Remember back 2 years ago, when Turfway rolled out its new Polytrack? The reasoning made sense; the track runs during brutal winters and the feeling was, there would be less cancellations. Nobody said a word about it being safer before that TP meet started. By the end of the winter meet, we heard all kinds of talk about fewer breakdowns; IMO, TP is the ONLY track that should've installed synthetic.
So what do the "deep thinkers" that control California racing do? They hear this, and mandate all non-fair tracks in California put this junk in. These people likely have never experienced a Midwestern winter, and had no idea how much sand and chemicals were added to the old TP track in the winter, when the track did have a problem w/cancellations and more breakdowns. Seeing what happened at TP and applying it to SoCal was extremely flawed logic. As for Keeneland, being a part owner in Polytrack, it was no surprise they put it in; they wanted to shed the image of being a rail biased racetrack. They did that.....only now their once proud track has become a laughingstock. All they needed to do was reconfigure the track, which they did. After only 12 years of playing Keeneland, I can give up their 6 weeks a year and not even miss it.
Those of us who followed racing in the late 80s remember what was said about the Equitrack at Remington, which also had been used in the UK.....the wave of the future. Within a few years, it was ripped out; the so-called all-weather surface clearly was unable to handle the heat of the Oklahoma summers.
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