Turfway Polytrack

[JustRalph]

perilous..........what is your horses name.......?

[GameTheory]

Since this surface has been in use in England for some time, I'm assuming it hasn't killed any horses due to injestion...

[sjk]

Do you think when a horse dies in a race (much less of the aftereffects) it gets any attention or acknowledgement in the news or from the track where it took place? I've had horses die in races and unless you happened to read the race comments you would never know.

Sorry to take this discussion in a sad direction; it has bugged me for a long time.

I broke down and bet one of the races today. Couldn't stand it that a horse was going off 17-1 but he only got second and I got nothing.

[GameTheory]

Originally Posted by sjk

Do you think when a horse dies in a race (much less of the aftereffects) it gets any attention or acknowledgement in the news or from the track where it took place? I've had horses die in races and unless you happened to read the race comments you would never know.

Sorry to take this discussion in a sad direction; it has bugged me for a long time.

No, but if the horseman thought that the surface itself had poisoned (effectively) his horse, he would be sure to raise hell...

[Perilous]

Well I was thinking that it has been used for a number of years, the only conclusion I can think of is that it probably rains a bit more in the other areas, and that maybe it is a bit less "cloudy/dusty."


No, the tracks do not like negative media about the track, hence why the articles about the drugs rules are usually misleading or just a tiny bit of what happens.

[flatstats]

I've not heard of a horse snuffing it on British Polytrack due to swallowing the stuff and this substance has been in use here since 2001.

The kickback is more of a powder puff and much less harmful to horse and jockey than the Fibresand and ghastly Equitrack which we used to have.

Here's the pulled up rates for each surface. Figure is number of pulled up horses per 1000 runners

Fibresand: 23 per 1000
Polytrack: 15 per 1000

The number of pulled up horses is reduced which indicates that the surface is easier on the legs, tendons and joints.

The old Fibresand used to have some fatalities from horses breaking down. 10 years ago we (foolishly) tried hurdle races on all weather surfaces. But the failure rate and fatalities was far too high.

At the time it was debatable as to if the failure rates and fatalities was due to the harsher Fibresand and Equitrack surfaces causing too much stress on landing or because all weather racing attracted lower quality injury prone horses.

[sjk]

This is getting seriously off-topic but I would say that most owners are not very vocal or if they are it is not very well received. Most trainers are not interested in picking a fight with track management unless they have a reason to find it in their interest (a dead horse would not usually qualify).

Not to say that a rash of dead horses would not attract attention. I certainly hope that it would.

All the best to you GT.

[highnote]

I have never heard anyone complain about horses breathing in the dirt from the Aqueduct Inner track. The sand there is mixed with anti-freeze. It can't be good for horses to get anti-freeze in their lungs.

[Brian Flewwelling]

Originally Posted by GameTheory

The first 3 days on the new surface show significantly slower final times than the old track, although each day my variant (calculated as if it was the old track) has become slightly less extreme than the day before, so maybe they are experimenting with the maintenance or it needs a settling in period...

i have Variants, R and Sprint, up to Sunday. Also see slowness with steady decrease as days go by, but still about a second for sprints, and more for routes (2+).

[PaceAdvantage]

I don't think they use anti-freeze, as in the anti-freeze you use in your car.

I'm sure they mix in SOMETHING to lower the freezing temperature, but I don't think you can accurately call it anti-freeze, as in ethylene glycol.

[GameTheory]

Normal anti-freeze is pure poison. They can't possibly use that...

[rokitman]

No mention of anything like an "anti-freeze" on the AQU ID here http://www.nytha.com/2003Newsletters...letter/p01.htm Sounds like just constant work keeps it from freezing. But it does freeze sometimes.

[Perilous]

Turfway on the old surface, would use chemicals to try to keep it from freezing, they did have problems with that. Dirt getting kicked back into their eyes, would cause ulcers and/or painful swelling. As far as their lungs go, I've never ran enough horses there in the winter but I'm sure that it would cause some effects on them.
I've heard stories about "back in the old days" where they would use pea gravel mixed in with the track.. (not at turfway but other random tracks)

[Valuist]

How about the TVG remotes? Actually, Jill Byrne is one of the better ones there but so far, she's interviewed the track VP, the racing secretary and the jockeys of winning horses. If you're the racing secretary, are you going to knock the surface? Of course not. If you're a jockey and you've just won a race, are you apt to criticize the surface? Probably not. How about interviewing the riders of beaten favorites. I'm not saying its good or bad but the way its presented, I really wonder if all horseman are in 100% agreement that its as wonderful as TVG has portrayed.

It does seem to be the least speed favoring of any dirt track I've seen.

[Valuist]

I want to clarify the last comment. It doesn't seem to favor deep closers but its not easy to go wire to wire. After opening day, in 23 sprints since only 4 horses have gone wire to wire, and some of these races had pretty small fields.