Hollywood's track is only a problem for gamblers trying to make money betting.When you have a fair racetrack it favors the best horse.That's why Sadler and Mitchell went nuts with winners at that meet.They had the "best prepared" horses.Those types of horses will get up on a fair track.Anita had that from last Friday until this last Thursday.Then,yesterday,you started to get horses breaking 1st from the gate(regardless of form) start to stick around.For instance,Flores on the grey in the last race.

I did bet 100 on that horse to PLACE AND SHOW. That horse figured in that field. Flores is white hot and stayed around for the last race. The hrose had a steady tab, and there was nothing in the race at all. You knew the horse was live. Plus his previous MSW slaughtering, and troubled lined 40c warranted more money. He was also hands down the best looking horse in the post parade.

Now that Im done redboarding....They have had issues with the HP track since inception. Its uneven turning for home and they cant keep it consistant.

Oh, no win money on the horse made me want to puke, and I had a cold 9-4 100 exacta.

I have no idea what or why but when I was over there about 3 months ago, it was flat as a pancake, it looked sealed.....maybe a loose seal, I have no idea

Now you make as much sense as the ultraconservative Catholics that wanted to keep a vegetable alive to be starred at like it was fine art.If you like a 35-1 shot,why do you play $100 to show on it?If you're chickenshit(like I get) then just bet a lil to win,and backwheel it in the exactas,and don't worry about the show betting.What did it pay to show? 7/2 or 4/1?

:D I like the way Bid bet the race.

Scavs,what's your attraction to HWD PARK.I live 10 minutes from it,and probably haven't been there since last January or February.I don't think it's something you should have to pay to get into.It's like paying to be able to go inside a Mc Donald's.

The situation at Santa Anita is obviously a disaster. But that is not an indictment on all synthetic surfaces. We are extremely happy with the track at Hollywood Park. There have been a few minor issues at Hollywood, but overall the track is great. It is a huge improvement over the old track and the old track was the best track in Southern California, so that should tell you something.

The vast majority of trainers out here are extremely happy with the track at Hollywood Park. From Richard Mandella to Ron Ellis to Marty Jones to Jeff Mullins, the list goes on and on. All of these guys love the track at Hollywood. I have talked with them about it.

There are a ton of horses out there that could not stay sound on the regular dirt here, but they are staying sound on the syntetic surfaces here.

Back in the 1980s, I think the dirt tracks were pretty good out here. The problem was that when it would rain, the tracks would become a mess. So they started adding sand and a buch of other things to the surface which made the track hold up much better in the rain but it made the tracks much worse over all.

The same thing happened at Turf Paradise. I was talking about this very subject this morning with a trainer that we use in Arizona and New Mexico when we ship horses there. He said that Turf Paradise was very good years ago, but it was a total mess when it rained. So they added a bunch of stuff to the track that made it hold up well when it rains, but overall it pretty much ruined the track and nowadays the track is not very good there.

Anyway, I don't know what the answer is. I think there is definitely a place for synthetic surfaces. They are certainly not the cure-all, but they are a big improvement over what he had here before. These new tracks may not be an improvement over what we had here 25 years ago, but those old tracks could not withstand rain. I personally would prefer a regular dirt track, if you could find one that was safe and that holds up when it rains but I'm not sure that such a thing exists. The worst thing for the horses in when they seal the track. When they seal the track, it becomes rock-hard and your horse has a 10x greater chance of getting hurt.

Rupert

Belmont, Saratoga, CHD, etc. Those are all good dirt tracks that hold up to pleanty of rain

When synthetics were installed they were supposed to

1) Require little upkeep
2) Be all weather
3) Have Fewer breakdowns

They have done none of the above. If I ordered a new TV and it was supposed to have a crystal clear picture, record things by voice, and have great audio, and they delivered an old floor model wooden Zenith, I would be pretty pissed off. Especially if that Zenith cost 15 million. I wouldnt call my buddies to come over on Sunday for football and tell them I had an incredible TV that was perfect. Why are people still saying these tracks are better, or as good as what was in before. I dont get it

Hollywood Park requires little upkeep, it holds up extremely well to rain, there are fewer breakdowns and the horses stay sounder. The field sizes have increased because the horses are staying sounder.

Of the 3 tracks that you mentioned, I would say that Belmont is the best. Churchill is not nearly as good as it usd to be. Saratoga was not good at all this past meet. There were a lot of injuries and alot of trainers were complaining that the track was too hard. All 3 of those tracks have to be sealed if it is going to rain and no track is safe after it sealed. I like Belmont but they seal it if there is even a hint that it might rain.

Five inches of rain on SA overnight. Anybody know how Hollywood looked this morning?

Updated story on SA track at DRF this afternoon.

