A Glimpse of the Future
(raymond)
So what just happened over the weekend? I’m not entirely sure but there’s definitely a lot to think about.
Regular GbG commenters Jason and John offer some points I hadn’t yet considered.
Jason says:
Bottom line, this BC was a disaster. Let’s see how many East Coast horses show up next year. I’m guessing between 3-5 and they will all be turf horses.
Fair point, I wouldn’t send my dirt horse next year without a real prep over the surface but I wasn’t convinced that made it a disaster as much as a monkey wrench in the wheels of determining a champion.
In my mind Curlin is still a dirt champion. He was beat on a new surface by some very talented turf horses that he probably would have beaten on conventional dirt. Good for Jackson & company for not shying away from the challenge. While I would have loooooved to have seen Curlin win, Jackson has done what fans have been asking owners to do… run your horse regularly and challenge them.
And building on some of Jason’s points, John aptly puts it this way:
Finally, the artificial surfaces have thrown the American game into an identity crisis. Our horses, finally being weaned, I assume, from their drug regimens, were teetering on the stage of world class to begin with; now, however, we’re split on what an American race horse is. The division of synthetic runners and dirt runners further muddies any conclusions we might want to make about who is the best of the best.
We have effectively divided the union via surface civil war.
But is change really so bad? Jessica plays synthetics devil’s advocate:
Let me play devil’s advocate here … what would be so bad about dirt racing disappearing, leaving synthetic and turf surfaces only?
And regular commenter, o_crunk shares this thought:
BC may be on to something longterm on synths, certainly leaves TC events with a musty old smell. Things change, maybe this *is* better?
I’m not against synthetics as much as I am in favor of doing everything possible to create and maintain safe dirt surfaces. I’m also not against the challenge of trying to figure out how handicap the synthetics. But, it’s gonna to be a long strange period of having “dirt” horses and “synthetic” horses while all of these issues get ironed out. If we do move away from dirt, is there really any reason to race on anything other turf? Did synthetics seem different enough from turf to warrant maintaining two types of surfaces? I don’t know and perhaps only time will tell.
Since the TC, the last bastion of conventional dirt, is a bigger driver of the breeding industry than the BC, it should be interesting to see how this past weekend will start to affect the status quo re: breeding. Jason raised the same question:
I wonder how this is going to affect the Breeding Industry. The next time (after 2009) Santa Anita is announced as the site of the Breeder’s Cup, who is going to pay big money for the traditional big dirt sire yearling’s?
Val at Foolish Pleasure takes up this issue and more with her stellar post entitled Death Knell of Dirt Racing. As always, she’s a must read.
Crist has done a great job providing detail on the 2 day handle that the BC proclaims to be a success. Friday’s breakdown can be found here and Saturday’s here. Other’s have also addressed the blantant spin. Crist promises to do more analysis in the coming days but a quick apples to apples look at the Classic notes the numbers at $37,748,057 for 2006 at Churchill, $30,988,618 for 2007 at Monmouth and $24,282,451 for 2008 at Santa Anita.
Frank of That’s Amore Stables sums up some of what I’ve been thinking, that Fillies & Mares and Invaders were real stars of the show (and notably, no invaders won on Friday… although Heart Shaped almost did!). Princess Haya goes one better by showing who wears the horse picking pants in the family at Darley!
As others have noted, having the Fillies & Mares on Friday deprived a whole lot of potential new fans (and many existing ones!) of a true showcase of greatness. Kevin of Colin’s Ghost sums it up:
Missed opportunity with Zenyatta especially with her possibly returning next year. How many “new fans” watching on a Friday evening?
And in closing, in case it wasn’t already clear that changes are a foot, look no further than this… something we all can agree on!
Posted by dana on Oct 26 2008
Filed Under: 2008, Raymond Haddad, Zenyatta, Santa Anita, Turf, Curlin, Breeders' Cup, International Racing, Racing
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
Loading ...
I’ll be writing about this tomorrow, but I think Jessica’s question leads to another: What would be so good about it?
The initial reasons given for creating/developing synthetics were about keeping horses safe, and there’s no clear evidence at this point that synthetics are any better than good dirt (and I feel like a broken record, because I’ve typed that sentence half a dozen times in the last 24 hours!).
The least debatable reasons so far for installing synthetics are economic: less training time lost due to bad weather, fewer scratches, and of course all the money that Polytrack (in which Keeneland is a partner) and Michael Dickinson are making.
And if that’s why we’re doing it, then let’s be up front: we (whoever “we” is) are installing synthetics becuse we can make more money that way.
Otherwise, there’s just no good reason to turn away from dirt after nearly 300 years of racing on it. Tradition alone isn’t a good enough reason to keep it, but there don’t seem to be a lot of good reasons to turn away from it, either.
I will repeat what I said on my blog today about synthetics:
-Randy Moss on ESPN said after the classic that the Pro ride is a much safer surface than dirt (he cited the lack of any serious injuries over the 2 day BC Classic).
I thought that was a premature statement. There are no definitive statistics that indicate the synthetic tracks are any safer than dirt tracks. There have been 5 fatal break downs over the Pro ride surface this fall at Santa Anita.
Also, don’t forget, in the 1960’s and 70’s artificial turf was all the rage in Baseball. It led to more injuries, the fans hated it and now there are only 3 ballparks left with this surface.
