Another Synthetic Thread

[Kimsus]

Originally Posted by Greyfox

A National Equine Injury Data base is reporting:

"Based upon a year’s worth of data beginning November 1, 2008, from 378,864 total starts in Thoroughbred flat races at 73 racetracks participating in the Equine Injury Database, 2.04 fatal injuries were recorded per 1,000 starts."

Unfortunately I couldn't find rates at various tracks but it would appear that the poly tracks in So Cal are doing better. Of course that may also be due to having more intact horses on the grounds.

One would have to speculate that with less casualties, the number of injuries to jockeys and time lost due to injuries would be lower at those tracks as well. Unfortunately, a National Data Base compiling Jockey injuries is not being kept though it is apparent it should be.

It is a lost cause Greyfox, you will never convince the anti-synthezers, for every stat you produce or every good report written as was the one written by Bill Findley, It will fall on deaf ears. I've given up trying to reason with these folks, if they cannot accept by now that synthetics do reduce fatal injuries, they never will. Not in a year, or 5 or in a decade.

[nijinski]

Originally Posted by Greyfox

A National Equine Injury Data base is reporting:

"Based upon a year’s worth of data beginning November 1, 2008, from 378,864 total starts in Thoroughbred flat races at 73 racetracks participating in the Equine Injury Database, 2.04 fatal injuries were recorded per 1,000 starts."

Unfortunately I couldn't find rates at various tracks but it would appear that the poly tracks in So Cal are doing better. Of course that may also be due to having more intact horses on the grounds.

One would have to speculate that with less casualties, the number of injuries to jockeys and time lost due to injuries would be lower at those tracks as well. Unfortunately, a National Data Base compiling Jockey injuries is not being kept though it is apparent it should be.

This was about two months after tougher steroid use law was implemented,
A good deal of trainers even the top ones had to change things , like not
bring their horses right back after strong efforts.
That may well have an effect on the stats.

[Greyfox]

Originally Posted by nijinski

This was about two months after tougher steroid use law was implemented,
A good deal of trainers even the top ones had to change things , like not
bring their horses right back after strong efforts.
That may well have an effect on the stats.

The bottom line is the So Cal tracks are lower than the national average for catastrophic breakdowns ending in fatality. I don't know why. Certainly I would suggest that poly materials are probably assisting in that safety record.
Less steroid use? Maybe? But that would apply across all tracks.

I'm open to any ideas. So far I haven't seen any convincing evidence from any of the anti-synthetics group that poly surfaces are terrible. If you have it, bring it out.

[nijinski]

Doesn't seem possible that this is accurate looking at the Equus Memorial Wall.

Hollywood Park has had clusters of catastrophic breakdowns , they are
listed with horses and connections names .

I see no difference with the exception of the bottom claimers at dirt tracks.

[kenwoodallpromos]

Originally Posted by Tom

Ken, how does your workout method do on the synths? Better than dirt, worse, same?

My using median 3 and 4f Plubber workout indicates that So Cal and Arlington tracks can have weather and maintainence variations to a greater extent than Plubber tracks. It is not a great predictor of early speed winning on Plubber anywhere. My top 2 tote choices if both between 1-1 and 3-1 in sprints is more accurate on Plubber and many other tracks.
My old Show betting system holds up fairly well for show on Plubber but only at a decent win odds price!

[kenwoodallpromos]

Originally Posted by nijinski

Doesn't seem possible that this is accurate looking at the Equus Memorial Wall.

Hollywood Park has had clusters of catastrophic breakdowns , they are
listed with horses and connections names .

I see no difference with the exception of the bottom claimers at dirt tracks.

IMHO ANY clusters of leg problems during races means the track is at fault somehow; This could be for a variety of reasons including the base, weather, bad maintainence, bad cushion composition, general bad drainage.
As a reminder, Hawthorne had a strict total inside to outside bias for a week at one point; Lone Star's track speed can vary week to week; NY tracks are usually very consistent regarless of weather. Arlington had a far turn problem with dirt AND turf tracks in the same spot that was not fixed until replacing the track surface, base and all. No specific cause was ever revealed. SA had a Plubber mixture cushion composition problem and caused Steve Wood to quit, tried to fix it by adding material but that did not work. As far as I remember, TP, Kee, Woodbine, Hollywood, GGF, and some English Plubber tracks have not have serious uncontrollable problems.
Some may remember that my urging for Ca was to slow down the tracks when they kept sealing (rolling) and otherwise artificially speeding up the tracks, including SA's turf track. That is when tracks would be sealed and precipitation predictions of less than 1/2" of rain would come true.
OF course, Ca and many of its trainers bred for speed.
Plubber does tend to cause winning odds to be longer than tracks running an average first quarter of faster than 23 second IMHO.

