Real Dirt, It's What's for Racing!
 

All of the hype surrounding this Breeders Cup, I'm just so glad the best dirt races in America were back on dirt. Front runners were able to run their race, stalkers were able to run theirs and closers were able to do what they do. All had a fair shot at winning.

Your forgetting something. For all the talk about different surfaces, Blame and Zen proved that great horses can run on anything. I would bet that they would both be awesome on the grass also. :cool: :ThmbUp:

Lucky wasn't too shabby on the synthetic either. All three of them trained up to this race on the synthetic. It doesn't look like poly-to-dirt put them at a disadvantage.

Synthetic, Plastic, Rubber, Junk, is just about done in the United States. When Santa Anita decided to go back to dirt it killed the movement. When the Breeders Cup makes an announcement like the one below we know where the future is for synthetic surfaces. There isn't any future. Synthetic surfaces have been the greatest fraud in the history of Horse Racing in the United States. It took a while but Trainers and Horseplayers who know better forced the change.

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/11/02...cheduling.html

Excerpt:

Though Avioli says there's really nothing off the table, the series has no plans to return to a track with synthetic surfaces. While the 2008 and 2009 events were catastrophe-free on the synthetic surface at Santa Anita, it also scared away some American trainers who aren't exactly fans of the mixture of sand and rubber.


Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/11/02...#ixzz149eD1562

Whether they run on poly or not again, I hope they never run again at place where they can't even load the horses in the right stalls. In all my years of following racing I have never seen such incompetence.

Breeders Cup at Churchill was a pretty big success. I think that they will rotate between 3 or 4 tracks in the future.

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Breeders' Cup Handle, Attendance Increase | BloodHorse.com

http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-raci...dance-increase

They should.
American racing demands nothing but tests on a traditional main track.

The two-day common pool total was $163,619,784,
an increase of 13% over the $144,599,205 wagered in 2009.

Another way to build on this is to go "primetime".
Insert Deion Sanders emoticon here. :cool:

Real dirt will soon be a thing of the past.

When pigs fly.

What gives you this impression Alacrity??

Well after a few years of sampling the injuries and whatnot...it does appear synthetics are safer than dirt and do save horses lives which was the point of them being brought to America. Dirt was the only thing being used in the 1900s because our technology wasn't nearly as good as it is now. Now...we have all the tools to make a safer track for the horses and eventually thats going to win out. What I think they should do is after so many years...see what synthetic surface is the safest and use that at every track.

Seriously, did anyone else notice that the synthetic horses did OK (again) at the BC?

Marathon: Eldaafer (last race: win at Turfway)
FM Sprint: Dubaj Majesty (last race: win at Keeneland) - the entire top 5 had run on synthetic in their last race
Juvenile Fillies: all dirt
Ladies Classic: Blind Luck, accomplished and trained on synthetic, finishes second

Sprint: top 2 are dirt horse, but so are the bottom 5
Juvenile: all dirt
Dirt Mile: Dakota Phone (trained and primarily run on synthetic)
Classic: Blame (double winner on synthetic and trained up to the trained at KEE), Zenyatta

Not as overwhelming as last year, but they seem to have held their own.

We've argued the dirt vs synthetic , dirt has won out.
Synthetic injuries and breakdowns unfortunately are happening , IMO it has failed and done nothing good for horseracing.
Horse that had to be euthanized yesterday ran on grass .

What if big fluffy pillows are proven to be safer than poly? You'd be hard pressed to argue against 'safety first.'

So when it opportunity presents itself to save horses lives and make the sport safer...we should ignore it? Should football go back to using playing without facemasks? Should baseball players go back to playing without helmets? And how has synthetics failed? If synthetics has failed.....what has dirt done? People have had over 100 years to figure out a way to make dirt safer and are no closer now than they were back then. Dirt is not the answer. Period.


I can see how this comment proves dirt is safer than synthetics. Thanks for helping me see the light.