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Originally Posted by classhandicapper
I agree with what you saying except for one thing.
It's really hard for me to imagine that after a couple of hundred years of racing on turf that trainers, jockeys, and handicappers have all been wildly mistaken about the differences in surfaces all these years.
I think the surfaces are inherently different and require different distributions of energy and different positioning to maximize the chances of winning. That's why the horses are trained and ridden differently. That's why despite some extremely slow paces, the best closers on turf can get get up in wicked fast late times but dirt horses cannot.
That doesn't mean we can't still learn things, but there are reasons why Chad Brown is incredible with turf horses and Bob Baffert is incredible with dirt horses that go beyond stock. They train their horses differently. The same can be said for certain jockeys.
Whether it's in the hoof size, stride, how much give there is in the surface, how slippery the surface is, how deep the surface is, how much kickback is involved etc.. is more of side issue. IMO, they are not the same and should not be trained or ridden the same.
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You are putting too much faith in tradition. Conventional wisdom can be quite wrong for eons in time. Remember the earth was considered flat for centuries, boxers were made to forego sex for weeks before fights throughout the history of the sport. Look at the dramatic improvements in track and field, a sport driven by scientific research, where world records are falling all the time compared to horse racing, which is so tied to tradition. What's more important are the laws of physics which trumps tradition.
In any case, the argument here is not whether different horses have different preferences for different surfaces, no sane person would claim otherwise. As far as Baffert supposedly being a better trainer with dirt horses vs, Brown with grass is largely a matter of reputation. If you have a promising dirt horse you are more likely to send him to Baffert and a grass horse to Brown. Once these reputations, that may start due to coincidence, begin they become self perpetuating.
Yes dirt and turf races are run differently and the results become self fulfilling prophecies. If trainers believe that grass horses must be trained differently, they will do so, regardless of whether it's true or not. Grass races are run as tests of late running ability and will of course, favor horses trained for this. The same applies to dirt in reverse.
What's encouraging is that in England where there is no tradition of dirt being different than grass in terms of energy distribution, pace analysis based on the laws of physics is showing that the laws of physics hold up the same for all surfaces. Another victory of science over tradition. I strongly urge you to read Roland's excellent book for your reaction.
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