Poly vs Dirt (Which is Faster?)

[HoofedInTheChest]

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the Alabama Stakes, i was curious and wanted to know what the final time was for Inglorious in the Queens Plate relative to the final time Royal Delta put up in the Alabama. I wanted to know was she over her head in the Alabama, i’m the first to admit that American bred horses are superior over Canadian bred horses, just the sheer volume of horses bred every year in the U.S. we cannot compare the two. Anyway, much to my surprise I found Inglorious put up a faster time in the Queens Plate, that got me thinking…… I was always under the impression that Dirt races played out faster than Poly races, I realize that pace will have a bearing on the final outcome time. I also realize that you can’t get a fair comparison of the two surfaces by just using two races, you would have to take hundreds of races over similar conditions and similar horses to get a real answer. I don’t have the time or resources to figure this question out, i’m wondering if anyone here has a better understanding on how the two surfaces play out against each other. Is a poly track slower or faster than a Dirt track?

Here are the call times of both races….

Queens Plate (Inglorious)

Distance – 1 mile and a quarter

Track - Poly

Condition – Fast

¼ - 23.86

½ - 47.66

¾ - 1:12.35

1 mile – 1:37.76

Final – 2:02.63



Alabama Stakes (Royal Delta)

Distance – 1 mile and a quarter

Track – Dirt

Condition – Fast

¼ - 24.54

½ - 49.31

¾ - 1:13.12

1 mile – 1:37.05

Final – 2:03.13



I am not trying to justify what happened to Inglorious, nor am I making excuses for her, she bounced plain and simple. By my calculations she ran a 2:08.63 give or take some fractions. For her sake I hope it was nothing more than a bad day and not some serious injury, time will tell.

[lamboguy]

some trainers are able to improve horses from synthetic to dirt all the time, some can't, lots of times you see horses hop the start when they change surfaces. that is because of the horses aren't used to the new surface. same as a dirt to turf, or turf to dirt move. they are all major changes to a horse and need proper preparation for the change.

i am guilty in the first degree in not understanding this, i had a horse that trained and ran hollywood park, she was a 2 yo, i then ran her in churchill downs juvenile stakes race and broke her tivia and it spread and i lost her. it was purely my fault. i should have never sent her to kentucky. she was not prepared to run on that surface and she didn't train well on it either. there were no races for her in california for 2 months. that is the problem when you win the very first 2 yo race of the year in a track, there is nothing you can do with them. you are better off losing the race so you can get another race in them and they get experience. anyway, i stopped getting horses ready early, i am now gearing for end of june instead of early april. we do that by starting out horses 2 months later and we won't run into this problem again.

[cj]

As a general rule, synthetic surfaces are faster than dirt.

[nearco]

If this board is to be believed, then synth=turf, and as we all know turf is a faster surface than dirt. All world records for a mile on up are on turf.

[Striker]

Overall the times at Arlington(poly only) have been the slowest that I can remember since poly was installed. Now is that the quality of horses this year or the surface I can't say.

[illinoisbred]

Overall the times at Arlington(poly only) have been the slowest that I can remember since poly was installed. Now is that the quality of horses this year or the surface I can't say.
Agree with you regarding the slowest surface to date at AP. I think its been a combination of the two. Way too many 48+ 1/2 in sprints,50+ 1/2's, and 1:15's+ at the 6 furlong call in routes to accurately determine the culprit.

[sammy the sage]

Do ya'll ACTUALLY think ya can tell....PLLLeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzeeeeeee

Poly/artificial/wetfii.....

has IT BEEN gallop-mastered or tilled before OR after the CURRENT race to A depth OF what????????????

1.5 inches or 3 inches or rolled even....JJJJ//gggggeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzz

it's like playing craps/BJ 49/51% of the time :rolleyes:

[HoofedInTheChest]

As a general rule, synthetic surfaces are faster than dirt.

Thanks for the reply CJ, very much appreciated.

[jorcus]

Poly track can be very slow when it gets hot out. Look at the first year times for Del Mar when the polytrack was introduced. Crazy slow. Woodbine which has a good maintainence program and cooler weather can be quick at times.

Converting Poly to dirt performace can be very tricky. In my own opinion a horse that has been running a number of races on poly that switches over to dirt often has a poor performance. However a horse that has one prep race on poly can often transfer to dirt an win. This works well off the Tapeta surface as well. A number of trainers use Pesque isle as a prep track. Motion and Sheppard are good at it. Eoin Harty sometomes uses Arlington to prep a horse for a dirt race.

I also feel that it is harder for a horse to recover off a taxing run on polytrack than dirt or grass. Even the best seem to bounce off taxing races. I like to see a horse that ran well but was not under pressure to do so in it's last race on poly. A nice easy run out after the wire is a sign of good things to come.

[Greyfox]

The dirt surfaces at Santa Anita and Turf Paradise are much faster than any poly tracks I play.

[Robert Fischer]

turf is generally the fastest

synthetic is generally 2nd fastest

with dirt just behind synthetic


Of course, these the speed of any of these tracks can vary from track to track and can vary at times dramitically by track-condition.

With woodbine on the LONGER synthetic races, my experience has been that the times can slow down in the later half of the race.

after you actually have a feel for the track itself (at least making an effort and realizing any rather extreme bias) then you have to know the horses who are running, the shape of the race, and the position of gate, the run-up, and the bugle call.