This was the rumor flying around Gulfstream yesterday from some highly placed Magna sources. The resident Magna visionary is so concerned and PO\'ed over the track situation, the CHRB synthetic mandate and the fact he is losing millions with each day of closings he is threatening to move and move now.
Other concerns are no Florida based shippers will be going west to race on a synthetic surface they have never run on before, at a track where the conditions from one day to the next may not be safe, or end up with an event where only HALF the races are run because the west coast venue was closed.
Concerns on the Gulfstream front are the Donn Handicap is the following week and this would be back-to-back weeks with major full-card events at the same location. Perhaps a little too much too soon.
However since the West Coast has become a Simulcast Outlet Only as of late the safe bet is to move the entire event to Florida.
The Visionary feels as the CHRB decision making process moves at a crawl and a cover-our-asses thought process he may be forced to move on his own so plans can begin to be made with the big day coming in less than three weeks. He could then fill the California Card (if the track is open for business) with five horse fields of cheap claimers running in five furlong sprints which is what yesterdays card resembled until the jockey\'s pulled the plug on the day.
Also expect a few more major three year olds to be pulled out of California and shipped east as Derby preparation training has become next to impossible.
Stay Tuned.
When it first became apparent that the situation at SA was the fiasco that it is, this guy Shapiro tried to act as the aggrieved party. He wants to blame the installers of Cushion Track. Even a casual observer can see that the source of the problem is a mandate by a government body that was rushing to judgment. Why didn\'t anybody try to stop them, or at least slow them down?
California tracks need artificial surfaces like a moose needs a hatrack. If Del Mar has another year like last year it won\'t be a first class track anymore. If Keeneland has another Blue Grass like last year, the horsemen will start to avoid it.
As far as I know, there has never been any definitive study proving that the main cause of breakdowns is track surfaces.
I believe the \"rush to judgment\" you mention was politics in its purest form.
The various manufacturers of synthetic surfaces identify California as the
state with the worst breakdown problem. They all kick in some decent money, the
money goes into the brown bag and the brown bag ends up in the hands of someone
who has a lot of influence over the decision to take the whole state synthetic.
Facts I have none but my opinion is that in the end it will come down to what
I\'ve described above in one form or other. Follow the money.
I followed the Keeneland Fall meet and thought it was very playable. Very high
quality of horseflesh, good turf racing. The racing was so enjoyable to me
(and available at Living Room Downs) I was thinking that it would be nice if
they could extend that meet back into the last 2 weeks of September. To preserve
the Keeneland turf course they could run a couple of days a week at that
bobsled run at Kentucky Downs.
I like Keeneland because it is one of the last places in America where it looks
like there is a crowd at the races--even during the week.
Given the historical importance of the City of Lexington, I think that one year
BC has to stop there for a visit. They might take a hit live gate wise, but I
think this would be a natural.
Of course, by the time this happens the BC will be a 6 day event, featuring 2
days of thoroughbred world championships, one day of Claiming Crown races,
quarter horse championships, standardbred championships and maybe some mules.
Gotta go down to the mailbox. I am expecting a brown bag from the Lexington
Chamber of Commerce.
As I stated at the time, I think the rush to synthetic was premature. They should have done it in stages. But I would be VERY surprised if Shapiro was in anybody\'s pocket, from dealing with him. He has a day job, works for the CHRB for $1 a year, and is interested in stopping the drug problem-- more than most tracks are.
Though it was a bad idea to rush headlong, the people that make cushion screwed SA big time. They got the wax and the sand wrong, and from what I hear, when SA said there was a problem, tried to walk away. SA basically had to inform them that if they ever intended to get any business in this industry again, they better make it THEIR problem.
With all this abuse of the "rush to judgment" cliché, I feel like I'm back at the O.J. trial.
With fatal breakdowns at a record high, the CHRB was under great urgency to make a major change and as the TOC statement points out, the decision was made on the basis of good data. As a statistician, I can say without hesitation that the evidence was, and remains, compelling that all-weather tracks be developed and installed with all due speed.