[kenwoodallpromos]

Originally Posted by Tom

Ken, how does your workout method do on the synths? Better than dirt, worse, same?

From Brisnet "At a glanced":
"TRACK BIAS MEET(11/13 - 12/20) (Bris only listby DIRT or TURF)

Distance #
Surface type
# of Races
Wire Best
Style Best
Posts
6.0f Dirt 60 45% E Mid/Out
6.5f Dirt 35 34% P Inside

[Foolish Pleasure]

[Foolish Pleasure]

I think it is wonderful you people want nothing more than to completely decimate the entire breed and foolish enough to call that progress.
They do nothing but enable scumbag trainers to run lesser sound horses.

It is insanity as if you doing the horses a favor by installing surfaces that enable this.





Blind as bats.


How can you people actually bet on the sport look at the horses on the synthetic tracks and not see they are noticably shorter? How can you possibly be successful and not see this?

Golden Gate has never had anywhere close to the unsound horses racing daily that they do now-all have to do is actually look at the animals.

[Foolish Pleasure]

Likewise I think it is great that you people are so blind,

to suggest that pack racing where 95% of the field is within two lengths of each other most of the race is somehow safer for the jockeys.


Just have to be blind and wanna be ignorant.


It is like restrictor plate racing in NASCAR, all they did was slow down the horses which greatly reduce the physical stresses however that also puts them in a pack which is likewise quite dangerous. If you can't see this, why are you betting? Has to be a simpler sport out there to follow.



There are no other excuses. IF a total idiotic moron like me can see all this you people have to purposefully be ignoring it.


There is no other reason, I am so sorry you can't win on dirt that you will embrace any possible thing to mitigate that-

stop lying. stop pretending the earth is flat.

it is ridiculous.

[PaceAdvantage]

Originally Posted by 46zilzal

People who THINK they know pace, just don't understand what an aberration this mare is....SHE should not be, and runs just enough each time NO MATTER what is paced in front of her.....HISTORICALLY these types are at the mercy of traffic and she is not that lucky to have done it 16 times.

And I'll bet the all weather surfaces, plus the overabundance of cream puff competition has absolutely nothing to do with her success rate, right 46? It's only about the folks whom you think don't understand pace as well as you do...

[Trotman]

PA you made my day

[Greyfox]

Originally Posted by Foolish Pleasure

IF a total idiotic moron like me can see all this you people have to purposefully be ignoring it.
.

Yes, because we're conspiring to totally decimate the thoroughbred breed.

[kenwoodallpromos]

"But Baffert noted the safety of dirt surfaces could be improved with better maintenance. California’s dirt tracks “were in such poor condition,” he said. “They hadn’t been redone since Seabiscuit.”
So, who was trying to decimate the breed?
Personally, when the rashes of breakdowns in Ca on dirt was occuring, I lobbied for slower tracks but the tracks kept them constantly among the fastest in the country. And the horses were not packed as tightly together as now. I would not have minded them being slower dirt.
When SA and Hollywood first put in Plubber, they tried everything they could do to speed them up as much as possible.
Oct 20, 2008, SA: ""My advice is to play it like you play Belmont Park," said retired Hall of Fame jockey Gary Stevens, now a TV analyst, who rode in the Legends race here Saturday. "It's not like the old (speed-favoring) Santa Anita. If a horse gets loose on an easy lead, he can go gate to wire. But if you go too fast, you pay the price."

Steady running style best

"Horses don't have the same turn of foot they do on dirt," said Jerry Bailey, another retired Hall of Famer and TV analyst who rode in the Legends race. "If you're laying back, thinking you're going to make up four or five lengths in an eighth of a mile, it's not going to happen. There is no instant acceleration. It's going to take you longer."