2005 - 7.6

Also, what percentage of horses broke down over the turf vs. dirt (or fake dirt). What about training breakdowns, which are never included? Its too broad a stroke to take, what's good and what's bad. The poly in Chicago seemed to play much differently to the one in Keeneland, which is a travesty. Im not sure who uses what surface, but the difference in Chicago races didnt LOOK that different. Now, how about a breakdown of where winners came from i.e. wire to wire, stalk, dead closer?

So, certainly not 50% more starters.

i still think only a couple tracks should have installed this stuff, rather than a blanket change such as in cali. you have different surfaces, different brands, different methods of maintenance, and of course different weather.
there are so many things to look at overall to decide if this is a good change, a bad change. the total # of catastrophic breakdowns during a race may have decreased. but then you read about training injuries, and increase in soft tissue injuries which can force the euthanization of a horse--it's not just a bone injury that can bring that about. i've read that there are more hind end injuries in horses that run on the poly. woodbine banned toe grabs, then allowed them after the problems they had last winter, and trainers screaming for them.
as for handle, the use of poly means no more MTO in the turf races, no more scratches due to weather. how much of an increase in handle is there-and is there a correlation between the larger handle and full turf fields regardless of weather. also, are there more ways of betting those tracks with an increase than in past years? what about dime supers?

as for horse racing becoming a major sport again--i don't see it happening. it's a niche sport, and will toil along with soccer and ice hockey.

Its just a matter of time before the same morons who pimp this stuff are calling for it to be ripped out and complaining about being lied to. Should get good once the winter rolls in again, the stuff is junk. Im personally looking forward to the excuses coming out of Turfway this winter, I wonder how many bullshit road closing stories we will get when the track is frozen or balling up 2 inches in their feet.

If we could somehow manage to have a debate about the safety of polytrack AND the 2004 Belmont Stakes at the same time, we would really have achieved the most tiresome debate possible.

Already covered that.


http://derbytrail.com/forums/showthr...938#post260938

Probably going to be worse this year. Fair Grounds and Phil PArk will probably draw away a couple decent stable this year with slot horse racing and the quality of racing at TP will continue to erode. So, you'll have more bad horses at Turfway this year. Which means more breakdowns which means more bad weather closings.

i'd think the most tiresome debate would be 'who's the best horse since...?'

with artificial surfaces still being fairly new, and with happenings such as baffert and zayat at del mar, breakdowns at presque isle, cancellations at the 'all weather track' at turfway, this debate will continue for some time.

What isn't mentioned is that AP had a prolonged bias from 2004 thru June 2006 (dead rail). Last year, when they worked on the track, whether they realized it or not, they got rid of the bias until late August. And the breakdown rate slowed considerably. The only problem was they couldn't pinpoint what the problem was, but they did fix it.

Also, do those average number of starters pertain to all races or just the Poly races? The turf races at AP invariably get big fields.

Well maybe some people are turning away from synthetics and only betting turf races after 25 years of playing every race, but others are loving it.

I'm not a huge bettor, but I put about three times as much money into Arlington's pools this year as I ever have in any previous year. I know there are other people who felt the same way. Bigger fields and fairly run races are a pretty big attraction for me.

I'm not really trying to say that polytrack isn't safer. However, the stats I posted are AT LEAST as relevant as the stuff the pro polytrack crowd started promoting after about 1 week of the first meet. This continued until the last few months when they didn't really favor the "poly is the cure all" argument anymore.

now i'm confused, what is your point then?

i've never run across a person spouting "poly is a cure all" however there have been many that come out with a "poly is the death of racing" mantra.

thing is, it was sold as safer. but, if they have the same amount of loss overall, regardless of injury type, than it isn't safer. they need to keep track of all this--ARE there more soft tissue injuries? more hind end? virtually eliminating catastrophic breakdowns is to be applauded, but are they actually losing horses to other types of injuries? also, i saw that a study is commencing about breathing in the artificial fibers. what if they find that there is an adverse affect on the respiratory systems?

certainly we all want what is best for the horses, regardless of turf, dirt, or some sort of artificial surface.

It is funny you should mention that.
I have been thinking about buying a parrot and teaching it to say:
"Poly is a cure all" instead of the more traditional, "Polly wants a cracker."
:D

Oh please. I'm not saying your typical racing fan was, though certainly some were and that includes at this board.

Every single "story" that was fed to the press was hailing the safety and the incredible downturn in breakdowns at the polytracks when this stuff first came out. It was hailed as the savior of racing, a godsend. There was zero balance in the reporting. Now, there is just zero reporting.

A couple of horses broke down today at Santa Anita, including reportedly Drill Down, a top 2yo. I wonder if anyone's compiled any numbers yet for this track, because these are not the first major injuries since the track was opened in early September.

Is that the colt that ran decently (2nd or 3rd I think) in the Del Mar Futurity?

Yes he did, he ran second or third and looked to be a nice horse. I hope its not true.