JB, while I believe you to be honest in your reservations, I do see parallels between many who oppose the CHRB decision and those who initially opposed civil and gay rights legislation on racist or homophobic grounds and then switched to a "rush to judgment" criticism when their position became untenable, as a last ditch attempt to delay change. Especially those whose criticism against engineered tracks is that they are \"unnatural\".
As to whether Santa Anita Management or Cushion Track are most responsible here, the fact is there will be a learning curve and setbacks are inevitable no matter how much time is wasted and how many lives are lost before all the synthetic track critics are satisfied.
Bob
Bob-- ?????????
The downside to civil rights legislation was what, exactly? The potential downside to rushing to put in all those tracks willy-nilly, as opposed to one at a time, or all using the same track, was a) adding randomness to handicapping, and b) what we see at Santa Anita. Nobody is saying synthetic tracks are not a good idea. But generally we test products before we use them.
Implementing programs in any business take time. But nobody dumps the product on the consumer and says we will work out the kinks later.
Unless you are Microsoft and you are selling Vista.
McDonalds put in a new food assembly process years ago that was supposed to make things taste better, stay fresher and warmer longer and be served on order much more quickly. The testing process was a big success, the operational implementation was a total failure.
The entire Mgmt Group that voted it in was tossed out by the Board. After several years of work and a coffee product or two the company is doing extremely well.
Cushion Track may eventually be the savior but right now there are no scalps on the floor, which always makes the fan feel a little better or forgive a little more quickly.
And people like me are betting and watching less than they ever have. Which is how this game survives last time I checked..................
Hey that\'s a good one
poly = gay
dirt = straight
poly/dirt = bi
IMO, if this continues, CA dirt racing is going to sink into a permanent abyss but the area will eventually become the center of high quality turf racing. The best turfers will have a choice of turf races and/or races on artificial surfaces that masquerade as dirt races. \"Real\" high quality dirt racing is going to move east.
I predicted that last year as soon as we saw the first signs that many turfers handled the artificial surfaces well and that the races were being run a little differently \"pace wise\". We saw a little of that last year at Saratoga, but it will probably start to accelerate as more people start to figure it all out. The purses out in CA are still huge. So there will many opportunities to find easy spots for mediocre horses that show a fondness for turf and artifical surfaces (as you already know being one of the first to take advantage).
What\'s going on out there is the best thing that ever happened to NY dirt racing.
If we could ever straighten out the drug issues in NY and have totally clean racing (which would automatically translate into safer racing and no need for these other surfaces), I might even become optimistic enough to think Spitzer, Bruno, Silver, NYRA etc... and the rest of corrupt scum around these parts couldn\'t ruin it (as farfetched as that sounds).
Jerry,
Deaths on California tracks had been steadily climbing for the last 4 years reaching record highs of 320 and 317 the last 2 years. Yeah sure, no reason to "rush into" making any major changes.
I agree that a product should be tested before it's used, so lets look at the numbers. In North America alone all-weather tracks have been installed at 9 major tracks. In a sample consisting of thousands of races and tens of thousands of horses the death rate has dropped an incredible 50% over-all, despite the fact that field sizes have increased with the new surface, which would make breakdowns more likely. that\'s not counting that the surface was already a big success in England.
Come on, even the ball busting FDA wouldn\'t't hesitate to approve synthetic tracks as a safe and effective way of decreasing racetrack fatalities.
You simply cannot say that the CHRB rushed into installing an unproven product.
Not that it seems to matter but hundreds of lives have been saved in Cal because of the the CHRB decision. I guess that\'s just not as important in maintaining biased, dangerous surfaces for the sake of \"handicapping diversity\".
Bob
Bob
That might almost be funny if it even made sense, but then you\'d have to get the analogy.
Bobphilo
Where is the definitive evidence showing conclusive cause and effect relationship between breakdowns and track surfaces? Nobody wants to see horses breaking down, it\'s a sickening sight. It\'s easy to cast yourself as the champion of all that\'s right and good. But this is a real world situation that has obviously not been handled well.
If you want to go in for analogies, I would say New Coca Cola versus Classic Coca Cola. Do you remember how that turned out?
