god dang that looked bad
 

hope these guys are ok

Race 1 at Aqueduct
 

Nasty, nasty spill. I hope the riders are OK. Mountain General rolled over at the top of the stretch and laid belly up on the track. Another horse went over him, somersaulted and got back up and cantered away. Durkin was shaken in his call. Scary sight. :(

Race 1 at Aqu? I just posted about it too. Santos and Coa were the riders down. Didn't look good for Mountain General. :(

santos had the full brunt of it..bad deal..

Durkin said Coa got up and just looking at the replay it seemed like Santos was at least sitting up.

That was ugly.

That as awful.... RIP Mountain General...

these guys are nuts no way id ride,,,hats off to them...5 rattles to all the jocks...santos .goes to the hospital..coa..seems ok..per tvg

Durkin just said Santos didn't seem to have suffered anything serious.

thats great...i heard that..i was counting my cash on mg..yesh rip

glad to see all humans were ok. i am sad for the horses and all the connections. hopefully, the day will get better. bad 7/5 fav in the 2nd.

They said Fit Faze appears o.k. I don't know how.He took a pretty hard header.My head hurts just looking at that header.

Aqueduct better get on the phone to the polytrack people. This is going to be a long winter for them. The trainers and owners can't be happy with that track.

Not sure of what happened but if it was a heart attack then it had nothing to do with the surface.

If they were not having so many problems with their track I would give them the benefit of the doubt, but do you know how rare a heart attack is? Watch the race, he took a bad step. Might not have been the track, there are accidents that just happen, but it looked like a bad step and this often happens due to an inconsistency in the track.

When you look at Aqueducts numbers at the end of the meet, and the fact that they can't even get their main track operational, I have to believe polytrack would be much safer.

Don't think it was a heart attack.I'll just leave it at that.

You have an agenda so your misguided comments carry no weight. The problems, which are circumspect at best, are with the main track. These races are taking place over the inner which is as safe as any dirt track in the country.

Mountain General is an 8YO cheap claiming sprinter who was being asked to go 1 1/8 miles for the first time in 55 career starts. While his accident is unfortunate, it happens at tracks around the country, and any blame does not lie on the surface more than a surface can be blamed for any accident. These things happen in racing, on dirt, on turf, and yes on polytack, so pretending somehow the surface is to blame is folly.

This " NYRA should install polytack " kind of talk is insane. The franchise is in limbo, the real possibility exists that someone else will be running it in just over a year, the track has financial difficulties, the State refuses to authorize slots even though every other track awarded them has been given the go-ahead, but somehow people are insisting NYRA spend upwards of $8 million to install a racing surface? Now, when the franchise has been settled, and slots are in, even though I am at least dubious about Polytrack, certainly they should at least look into installing it. And they will. But, for now it makes absolutely zero sense, other than an insipid need to continually berate NYRA for anything that goes wrong, even though it happens everywhere, and this makes no sense. A horse broke down on the Churchill surface on BC Day. I assume you made the same comments about their surface....you know, the one Barbaro won the Derby over.

I have no agenda. I don't own polytrack. I don't think Belmont or Saratoga should get rid of the dirt tracks, but Aqueduct is ridiculous. The main track is out of business for days because they don't know how to take care of it, so why should I believe the inner track is safe? Aqueduct is winter racing. All winter racing should be on polytrack for the safety of horses. Dirt tracks in cold weather are very dangerous and very hard on horses.

I put horses health first, you seem to put gamblers (and their dislike of poly because their thorograph sheets are useless) first. Do you care about horses or are they just numbers to you that you bet on and then watch them be taken away in the truck when they are done?

The same maintenance crew works Aqueduct, Belmont and Saratoga, so your opinion is completely contradictory.

The " If you don't like Polytrack you don't care about the safety of horses " argument is only used by people who have an indefensible position and know it. Your following idiocy only further stresses your lack of a defensible argument. I said I was " dubious " of Polytrack, and unlike zealots like yourself, and yes you have clearly established an anti-NYRA agenda on this site, I prefer to take a wait and see approach about the surface. As another poster stated here, Woodbine is having huge problems with their surface, so regardless of what you would like people to believe these Polytrack surfaces have NOT proven to be better for racing all around.

If you care so much about the safety of horses, as I'm sure your interests in this game are not at all financially motivated, then why haven't you organized a PETA demonstration in front of racetracks around the country? Surely you aren't going to insist that this sport is only concerned with the safety of animals. If that was the case horse racing would be shut down immediately.

TO me Mountain General is an example of a horse who was raced too long. I wouldn't go so far as to call him a cripple but this was a serious stakes horse once upon a time. Bluesthestandard redux, but not as bad b/c jockeys would actually get on this one in the morning. Some of these geldings deserve homes instead of being raced into the ground....And I don't buy the track nonsense. I've seen very little problems with the inner over the past decade. And I've always though the main was good too. In fact all the NY tracks are safe.

The maintenance crew this year didn't take care of the other tracks while they were away. They said they couldn't afford it. Belmont was taken care of by a skeleton crew while they were at Saratoga. Everyone knows this, atleast everyone that claims to know the game.

Woodbine is not having huge problems. Do you just make up things?

http://news.bloodhorse.com/viewstory.asp?id=35063

Why is Pletcher and other like Dutrow heading off to run on it?