I just have to laugh when anyone calls the Keeneland poly surface \"unpredictable\" given the fact that turf races there this year were easily more unpredictable than the poly races, with an even lower % of favorites winning.
Yes, poly is more unpredictable than most established dirt tracks, but the level of racing at Keeneland is much different than it is anywhere else IMO, and that makes picking winners that much harder no matter the surface. The only reason Keeneland used to be more \"predictable\" is the incredible rail/speed bias the old dirt track had.
As JB has already commented, some horses have big jumpups dirt to poly, and some do not. The winner of that earlier stakes made a huge dirt jumpup moving from poly. Perhaps there\'s a method to the madness, or perhaps there is not. I am enjoying looking for the challenge and new angle, since whomever becomes the first to regularly figure it out is bound to be hitting some very nice prices.
I\'m fine with people griping about poly wagering, it takes more \"smart money\" out of the pools and leaves only the dumb money left to try to capture. What I\'m not fine with are people who continue to try to ignore the facts that the poly surfaces are in fact much safer and try to say there are unclear results as part of the argument.
The Florida study that included most of the US (but not California) showed a reduction of about 2.0/1k on dirt to abuot 1.5/1k on poly. And that study is horribly watered down with sub-standard dirt racing from junky tracks where the large majority of horses aren\'t running fast enough to stub a toenail, let alone sustain a catastrophic injury.
What\'s more relevant are the California stats that stand alone by themselves on what is, on average, much more talented and speedy runners, and their reduction is from over 3 to about 1.5. Whether the true numbers overall show a reduction somewhere between 25-50%, it is a proven fact that the surfaces are much safer and anyone trying to throw questions around that point into the discussion are selfishly doing so to promote their own agenda of wanting to get back to what they consider \"more predictable\" racing. Which is apparently more important than the saftey of the horses.