Portland Meadows handles a lot of rain and the track stays consistant. Portland handles much more rain than the all weather at Santa Anita and generally do not cancel. My argument isnt that these tracks are bad, I know they are bad. My issue is with them being sold as all weather cure alls, when infact they arent all weather. Im glad Hollywood Park is working out for your horses,but I wouldnt be so quick to give it a thumbs up Rupe. Good Luck.

i thought it was the fine sand that they were using, that it was clogging the drain holes....

at any rate, whoever is responsible should be fired. santa anita will be a mess all racing season.
maybe the bc should seriously rethink the decision NOW to have the bc there this year. october would be a bad time to realize there's a problem that hasn't been resolved.

sorry i missed all that!!

it's a disgrace, the knee jerk reaction by the chrb to mandate a surface. a disgrace that the track and the installer didn't do the right thing, and a disgrace that they sit and fiddle while rome burns. ridiculous!

i think going to hollywood would be a great idea. do it NOW, don't waste time, don't try to salvage a season that is already ruined. shut the track, get it right right now.

good question. hollywood has gotten nothing but praise.

but you have to take a lot of things into consideration other than raw numbers...take turfway for instance. their first year with an AWT, they had great numbers regarding injury. the next year, not so much--but with more entrants, more runners, the raw # would also increase, correct? also, how many trainers thought this surface was the cure for all ills, and sent horses who needed more time, who had no business running, to that track to race as the surface is thought to be some miracle worker? i'd imagine plenty, and that may be the case for others tracks who have made the switch as well.

all the AWTS are seeing increases in starters, sad to say that would also have to lead to an increase in injuries and breakdowns.

they need to study percentages of starters to injuries, rather than just going with a total. that will tell the tale.

1st Portland Meadows track surface reference in a while

untrue scuds. some in the business say that maybe changing the track, including the base, may be what has aided the horses. that it's not necessarily a surface change that has been the reason for less breakdowns, but removal of a track that has been in place for years. i happen to enjoy some tracks that have a dirt surface, and i certainly care about the well being of the horses.

hell, first portland meadows reference in a while!!

go skins!! coming alive.

Mandates by political regulatory bodies rarely work out as they are supposed to.

Stronach's track is screwed up. Shocking.

And they are the one that is staying and not going out of business. Fairplex, the winter place to be?

Broken glass and jagged stones are a better alternative to Turfway's old surface.

Being that there was a major storm that dropped 5 inches of rain would SA not have been cancelled if the track was still dirt?

Can Scuds bring together divergent topics or what?

good point.

No, they probably wouldnt have cancelled. They certainly wouldnt have to cancel tomorrow.

You can put any curve you want on the surfaces, the fact is they arent as advertised. They have ripped the track out and relaid the surface, still wrong. It doesnt work because as I stated before they never laid the correct base. They were contacted by a party that did indeed tell them the tracks wouldnt drain properly with the base they had slated to install, they did it anyhow. These tracks were never laid with the horses best interest in mind, they were laid to increase handle.

Portland Meadows takes more rain than any track in the country, and has horses as bad, or worse, than any track in the WORLD. They do a good job there.

They are definitely going to put in a new track at Santa Anita. This will be done well before the BC so you don't have to worry about that. They may wait until this meet ends in April to begin putting a new surface in, but I think there is also a chance that they made decide to move the meet to Hollywood and start work on the new surface right now. If they started right now, they would probably be done by mid to late February. That would be the best idea. That wouldn't be so bad to race at Hollywood for the next 6-7 weeks and then go back to Santa Anita in mid to late February for the last two months of the meet.

If they try to keep running at Santa Anita right now, who knows how many days they will miss. They will have to cancel the races every time it rains. They may miss 10-20 days.

By the way, even if this surface did drain properly, I still don't like the surface. The track is way too fast. I have been hearing about alot of horses getting sore shins there. It's because the track is way too hard.

take it to delmar...........rip it out put dirt back..its easy..lol or run all turf meet

Rupe, if the CHRB/SA are dumb enough to tear that track out and install another Polytrack they are out of their minds. With the rate of breakdowns at GG, the least they can do is lay the dirt and wait to see if the tracks can be tweaked where performance is acceptable. Carnival of fools.

You give the tracks far too much credit. I still believe that they put them down because they were "maintenance free".

You are probably right Cannon, they have turned out to be really low maintenance. :eek:

'maintenance free' and the added benefit of not losing turf starters if they had to move to the main track. money maker on both counts.

then the safety factor started getting press, and everyone leaped on it like some kind of walking on water....

gotta read the fine print.

a 21st century version of 'stone soup'.

Santa Anita now has 4 surfaces. The training track, the turf, the shithetic, and a 600 meter swimming course which will be used when washed off the grass. They may start washing off the shithetic in favor of running on the grass

I can't comment on Golden Gate because I haven't heard anything. But I don't see any reason why they wouldn't put in another synthetic surface at Santa Anita. I know there have been problems with synthetic surfaces at some places but overall I think the pros outweigh the cons.

