It's not the surface

[Josephus]

It\'s not the surface it\'s the breeding. Just as our economic problems have been caused by greed and fraud, the same has occurred in horse racing.  Years of breeding cripples, juiced up yearlings, pitiful mares, cards full of sprints (even on the grass- see NY racing), trainers who use shakes and needles --the chickens have come home to roost.  All of this hair pulling on Curlin\'s defeat is a joke.  He ran one legit race win in his life against a good horse, the Preakness. The Classic was a fair test on a neutral court. Secretariat humbled grass horses. A major track meeting that used to be a testing ground for our young 3/yo\'s, Gulfstream, is a joke. If this is what it takes to wake the industry up, I\'m all for the synthetics everywhere.  I think NYRA should start by installing it at the Belmont training track and the Aqueduct inner. ( see my previous post on the Friday BC races)

[richiebee]

Josephus Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
  If this is what it takes to
> wake the industry up....

Josephus:

Agree with all that you are saying, and wouldn\'t even mind
if the Innertube got a new coat of rubber. Since about 10%
of the great City of NY is built on garbage of some sort,
I would think it rather fitting.

My belief is that the only alarm clock which will awaken
Racing is when gamblers, from the largest whales down to the
plankton (plankti?) such as myself, express our dissatisfaction
with the Game/Sport by altering our wagering habits.

Another wake up call should have been delivered Saturday with what
can only be called Euro dominance (thankfully, the Classic winner
was Kentucky bred so I did not have to go to bed feeling entirely
inadequate).

Why did Euro bred trained horses dominate? Because the European
horseperson is superior to his/her American counterpart?

Because Euro racing is medication free?

In your most excellent rant against all that is wrong in Racing,
which is in itself quite magnanimous considering you had a good
day at the windows, I would like to add 2 comments:

The proliferation of turf sprints is bad in itself, but the flip side
is that the turf \"marathon\" races, 11 furlongs and over, are rarely seen
at Belmont anymore.

My other comment is that pinhooking of young horses should be strictly
curtailed. Many many young horses are being pointed towards an eighth
of a mile blowout at OBS rather than being pointed towards a racing career.

Although the recession will help contract racing and breeding to desirable
levels, I still believe it is necessary to regulate the thoroughbred gene
pool more radically-- start by excluding unraced runners.

[twoshoes]

It\'s that this event over this surface completely marginalized our best dirt horses. All of the Pro-Ride winners came from a race over Synthetic (Pro-Ride with the exception of Midnight Lute) or turf. I\'d hate to see it for the industry but if I ran NYRA I would shake up my Fall Stakes to offer an alternative to our best dirt horses in each division two weeks prior to the BC next year. Not many that chose to run in any of those dirt races would bother to ship to Santa Anita anyway after that display over the weekend. If they were going to shoot for the BC they would ship early and get a race over the surface if they had any brains. I fully agree that the results were fair over a neutral surface and the Euro\'s deserve our compliments on their success, but I really don\'t think running our Championship races over this stuff does the sport any service in this country. I\'ll say it again, the surface completely marginalizes our best natural dirt surface runners especially from the East Coast and I would bet the data confirms that notion.

[mkram]

Well said.

From a gambling perspective, I am trying to learn and adapt.  Have had my ups and downs, and did get my head handed to me over the weekend.  Always too quick to dismiss the turf to synthetic switch.

From a horse racing fan perspective, I am disappointed that I will never how Curlin would have ran if it were a conventional dirt surface.

I should have known after watching Music Note run, but when I saw Fabulous Strike fail to show his patented early speed, I was convinced that the surface was not fair to the dirt horses shipping in.

They showed the stuff on ESPN.  The stuff is really fiberous (is that a real word or a synthetic one?)

[JimP]

I think it was a disgrace for racing. Pro-Ride is not dirt. Why pretend it is and run our \"championship\" dirt races over it. It was obvious that Pro-Ride horses and grass horses had the advantage in these Breeders Cup \"dirt\" races. If they want to run championship races over this stuff then it should be in a separate category and they should run the \"dirt\" races at some other location where there is some actual \"dirt\".

[TGJB]

I\'m guessing Crist and/or Andy will echo this thoughts in DRF this week.

[firmturf]

A tip of the cap to Thorograph for the Fri / Sat product. The BC was a mess with shippers galore but those undercard races were spot on with your numbers. (Those of course were filled with local horses)

I have only made two wagers in So Cal in the last year and a half to two years prior to this weekend and relied on your product to assist me. Thanks.

[TGJB]

You did better than I did. But yeah, the horses that ran well in those races were logical, I just didn\'t put it together.