Bloodhorse

[2Hot4TV]

Originally Posted by Mumtaz

Windshields installed on jockeys at SA ... see Bloodhorse

Didn't read the artical and I bet it's about the asphalt base coming apart. The track looks real bad and I bet Santa Anita doesn't wait to make a change.

[The Bid]

The base is kicking up. They say its new sand added, but anybody with a brain knows better. 10 claimers are going 107 for 3/4s.

The kickback on all the synthetics has always been an issue. At TWP there are a lot of horses that refuse to run through the kickback and totally shut it down. Same with Keeneland and horses swinging out 10 wide, they wont run through the garbage

Originally Posted by The Bid

The base is kicking up. They say its new sand added, but anybody with a brain knows better. 10 claimers are going 107 for 3/4s.

The kickback on all the synthetics has always been an issue. At TWP there are a lot of horses that refuse to run through the kickback and totally shut it down. Same with Keeneland and horses swinging out 10 wide, they wont run through the garbage

Some wont through dirt either.
All kinds of diff. kickback at diff. dirt tracks and depending on the amount of moisture in the dirt you can get giant clods in the face.

If the stuff does indeed prove to draw larger fields, and allow running in all weather (in the long run), get used to it.
Why in the world would anyone not want larger fields, and racing during times that they were previously unable to run horses?

[The Bid]

Pee Garden, do me a favor, dont try to act like you know something when you really dont. You dont know anything about track composition, kickback, or anything else that relates to horseracing. Keep your comments isolated to the football threads where I dont know anything about the topic. In this case, like most horseracing topics you chime in on, you are clueless.

Originally Posted by The Bid

Pee Garden, do me a favor, dont try to act like you know something when you really dont. You dont know anything about track composition, kickback, or anything else that relates to horseracing. Keep your comments isolated to the football threads where I dont know anything about the topic. In this case, like most horseracing topics you chime in on, you are clueless.

You wanna try me.
How many tracks have you walked on?
How many tracks have you dug into?
Give me the % sand by volume and the type of sand used in
the track you frequent (not the base). What is the average grain size
smart guy?

We will stick with the sand for now. Then we can move on to the type(s) of dirt
Maybe they refer to it as silt and clay in your area, we will get to that later.

[The Bid]

Ive walked on a lot more than you Pee Garden

Im not going to google some useless information to battle with you. If you cannot see the kickback is an issue at these tracks then you dont watch many races. When visors are implemented, horses are cocking heads to get out of kickback, nice horses arent finishing runs unless they are out in the 8 path, thats enough for me.

Maybe Santa Anita should hire you as the track Super. Call Magna and tell them you have all the answers, dont tell me because I dont care. I didnt know we had an authority on tracks here, why are you here wasting time when they should be flying you out to fix their issue?

[Cajungator26]

Originally Posted by The Bid

Pee Garden, do me a favor, dont try to act like you know something when you really dont. You dont know anything about track composition, kickback, or anything else that relates to horseracing. Keep your comments isolated to the football threads where I dont know anything about the topic. In this case, like most horseracing topics you chime in on, you are clueless.

'Bout time you admitted it.

[The Bid]

I know they didnt get outplayed, Im just taking the high road

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by The Bid

The base is kicking up. They say its new sand added, but anybody with a brain knows better. 10 claimers are going 107 for 3/4s.

The kickback on all the synthetics has always been an issue. At TWP there are a lot of horses that refuse to run through the kickback and totally shut it down. Same with Keeneland and horses swinging out 10 wide, they wont run through the garbage

In general, kickback is much worse on regular dirt than synthetic dirt. With normal dirt, it hurts when you get hit with those dirt clods. One of the big positives about synthetic is that you hardly feel it when you get hit with the kickback.

Santa Anita is obviously a different story. There are small rocks in the surface and from what I've heard when you get the kickback there, it feels like you are in a sand storm. So the kickback at Santa Anita is definitely a problem right now.

You won't get any argument from me about the track at Santa Anita. I think the track is horrible there right now. Even if the track drained perfectly, I would still say it's horrible. The track is way too hard. It's hard underneath and it's loose on top. You can't have a worse combination than that.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Now that management has realized that it would take about a month to put in a new dirt track, rather than a week like they originally thought, now it looks very unlikely that they will be putting in a dirt track right now. I don't know what they will do when the meet ends. But for right now, it doesn't look like they're going to do anything. They have been encouraged with the initial testing they have been doing with that liquid that they guy from Australia has brought over.

I don't think that this liquid will even come close to solving their problems, but I think that they are going to put their hopes on this stuff because they don't want to have to close the track for a month.

[The Bid]

Rupe, I disagree with you.

The kickback on the dirt is nowhere near as bad as the kickback the horses face on synthetic, especially when its cold out. Watch a race at TWP in the evenings when the horses cock their heads and refuse to run through the kickback. Keeneland they go 10 wide to stay out of the kickback, and SA they were hockey visors. I would say the kickback is not only worse with the synthetic, its not even close.

[ArlJim78]

jockey comments on synthetics from the recent Bloodhorse article.

Robbie Albarado
"If I can go around there every day with one pair of goggles and one pair of pants and not have sand hit me at 35 mile per hour, yeah, I will take that every day"

Garrett Gomez
" The polytrack doesn't have a lot of kickback, which is good for the horses."

Patrick Husbands
"The polytrack to me is the best thing to happen to racing. It is easy on the horses and a more patient racetrack."

Rene Douglas
"What I like about it is that you don't have to get that dirt in your face. Its easier for a horse to ride through and easier to control your horse. I would 100% prefer synthetic surfaces"

Originally Posted by The Bid

Rupe, I disagree with you.

The kickback on the dirt is nowhere near as bad as the kickback the horses face on synthetic, especially when its cold out. Watch a race at TWP in the evenings when the horses cock their heads and refuse to run through the kickback. Keeneland they go 10 wide to stay out of the kickback, and SA they were hockey visors. I would say the kickback is not only worse with the synthetic, its not even close.

I think I got a possible answer. The kickback on syn. looks especially bad from a sand point of view. Hard sand coming at 40 mph (relative velocity as the horse is moving usually a little less than 40 and the kickback is moving much slower but in the opposite direction the horse is going) might sting a heck of a lot. The syn. stuff is very bouncy and the sand really seems to pop up.
I totally agree with Rup about dirt clod kickback, especially on the track I frequent. If the moisture level is right, clods are produced and those hurt like hell. Any jock will tell you that at this dirt track. They do their best to reduce the size of the clods on grooming after each race, but then the horse impacts the mixture and this again compacts the dirt/sand mixture into clods DURING the race.
But of course I think very little about this stuff and know absolutely nothing. I am only a golf course expert... didnt know that, but what the hell.