Synthetic breeding
 

Anyone have any theories for breeding on synthetic tracks -- or sires and broodmare sires they favor?

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of the synthetic track specialists tend to have mixes of turf routers and dirt spinters.

Middie, for example, has run just twice in synthetic track routes. Winning clear at 44/1 odds over Keeneland's poly and dominating a Grade 3 at 14/1 odds over Arlington's Poly in his other start.





Middie's sire is Officer (dirt speed)

Middie's broodmare is by Green Dancer (hardcore Turf) out of a Phone Trick mare (dirt speed)

The Cozar (Cozzene turf claimer) to Housebuster mares have been a killer cross on the Tapeta.

Wismer playing you to promote Cozar?

I don't think anyone else is crazy enough to breed to a former 5K claimer. His horses just run much better on synthetic than dirt or turf... especially the ones crossed to the two Housebuster broodmares.

Calculating Man was a combined 1-for-10 on dirt and turf -- and was 2-for-2 on synthetic including a track record setting win at Keeneland at 33/1 odds.

If you look for just turf breeding -- you're going to do terrible. Especially if the horse is coming to synthetic with turf form.

On synthetic, turn of foot that dirt routers might have gets flattened a bit, doesn't it? Maybe if you come in with the turf router blood, it enables the horse to handle synthetic better in general (but it's not enough on its own) and the dirt sprinter blood then allows for a stronger kick at the end which is more of an issue with synthetic and turf races.

The Bloodhorse has a section on their Sire Lists tab that will allow you to pull up the leading all-weather sires going back several years. What struck me is that usually a leading sire(s) will be standing in Canada, taking advantage of the purses at Woodbine I assume. (leading sires by dollars won). Old Forester and Bold Executive are examples. Several solid grass sires also appear. Speightstown is one of my preferred synthetic sires.

It seems like horses that handle the slop, like the synth.

Green Dancer got some pretty good dirt horses, which is unusual because I believe he stood in France.

He was a leading sire in France one year.

I know.

He also sired Greinton and Fantastic Look though.

Seemed like Distorted Humor, Sharp Humor and Ghostzappers did well on Kee poly in the spring.

This was so out of nowhere and I had to do a doubletake cause I thought wait a minute Cardus wouldn't post this...:D

While we all know that horses with proven ability on grass are more likely to handle synthetic than horses proven only on dirt, I've noticed that synthetic horses tend to be overbet when moving to grass. I don't have numbers to back it up, and it seems counterintuitive, but I've seen it happen too many times.

Middie powered home and won clear. He got bet down and paid only $5.80 -- but he had to fall down in order to lose based on the synthetic figures everyone had him running.

Middie freaking stinks on turf and ran lousy on dirt -- he's got a killer kick on synthetic, though.

It's so rare that you see good turf route breeding mixed with dirt sprinter names like Officer, Phone Trick, Housebuster etc ... but those pedigrees come up in horses who prefer synthetic VS dirt or turf.

In Middie's case -- I think the Officer as the sire and Phone Trick on the bottom hurt him as a closing turf router. The Green Dancer hurts him as a dirt router.

I remember the first year they ran the BC Classic on Pro-Ride. Raven's Pass (by sprinter Elusive Quality) was an excellent miler on Turf, so it's unfair and inaccurate to call him a synthetic specialist -- but he was taken way back and absolutely blew Curlin away in the stretch and won the BC Classic clearly and paid $29

This was Elusive Quality:



Just the thought of a son of his closing from 10th place and double digit lengths back -- to blow the Breeders Cup Classic field apart in the stretch with a 23.64 final quarter mile... it's nuts.

Raven's Pass dam was a Turf Miler that David Donk trained in the 90's. She always ran in America. They never ran Raven Pass more than 8f on grass for his entire career. I don't think he would have had the same devastating stretch kick going 10f on turf that he showed going 10f on synthetic.