I had originally thought the issue was what surface the horse trained on not raced on. Back when all the injuries were happening in California, a lot of people were saying the problem was that the horses were subject to too much cumulative pounding as a result of day in and day out running on a hard surface. A horse may only actually RACE on a surface 12 times or so per year, but will EXERCISE on a surface over 300 times a year. Maybe it would have been possible to have training tracks made of synthetic but racing surfaces that stayed dirt?
I recognize that building training tracks is costly itself, but again if it would have had the effect of saving lives and improving the sport, maybe that would have been the way to go.
If NY is thinking about following suit, maybe it can convert the Belmont training track and the Saratoga training track to synthetic but keep the dirt surfaces and see how that works.
Imagine what the Santa Anita meet would have been like if the training track were synthetic and the training surface dirt. Ownership could have ultimately converted all tracks, but it would have probably gone a ton smoother if they had converted the training track to synthetic before they converted the racing surface to synthetic.
Also, how can the racing Commission mandate converting racing surfaces and NOT mandate converting training surfaces? Seems illogical to me. Especially since they have carved out the conversion requirement for places where horses run less than 4 weeks whereas most training tracks are used year round and are probably the ones most in need of conversion to save lives.
Finally, if saving lives is such a vital issue to the California racing commission, why on earth do they allow racing on Bute? I seem to recall that in the 70s Bute was far more widespread as a legal raceday medication than it is today. There was a movement in various jurisdictions to get rid of Bute as a raceday medication because it was believed that it allowed horses to race that were otherwise too sore to race and the feeling was that allowing sore horses to race led to too many breakdowns. Maybe this was not a national issue, but in Maryland it was definitely an issue during the 70s.
fkach Wrote:
> I predicted that last year as soon as we saw the
> first signs that many turfers handled the
> artificial surfaces well and that the races were
> being run a little differently \"pace wise\". We saw
> a little of that last year at Saratoga, but it
> will probably start to accelerate as more people
> start to figure it all out. The purses out in CA
> are still huge. So there will many opportunities
> to find easy spots for mediocre horses that show a
> fondness for turf and artifical surfaces (as you
> already know being one of the first to take
> advantage).
Actually, the cushion track surfaces have been pretty similar to traditional dirt surfaces. Horses of all running styles have been successful. The only synthetic surface that helps turf horses is Polytrack.
Disagree that this helps NY dirt racing. Cushion and tapeta, when properly installed, have decreased breakdown numbers and increased field size. Despite the ridiculous situation at the current SA meeting, Cushion and Tapeta have been a success.
Bally good point and that may be where this is heading if you read between the lines of these press releases and crpytic comments.
The Breeders Cup lost a ton of momentum because of dreadful weather last year. This had nothing to do with the outstanding work by the Monmouth Park people or the great idea for a venue. Just bad racing luck as they call it because of the deluge and poor track conditions caused people to hold back on how much they bet.
Wait a minute maybe people hold back on how much they bet because races are being run over a Synthetic Surface they do not trust. Field sizes may be bigger but the quality of most Synthetic Grade Ones has been garbage for all intents purposes as of late.
If people do not think they are seeing the best horses in the world competing over an optimal surface in the best of circumstances they will save their money and gamble it on the Hambletonian or College and Pro Football.
TWO STRAIGHT YEARS ON DOWNWARD MOMENTUM AND THE BREEDERS CUP IS TOAST
P_Dub,
>Disagree that this helps NY dirt racing. Cushion and tapeta, when properly installed, have decreased breakdown numbers and increased field size. Despite the ridiculous situation at the current SA meeting, Cushion and Tapeta have been a success.<
I was strictly talking about high quality racing - which in my opinion is the main thing that creates new fans and gets them out to the track.
\"And people like me are betting and watching less than they ever have. Which is how this game survives last time I checked\"
Silver,
There is no voice for players, you,me and everyone. At a recent symposium in Vegas two whales flatly stated they do not bet on poly and have many whale friends who don\'t. It may be great for the small player though. As far as handle being up, it\'s pretty much like that at major dirt venues too.Breakdowns are a terrible part of the game with the surface being only one of many reasons and not the primary reason imo.
