As a veterinarian, I fully embrace and support the use of artificial surfaces as safer for racing, and I'll hold that opinion unless overwhelming evidence to the contrary appears at some future time (which I doubt, based upon history of use in other countries. But other countries are not the US).

Certainly I expect that viewpoint to influence my acceptance of same from a wagering standpoint. But I still see the varients inherent within artificial surfaces as just another handicapping opportunity ;)

Cool.

I'd like to hear your position on pace....and how to judge it.

I think artificial surfaces give some horses, such as Nashoba's Key, a chance to perform in races we wouldn't otherwise see them in :)

I'm not a vet but I hold the same opinion.

I've heard that Arlington's field sizes have increased substantially. I'll be interested to see if that's the case at Del Mar too, look forward to seeing some figures.

I'm jealous of everyone who has all-weather tracks, here we have to race on swampy turf all winter. It's not fun.

I agree with all your points about polytrack.

We need time for the jockeys and trainers to develope some predictable patterns.

Great advice, thanks. I'm leaning towards that approach anyways, probably never a good idea to go full bore into a new track anyways and with the Poly it's completely foreign.

DrugS, I'm not avoiding your question, just trying to get back to the generality of, "Are synthetic surfaces the work of the devil incarnate, or not?" :)

I see it slightly differently: yes, if one has a horse entered over their head, that has to be carried and nursed to the finish line :)

How fast did Zee Topper run her final three furlongs over the artificial surface, closing to win? One can obtain speed on artificial surfaces, if one truely has a turn of foot. That horse stood out over the rest of her field on ability, and demonstrated it.

The male division didn't apparently have any horses with equal dominant ability. On some dirt tracks, the 7-1 shot could have indeed hung on to win - the "dream trip", as described.

But I think the description of "dream trip" says it all. Does this horse deserve to win at this class and distance?

The polytrack exposed it for what it was - a horse that can't gallop 12's and hold on for the distance it was entered at. It collapsed to a canter in the final two furlongs, and was readily passed by other horses that weren't very speedy, either.

Maybe the horses in this race truely belong in a lesser class?

Speed - true natural turn of foot - has wired and won at Keeneland, Arlington, Turfway, Woodbine, Hollywood, in even in Europe. The jocks riding truely good horses will use their horses speed and style of running to their advantage, and figure it out. The jocks on horses of lesser ability will have a harder time covering that up, no matter how slow they go.

Look at Sumwon's last race at Arlington - a duel between a front-runner running good fractions and accelerating at the end, and a mid-pack closer, coming down to an exciting stretch duel and ending a neck apart. Good races happen on artificial surfaces - if the horses are truely good.

Some horses, it turns out, have been carried by their tracks. They have speed in their pedigree, but no stamina (and I'm not talking route distance). Look at horses that won on the lead on Keeneland's rock-hard dirt rail, that couldn't repeat that performance elsewhere.

There are horses we thought had a certain amount of speed or class that are now being exposed, on synthetic surfaces, as not quite what we thought they were. And it appears it may be a rather significant segment of the breed.

That's my opinion on synthetic - your actual mileage may vary ;)

Most lanes now are synthetic and bowlers have made the necessary adjustments..

I am very excited about next year's Triple Crown trail.

How will the cream of the California crop, filtered via synthetic surfaces, perform when they come east?

I would just avoid this junk and just play the turf races. Cardus is right that horses just don't look to be running over it.

I don't think Del Mar gave itself enough time to get it right. What they should have done is taken 120k and put it into the renovation bill and run three 40k races before the start of the meet, no public,with like 8k claimers to let them observe how the track is and then make the necessary adjustments to get it to play fair. I am just surprised that the tracks that have installed these surfaces haven't run any test races to make sure things were good. Arlington has been lucky, but Turfway had the same issues at the start of the meet, along with Woodbine

What do you mean by filtered because I don't think Domincian's subsequent races since the Blue Grass indicate he belongs anywhere near the wire with Street Sense?

why is it junk? what did you see in two days to make that assessment?
I just don't see it, what is so unfair about it?

GASP! I'm ... shocked and appalled!

(Shows how long it's been since I've been in a bowling alley :p )

Just for the record Turfway's issues lasted the entire meet, as did Woodbines. I still dont think the surface is "All Weather" I think its all rain, it can handle water. Its not made to handle freeze, and its not made to handle hot Cali weather. I woudlnt be surprised at all to see the stuff start melting, or clumping like it did at TWP and Woodbine.

I'm pretty much with Riot here. I thought Keeneland was ugly, but not as bad this Spring. Last fall, from a racing perspective, it was exciting, though it may not have been the "best" racing in some peoples' eyes. However, for a handicapper, like Riot said, every surface has its own idiosyncracies and Keeneland was no different. If half of the people who spent weeks complaining about it instead of paying attention to it and figuring it out would have done the opposite, they would have been enjoying the same financial fun that I was enjoying at the time playing it. It made perfect sense to me, for once. People could handicap the old Keeneland surface so easily, and the new one for the first meet was essentially just the opposite. Adjust, and cash. Repeat.

It takes extra work to figure these races out once we figure out how the surface treats various running styles.

it's the same track for all so no problemo

47 1/5 is very fast for polytrack comparing it to the rest of the routes on the card. Most of the sprints on day 1 had comparable 47 and change 4f splits. No wonder the winner rallied form dead last. You have to stop comparing the splits on this track to splits on a normal track saying 47 is soft because it was soft on dirt or 26 change is a soft late fraction because it was soft on dirt.. Compare apples to apples.

in the second race that 48 change split looks fairly swift when compared to other races on the card and that early leader was only beaten a fraction.

This will be the first year the CA 2-year-olds will run primarily on synthetic surfaces. It will be interesting, when they take, "the best of that bunch", and bring them east, to see how they perform in the Triple Crown preps.