Any educated guesses on how the Turfway Polytrack will pan out regarding speed, variants, etc?
No way to know about the Polytrack, hopefully it will be all over the place. Some years ago they used a synthetic track at Remington, and it did some crazy stuff with moisture-- back in those days all we understood was rain, but we\'re talking about 20 points after a rain shower.
...since the 2nd generation version, which I understand is very different from what didn\'t work at Rem, has been in use at Lingfield Park for some period of time, & was in continuous use there from Oct 2004 through March 2005, if I understand their website correctly. It\'s been used at the Kee training track since 9/04 & horses have been working on it at Turfway since the beginning of Aug. As the TP meet is less than a month away & all indications are that the surface will be installed at Kee & one or two West Coast tracks if the surface performs well at TP, I\'m sure that anything Mr Eckart has to offer on the subject would be very much appreciated.
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/12379554.htm
\"Rebuilt for Speed\" - \"... cut down on horse injuries, speed up the times of races, and create a more level playing field for horses and bettors both.\"
Anticipated: track bias eliminated, speed increased (front runners favored?), decreased kickback, no more sloppy/muddy tracks, turf peds transfer well to main track.