2/24 (GP): Fountain of Youth (Gr. II)

[blackthroatedwind]

Originally Posted by Indian Charlie

based on what BTW?

he debuted on turf as a pretty early season 2yo. and if he sucks on dirt, why the placement of him here, instead of aiming him for all the turf races and a likely turf eclipse award?

those ap indy - mr p mare crosses sure seem okay on dirt to me, and this horse has no turf breeding in him at all.

it seems pretty far fetched to say he sucks on dirt at this point.

It seems pretty far fetched that he's good on the dirt actually.

Trainers run horses on the turf, unless they have exceptional turf breeding and no dirt breeding, because they are too slow to run competitively on the dirt. The opportunities and financial upside in dirt racing FAR outweighs turf racing in this country. For this reason, trainers will rarely run on the turf first out unless they are fairly certain the horse has no affinity for the dirt. Sometimes they will try once, see Cowboy Cal, but once their opinion has been confirmed they will go the grass. It is very rare that a horse that begins its career on the turf will run well on the dirt in subsequent starts. Occasionally at trainer will use a turf start as a prep, but clearly this isn't the case for Adrianno.

There are no absolutes in this game but over my lifetime of playing horses I have benefited greatly from tossing horses like Adrianno who are bet on the dirt based on grass races. These horses bomb way more often than not.