Hollywood....5 days in and....

Tucumcari · Postby **Tucumcari** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:35 pm

three breakdowns.... they are racing on an alternative surface, aren't they? Interesting.

Rokeby Forever · Postby **Rokeby Forever** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 4:49 pm

First 5 days at Golden Gate...no breakdowns. I guess Jupiter and Venus must be aligned correctly...how else could this be explained?

Where is Turfway going to dump all its Polyshit, anyway?

MidwestTrainer · Postby **MidwestTrainer** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 5:04 pm

When did they occur? In the morning? Were they put down, or just serious, but manageable injuries?

I'm not a fan of polytrack.

Toccet02 · Postby **Toccet02** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 7:35 pm

was Hollywood the track that had all the breakdownsa few months back?

Tiz · Postby **Tiz** » Sun Apr 29, 2007 7:57 pm

Midwest, what do you not like about Polytrack? I have no experience with it.

louis finochio · Postby **louis finochio** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 6:52 am

T. is on the track galloping now and will answer your ? later. T can you post the names of those Tb that were injured, I need them in my research, Thanks Louis.

Tucumcari · Postby **Tucumcari** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 10:48 am

MidwestTrainer wrote:When did they occur? In the morning? Were they put down, or just serious, but manageable injuries?

I'm not a fan of polytrack.

Two in the am one in the afternoon.
the first and third were put down.

Tucumcari · Postby **Tucumcari** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 10:54 am

No louis, I won't give names. You can do your own digging on that.
I suprisingly like the track some. I am the biggest skeptic about these surfaces, but so far I am not minding it. There are still sore going horses training over it, but that's to be expected, they are athletes. And if there are sore horses, then there will still be breakdowns.

MidwestTrainer · Postby **MidwestTrainer** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 11:04 am

Tiz wrote:Midwest, what do you not like about Polytrack? I have no experience with it.

It isn't so much that I don't like it, but don't like that every track is turning to it. I think it is good for cold weather tracks and for training, but by changing all the tracks you are just allowing horsemanship to drop off the face of the earth. Eventually those same trainers that caused most of the breakdowns on dirt; their horses will get bad enough that they will breakdown on poly as often as they were on the dirt.

Unless a horse is born with pretty severe physical problems it is not hard to keep a horse sound for many years racing. I have a very crooked legged filly in my barn that ran 6x as a two year old, had ran 21x by the end of her 3 yr old year and is still going as good as new. Well, actually she is getting better. She had a superb workout the other day. It is part of the reason we bought her last fall.

On the other hand, we got a horse last fall that was too sore to walk. He had a horrible farrier and was too body sore to jog. It took 60 days of turnout to even get rideable. This year he has ran 3x two weeks apart, with a 3rd and two 2nds, and has been tearing down the barn less than 48 hours after each race. Obviously, it wasn't an issue with the horse.

I just worry that this will be more of an excuse for trainers to be careless.

Tucumcari · Postby **Tucumcari** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 11:26 am

I just worry that this will be more of an excuse for trainers to be careless.

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Agreed!

geowarrior · Postby **geowarrior** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 12:07 pm

Question - I'm following a couple of horses at Arlington, and have received a couple of very fast workout times for them. Does anyone know if the new Polytrack is yielding very fast workout times, or are the horses I'm following just going faster because they feel like it?

Rokeby Forever · Postby **Rokeby Forever** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 12:12 pm

Wow, did Midwest sum up in one sentence what I was going to write 3 paragraphs about!

I figure the next excuse for horses breaking down at Hollywood will be Global Warming.

MidwestTrainer · Postby **MidwestTrainer** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 12:22 pm

geowarrior wrote:Question - I'm following a couple of horses at Arlington, and have received a couple of very fast workout times for them. Does anyone know if the new Polytrack is yielding very fast workout times, or are the horses I'm following just going faster because they feel like it?

It is a hard read. I know at Keeneland the track varies from day to day. One day it can be extremely slow the next extremely fast, with seemingly little change in weather. I know they say that Arlington is much closer to the Keeneland surface than Turfway.

The workouts listed today were normal, but Sundays, were definitely faster than normal.

geowarrior · Postby **geowarrior** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 1:07 pm

Thanks, Midwest, I now feel justified in being confused. I can't even remember what days these horses worked so I'll have to go back and check.

Does Polytrack look like Chocolate Chip Cookies? Somebody told me that some kind of artificial surface looks like it has 'bits' in but I forget if it was Polytrack.

Tiz · Postby **Tiz** » Mon Apr 30, 2007 1:39 pm

Thanks, MWT. Your track surface input is appreciated, as well as your crooked legged filly anecdote. I have a gelding, that's pretty crooked, at the track now that I thought, for his sake, I should sell to the dressage people as a 2 year old. He's always sound, no heat whatsoever, anytime or anywhere, and he loves being a racehorse. Whew, I'm glad he's still ours!