I think the track at Keeneland is a huge improvement over the old track. I think Hollywood's track is a huge improvement. Chuck says that Turfway is a huge improvement. I'm not crazy about Del Mar. I think it's much safer than the old surface but I think it's way too slow and many horses don't seem to like it. In addition, it's very hard to handicap. I hope they can slightly tweak it for this year's meet and at least speed it up a little.

Now just because these new synthetic surfaces were a big improvement to the old tracks, that's not to say that a new, natural dirt surface wouldn't have been just as big of an improvement. I really don't know the answer to that.

I thought having to tear a track down to bare bones and the mass breakdowns at GG would be a little bit of a reason. Keeneland is better in which way? Because they dont have the speed bias, or because the injuries were way up significantly? As much as I respect Chuck's opinion, I would disagree completely with Turfway being a good surface.

Tweaking isnt ripping a track up, or adding a zillion gallons of wax and sneakers because you cant keep the kickback down, or its freezing, or balling up. Thats not tweaking, thats incompetance, and lack of forethought. Its amazing that this has happened considering the promises made prior to installation. Whether people want to believe it or not these tracks were sold as low upkeep, safe, all weather surfaces. Why now are people willing to accept the shortcomings?

These new surfaces are not only a great failure, they havent improved anything except initial handle, then they dip back to normal. Infact TWP took a huge decline, of course Ellison said its due to contracts which is understandable. However, even with that the handle is down a considerable amount.

hearing that quite a bit lately...and it's true.

hollywood showed the other cali tracks the right way to do it, hopefully the others can follow suit. i expect del mar will make a move in the right direction, they'll be better this year ( but then, how could it get worse??).

From all the reports I've been getting, the injuries are way down at most of these tracks. The injuries are way down and the field size is way up. I think Arlington is another track where the synthetic surface has been a huge success.

If the injuries are way up on these synthetic surfaces, then the field size would be going down. That is not the case. The opposite has been happening. The field sizes have been increasing.

You say that injuries are way up at Keeneland. I know that injuries were way down initially. I would like to see the data that you are looking at. I'm not saying that you are wrong. I haven't seen the data. There are many ways of analyzing data. Where did you get the info? I would like to take a look at it.

At Del Mar, I think if they put just a tiny bit of water on the track in the afternoon that it would make a huge difference. It would tighten the track up and speed it up a little up. One of the major complaints is that the track at Del Mar is different in the mornings from the afternoons. In the morning, the temperature is much cooler and there is much more moisture in the air. The track is much tighter under those conditions. In the afternoon when it is much hotter outside, the track loosens up and gets very slow. I think just slightly watering the track in the afternoon would help quite a bit.

http://www.thoroughbredtimes.com/nat...d-meeting.aspx

In this article Beasley says the weather played a factor. Why would the weather play a factor on an all weather track?

Rupe, the one stat that was mind boggling to me was Golden Gate a few weeks ago. They had a 6 day stretch where 12 horses were eased, 7 were vanned off lame, and 5 were euthanized on track.

c'mon bid...it's called all weather as it's supposed to be raceable in all weather, not because it plays the same in all weather.

Danzig, did they run today at Santa Anita or did I miss something? Why did they delay GG 45 minutes post rain, then have 5 vanned off on that particular card, because its all weather?

Beasley said some people have cited the hot temperatures early in the meeting as one possible reason for the increased injuries.

“A lot of people have thought that the weather may have played a factor in this, but unfortunately, we also had some breakdowns after the temperatures cooled,” Beasley said.

You need to read the article, Im not talking about the way the track played, I am talking about the composition changing due to temp changes.

what track could run after the storms they had in cali?

yeah, they screwed up with the drainage system. they'll fix it. but it's too soon to call this thing a colossal blunder. they need to concede however that this season is toast, move to hollywood and fix the problem now. no time like the present and all that....before everyone cancels the season for them by taking their toys and going home.

Any track besides Santa Anita could have ran.

Yeah its toast alright

Just because more horses got hurt at Keeneland this meet as compared to last meet on their polytrack, that hardly means that injuries are up overall. All the data shows exactly the opposite.

Your argument about Keeneland is absurd. I'll give you an analogy. Let's say there is a brunette who gets asked out on 1 or 2 dates a week. Then she dyes her hair blond and starts getting asked out on 15 dates a week. Then the following week, she only gets asked out on 8 dates. Would you say that the blond hair doesn't work? Her numbers have gotten worse. Of course not. You would say the opposite.

Just because there have been more breakdowns at this meet than then at the prior polytrack meet at Keeneland, that doesn't mean anything. What matters is whether there are more injuries now as compared to when they had regular dirt at Keeneland.

At Keeneland, Hollywood, and Arlington the number of breakdowns has gone way down since they put in the synthetic surface. Injuries have gone way down, horses are staying much sounder, and the field sizes have gone way up. Those are the facts.

With regard to Santa Anita, I totally agree with you. They botched the job. The track at Santa Anita is a nightmare but that doesn't mean that all synthetic surfaces are bad.