Poly Champion says "OPPS" !
 

Hank Wesch better be careful mis-quoting Shapiro unless he wants his car keyed.

Shapiro is a joke.

NT

Someone who has come to his senses, too bad it is long after the knee jerk reaction that forced this garbage in the first place. I hope the CHRB has the termerity to admit that they were duped and allows the tracks to put dirt surfaces back in.

Said Shapiro: “If most of the industry wants to go back to dirt, they should go back to dirt. But I think that racetrack surfaces have become somewhat of a scapegoat for the problems of horse racing.
“Racetrack surfaces are not the sole cause of breakdowns. There are many other factors including medications and breeding practices.”

Racetracks are a 'scapegoat' but then he goes on to list other 'factors' as though they arent 'scapegoats' as well.

I guess Baffert is the one to blame since it was his complaining that led General Shapiro to act.

Every segment of this industry was in favor?

In that case, you'll never find a more compelling reason to oppose.

good one drugs

now they bring up 'other factors'? i don't recall any of that being mentioned when the rush was made to poly to begin with..

you never do...some good parallels to what is going on with other rush to pass legislation.

The funny thing to me is that none of those things mentioned were factors when Turfway first went to fake dirt. It was because of the days lost to bad weather.

Isn't it successful for Turfway, thats a place where it legititmately is working, is it not?

Is Poly considered a success or failure at Keeneland?

They definitely needed to do something at the time. The track surfaces were dangerous. In hindsight, they should have simply mandated that all the tracks put in a new base. Most of those tracks had had the same base for 40 or 50 years and there were holes in them. They would have been better off just putting in a new base and having regular dirt on top.

If some of the tracks wanted to put in synthetic, that would have been fine. It should have been up to them. I don't think synthetic is a failure everywhere. I think it has worked pretty well at some of the tracks in other states. I think it's been pretty successful at Arlington.

Like most things, depends on who you ask.

:tro: :tro:

As an expert on the subject, what is your opinion?

I am pretty neutral on Keeneland. I dont know if the handle numbers would be down less or more or be the same if they had a dirt track. Field size is still pretty good and the meets are so short and lucrative that it is a different situation than other tracks. Not to mention that Keeneland owns the American rights to polytrack so all information coming from them will be slanted. I do know guys like Zito hardly ever run there now and some players that dont bet the nonturf races but the old track was really bad and almost completely biased. Turfway sucks regardless of surface.

Of course it sucks, try shipping up there to run in the last race of the night in January for a 6k purse...I can tell you, it aint fun.

I wonder if Hollywood will try to sell their surface when all is said and done.Maybe they could get some good coin for it,along with all the piping underneath.:eek:

shoot...they named that race after Canon since he was in the last at TP on Friday it seemed every week.

Can someone fix the title so I can stop cringing?