Randy Moss has been saying that on teevee and in print since this past Derby. When he said that at Derby time, I thought it made him appear to be in the bag for someone else’s interest. I say this only because someone like Moss, whom I respect (tremendously), would appear to take a more scientific approach before making such statements without having a clearer picture about the data, which no one at this point has. Very curious of him to continually go out on a limb like this on national teevee, IMHO.
Walking out of “the best simulcast” joint in the world yesterday, two older gentlemen were having a conversation I overheard.
“It’s just too hard, Jimmy. You can’t figure this fake junk.”
My Dad, who has been playing horses for 50(!!!) years, spent more time on Philly and Laurel yesterday than he did on the BC. His handicapping is SO hardwired into dirt concepts that the form looks completely foreign to him when he goes synth.
I think the East Coast tracks would be making a grave mistake short term if they want to compete for the betting dollar.
The flip side of the coin is that I like what I saw yesterday, and not just because I made a killing (I normally do pretty well judging turf and dirt to synth horses - the other way around, however, is a much different story - synth to dirt is the real head scratcher).
If Euros dominate the BC on both synth and turf - what does that say about our horses? I haven’t liked what I’ve seen out of the US model and it’s been heading in the wrong direction for as long as I have been following. If half of all horses entered in the BC were based outside of NA, it’s possible that you’re looking at one or two wins at best for the US based horses yesterday, on these equal playing fields.
Everyone else outside of North America has a better racing system - more healthy for the horses and the bettor. Why wouldn’t the US want to emulate that? After all, this country is the king of taking someone else’s idea and making it better.
The really interesting thing to me is that a horse like Raven’s Pass may just be as good on dirt. His breeding certainly doesn’t say NO WAY, it’s possible the horse can run just as effectively on dirt.
It’s easy to forget that Euro based grass runners have come over to the US and competed at the highest levels on dirt with some successes in the past…just not in the very recent past. I think that says more about our horses (drugs, super trainers, etc) than it does about the quality of theirs - after all, most of the time, these horses are coming from the same couple of breeding operations in KY.
One of these surfaces is left without a partner long term….and it’s dirt. I’ve been staunchly anti-synthetic for some time, but isynths have been making a decent case with the last two days being their best case yet.
Just one more thing for ‘the dirt’ perspective…
Curlin has been ripe for defeat on dirt since coming back from Dubai. I have commented all along that while he wins, it’s not the type of impressive victory.
This is a horse who had to dig down to defeat Past The Point (who was defeated by a world beater like Anak Nakal in his last), Wanderin’ Boy (consummate bride’s maid), Merchant Marine (thrashed by Kodiak yesterday), Enstein (turf horse?) and Barcola (not even going there with this one).
It’s possible that Curlin is just not THAT great. Just some perspective for the argument that the best dirt horse in the world got beat by a surface yesterday….
I’ll post more about this later, but let’s also remember Curlin’s general pattern of seeming to need a race over any new track before getting a win (or a big win) — remember the Haskell? Or his prep in Dubai? I wonder if it’s necessarily the surface as much as some sort of pattern for him.
This conversation can go on and on for weeks and even months but I have to throw out some additional observations that caught my eye from this past weekend. The times of the synthetic races were dangerously fast. 6 Furlongs in 1:07.08? I thought this track was meant to be safer for the horses? Then again, Santa Anita was the same track that let horses run on a shaved down “Cushion Track” last year which produced times of 1:06 and change for ordinary sprinters. Yeah, that seems pretty safe for the fragile throroughbred ankle. What about when a jockey hits the track in a spill? I’m sure going another 3-4 miles per hour will do their body good. Good thing steroids were banned from this Breeder’s Cup….Who know’s what kind of times would have been produced? By the way if you watch the video of the Sprint, First Defense ran the opening quarter in 21.28. A few seconds after they pass the 1/4 mark ESPN clearly shows Midnight Lute about 7 lengths back, meaning he ran the 1/4 in about 22.68. If you do the math, HE ran his final 1/2 mile in about 44 2/5 and that is being conservative. That is insane!
Also do the same for Raven’s Pass. He ran his half mile (10 lengths back) in about 49.60 (49 3/5 for the old timer’s). He finished in 1:59.27. His final 6 furlongs was completed in about 1:09 3/5. Again insane. Now one cannot acurately compare horses from different generations and different tracks however if final times are similar you can, to some extent, gauge acceleration during the course of the race. Secretariat’s Kentucky Derby was completed in 1:59 2/5, which is similar to this Classic. His half mile was clocked at about 49 2/5. He ran his final 6 furlongs in 1:10. Raven’s Pass is no Secretariat. Ghostzapper’s BC Classic completed in 1:59 flat and produced a BEYER# of 124. Ghostzapper ran his final 6 furlongs in 1:12. The level of acceleration shown by this horse and Henry the Navigator who ran right with him the whole way, shows either one of two things. Either we watched some of the best horses to EVER run in the history of the sport this past Saturday or the Pro-Ride surface is not at all evenly distributed through out the track which contributed to these FREAKISH second half times. Something to consider, especially since most of the synthetic races looks like a carbon copy of the previous synthetic race.
great comments y’all, I haven’t had time or a chance to contribute anything worthwhile here, but keep up the good work!