Crist Hypes Brown, Skoffs Smellmar Polytrack

[Silver Charm]

http://cristblog.drf.com/crist/2007/08/mph-madness.html#comments

[Barry Irwin]

Based on the faux pas over the Whitney clocking, one would think that Steve Crist would steer clear of anything to do with the final times of a race or how they are portrayed.

[jma11473]

Silver Charm, nothing against you personally and I know I\'m not a \"regular\" here, but do you really think \"Smellmar\" is clever? You could do better...reading it 6000 times is getting old.

[Silver Charm]

jma11473,

We will tone it down. But take another look at the tact Track Mgmt took when the racing surface was being questioned by trainers first Bob Baffert and then John Sherrifs. I think they have won a Ky Derby or two.

Track Mgmt said screw you........

I have done consulting work in over 100 major companies, a minimum of five Fortune 500 companies and nobody and I mean nobody is so stupid to lay down a major system architecture or process without first testing the you know what out of it. There were pictures in the DRF of the Track Racing Surface being \"dumped\" two weeks before the start of the meet.

They just assumed it would work. Do this in a real corporation and people get fired and nobody and I mean nobody tells the customers to take or leave it.

Barry,

I think you are being a little tough on Steve. He is an editor/writer first. You should know you used to one at one time yourself. If he sees something a little funny it is his job to look into.

This has been a historic month. We have seen two major track record marks set. The mile and one eighth at Saratoga by Lawyer Ron and now the mile and one quarter by Student Council.

Both ran \"clean\" which is a positive and in the race out west at least we now can assume 2/3rds of the field didn\'t receive \"milkshakes\" similarly to what was going on out there at this meet three or four years ago.

[fkach]

IMHO, it\'s still too early to make a definitive statement on any of these artificial surfaces, but so far I like the cushion track at Hollywood a lot better than the Polytrack at Delmar (or anywhere else).

Poly changes the racing too much for my taste.  

I know most speed handicappers don\'t respect Lava Man much (and I agree he wasn\'t as good as the best east coast horses these last few years), but it was sort of sad watching him struggle so soon in yesterday\'s race. That surface is TOUGH on quality speed and stalkers going long and a lot of horses simply do not like it. I\'d like to see some stamina put back in the game, but I think a lot of the great speed horses of the last 30 years would have a tough time getting 10F-12F on that stuff.

Do we really want mostly even paced plodders with a lot of stamina winning all the classics?

[Barry Irwin]

Racing on Polytrack is no doubt safer, but it happens to be boring as can be because a) horses do not move well and look athletic racing on it and b) grinders beat brilliance every time, and Americans are used to equating brilliance with quality. We have never rewarded triers, we have been awed by brilliance.

The Brits have been racing on synthetic surfaces for quite awhile now. But they don\'t run their big races on the stuff and the good horses rarely if ever do anything but breeze or gallop on the stuff.

Grass racing is the surface of choice abroad because a) it is beautiful to see, b) the horses look great on it and it is traditional.

I long for a day when there are fewer horses in training racing at fewer venues and there are a few super tracks that have several different turf course from which to choose so that horses invariably race on fresh grass.

I for one would rather sit home and watch that type of fare on TV than go to my local track and watch bad horses run, especially if it is on a synthetic surface.

B-o-r-i-n-g!

[Chuckles_the_Clown2]

The Brits have been racing on synthetic surfaces for quite awhile now. But they don\'t run their big races on the stuff and the good horses rarely if ever do anything but breeze or gallop on the stuff.

The above is another reason why the CHRB\'s full throttle up approach to racing year round on Poly was Bush invading Iraq all over again.

[Silver Charm]

This was a very good story written by Steve. I guess it was on Friday.

http://www.drf.com/drfNewsArticle.do?NID=87735&subs=0&arc=0

They had a record handle on Pacific Classic Day. The fans turned-out so people are not totally turned off.

I do not have a problem playing a little at Arlington, Hollywood, Turfway or Keeneland. I say only a little because there are too many trainers who are still experimenting with the surface and their horses. Not with my money then.

The comments from the Woodbine Track Officials probably echo the frustrations of most handicappers. We see this being thrust on to us and since most handicappers are skeptics by nature anyway we do what normal intelligent people do.

We ask all the questions first, we bet our money second...............

[JimP]

Why are terms like \"plodder\" being attached to the performance of Student Council in the Pacific Classic? And why the assertion that \"poly changes racing too much\"?

The sheets showed Student Council and Awesome Gem with very competitive figures, if not the outright best figures, in the race. And SC\'s figures came most recently at CD on dirt while AG\'s came on artificial surfaces at DMR and HOL. I think a good case can be made that SC and AG just ran back to those figures (assume we\'ll see later on what TG assigned in this race). So why the thinking that the Poly made the difference here. Maybe it enhanced the chances of some of the horses and degraded the chances of others to some extent. But terms like \"plodder\" would seem to be misplaced. And saying that \"poly changed the racing too much\" would seem to be a misscharacterization of what the figures indicated and horses (SC and AG) demonstrated.

The DMR surface is obviously not as fast as dirt surfaces and most likely rewards stamina more than most dirt surfaces. But just because the time for the Pacific Classic was slower and a speedball didn\'t win it wire to wire, why do we have to jump to the conclusion that the winner was a \"plodder\" and somehow less worthy?

[fkach]

Personally, I was talking in generalities about the types/styles of horses that seem to win on POLY vs. Dirt (the Cushion at HOL seems a bit more like dirt).

The stats for front runners and other brilliant speed horses on Poly going long are pretty clear. You can define the remainder any way you would like.

If I was talking about anyone specific in the Pacific Classic, I was talking about Lava Man. IMHO, he clearly hated the surface. I think his performance Sunday was reasonably predictable because of his running style, slight preference for dirt over turf, and the profile of that surface going long.  

Regardless of what you think of Lava Man\'s ability, it seems someone should be having second thoughts about a surface that essentially eliminated the local hero and drove many of the best speedy 2YOs to Saratoga.

[JimP]

Maybe so, but I\'m not making the same assumption that you are: That the surface eliminated Lava Man. I\'m willing to take the figures at face value and conclude that he was just inferior to a couple of others in this race. The figures read that way in advance of the race and the relative performances were consistent with the pre-race figures. The \"local hero\" is not at the top of his game any longer and others took advantage of that.

[Barry Irwin]

Polytrack is very exciting to watch.

I really loved the Pacific Classic--what I saw of it, that is.

I began to read \"War and Peaced\" at the five-eighths pole, finished Tolstoy\'s epic work, visited the rest room, drank a couple of swigs of ice water from the fridge, and when I finally made it back to the TV, Student Council was crossing the line.

I don\'t know if it was the race or me, but it seemed like it took forever to complete this race.

[fkach]

Barry,

That\'s one of the less tangible problems with the surface.  

I\'ve been betting horses for over 30 years (and owned a piece of one with you once). I\'ve never been a big fan of betting on turf races because I don\'t have all the required insights to be as successful as I am on dirt, but I still love watching it. The best horses explode through the stretch and make for exciting finishes.

I don\'t bet much on Poly either, but even if I was, it wouldn\'t make the racing any less ugly.

[milfordflash]

People are making money betting Smellmar.  Personally, I have taken a hiatus until the Big Dance in Jersey.  However, while there is money being thrown around, there is money to be made.  I hear a whole lot of whining, but not many answers.  The answer, my friends, as always lies in hard work.  If you are on this board, you have the tools to be successful, go out and take it.