Originally Posted by Revolution

Oracle, you really know your horses, and I like to read your opinions about horses, but your incessant bashing of polytrack is ridiculous. A lot of trainers seem to really like it and arguably the biggest owner in the game likes it too. If you don't like the surface, don't bet it. Why is it so difficult to just view poly as another surface. There is grass, dirt, slop, yielding turf, poly, etc. Some horses will like it and some won't. It is just another interesting part of handicapping.

There are certain places where is makes sense like in CA where they had breakdowns and Keeneland where the speed bias was ridiculous. Belmont and Saratoga aren't changing unless the trainers and owners demand it.

As a biology major I view data and make decisions. The data from europe and the little data from the US, clearly shows that horses are safer on it, and the fields are larger at places where they have installed polytrack. The small fields at belmont saturday compared to the large fields at Keeneland did not exactly make the people who installed poly look bad.

As for an excuse for a horse not liking it, then the trainer should have put the horse on the surface and figured that out.

My friend's brother said Aqueduct will eventually go poly on the winter track and Belmont will have a poly training track soon enough. It isn't going away.