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[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.