Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottJ
Tough weekend for sure and much has been written about Maple Leaf Mel and (less so) Ever Summer. Unfortunately, the severe pop-up storms last week that drenched the turf courses as fields headed to the track caused some serious tearing in both courses at the 18-foot rail position and the path immediately to its outside. Further, the popularity of the 5 1/2 furlong turf sprints among horsemen (and gamblers) should not be forgotten. These races take a serious toll on the Mellon Course.
So, what's coming for this next week? For Day 20, the rails come down and you can expect that there will be fresh turf on the hedge and in the path (or two) immediately before the 18-foot path. Forward horses and inside trips will have an advantage for the next section of the meeting.
None of this has a thing to do with a synthetic surface. There is a parallel thread on this board discussing equine deaths per 1000 starters and the assertions of increased safety and the underpinning reasons are completely opaque based on the data.
As for today's "off-the-turf debacle", perhaps you are just thinking about the Saratoga experience during the last five years. Those who have been with the game longer and are familiar with the region know that the recent weather is more in keeping with the real Saratoga. Last two years in particular, we were just lucky to have the crazy weather outbreaks on Mondays and Tuesdays (almost without fail). As for using the term "debacle", your logic would have everything moved to synthetic surfaces to avoid any debacles. Using specific point cases to generate universal actions is faulty logic.
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You don't think this weekend was a debacle?
Okay
Answer me this - why does Colonial have a world class turf course including drainage that allow their courses to stay safe, consistent and raceworthy, while the Spa's turf course seemed chunky on Thursday when I was there, let alone this weekend?
And not giving gamblers time to adjust their wagers yesterday wasn't a debacle on top of what happened to the horses in front of everyone?
This weekend was the worst in Saratoga history = debacle
No?