NY will look at a training track/inner track synthetic only. A surface change to synthetic is generally opposed by many outfits who would prefer to train on it but race on dirt.As far as your comments re business maybe running parallel before making profound changes, you forget the morons running this sport.
Mike
So Cal,
Your point is excellent. The disingenuous race track operators \"hide\" behind horse safety and permit these same animals they so cherish to be loaded with lots of drugs to get the entry boxed filled. Same with the trainers who praise poly because they get more starts and earn more money.Why don\'t they ban ALL race day and in between meds if they are so concerned about the cherished animals?? Answer..$$$$$$$, they really don\'t care, the horses are just a means to an end, nothing more.
Mike
Bob,
With all due respect, it\'s people that think like you that are constantly screwing things up in this country. You have wonderful intentions, but don\'t understand the basics of the real world in which we live.
First let me say I\'ve grown to be a huge animal lover in recent years. The other day I spent $175 for a exotic pet vet to save my $3.99 pet African clawed frog. So I am very sensitive to your desire to save horses.
But you can\'t think about things strictly in terms of goals, desires, etc.... We live in a world of limited resources. That makes it imperative to get good value for every dollar spent. It\'s not enough to say that artificial surfaces save horses. There may have been ways to save an equal number or even more horses without taking equal risks, without putting very major meets in jeapordy, without turning parts of the industry on its head, without spending as much money, without alienating thousands of big bettors etc...
It\'s essential to always test things carefully. You want to make sure you are getting good overall value for your money - NOT just meeting an objective like saving horses.
Regardless of whether this experiment ultimately works out or not and regardless of whether we ultimately get good value from it, it was as dumb as a rock to rush in at major tracks like SA before we knew all those answers. SA is now paying a price and Del Mar paid a price when some of it\'s best horses shipped to Saratoga and took some of the luster off that meet.
fkach Wrote: (bravely)
-------------------------------------------------------
> First let me say I\'ve grown to be a huge animal
> lover in recent years. The other day I spent $175
> for a exotic pet vet to save my $3.99 pet African
> clawed frog.
Cobra venom? Myectomy? Lidocaine and Vitamin C? Some new miracle drug the harness people got their hands on? Was the white Daimler auto seen in Nassau County yesterday?
Bally Ache,
If by definitive evidence showing cause and effect you mean do we know the mechanism by which the current synthetic surfaces reduce injuries, we have that. The developers did not just throw together junk from the backyard but combined substances whose ergonomic properties in terms of shock absorption are more similar to grass (the only truly natural surface for horses) than conventional dirt tracks. That\'s the theoretical cause and effect part. The additional statistical evidence that backs this up came from both research and development in the lab and finally in the real world where all-weathers have dramatically reduced fatalities to the extent that would be virtually impossible due to chance. This huge experiment was repeated in both the U.S. and England with the same positive results. That's about as much definitive proof as one can get.
By the way, definitive causal relationships are not even always necessary before we know something works. We still don't know how aspirin works, as well as several other medications – we just know they do. In any case the definitive proof of the effectiveness of AW's is there no matter how strictly one applies the term.
In addition, it\'s not like we can call a moratorium on racing until everybody\'s unreasonable criteria are satisfied. Horses continue to break down and die and if we are going to send horses out to the track daily, it is our duty to go with the surface that has dramatically shown itself to be safer. I cannot understand nor justify the notion of installing AW\'s to one track at a time. When the polio vaccine proved effective, did we just vaccinate kids one at a time?
Are you trying to use the New and Classic Coke example to try to show that anything new is inferior and the old stuff is better? That's a very poor interpretation of what happened. What it does show is that the inferior product (new or old) will eventually be rejected and the use of a better product will increase. Just like AW's are replacing conventional dirt.
What is becoming clearer and clear is that opponents are constantly looking for new criticism of the surface as the earlier ones are disproved, whether they be unreasonable criteria or just outright falsehoods. Someone just posted that AW's hurt the betting handle when the fact is that handle has increased where they have been installed. Eventually all that is left is the unreasonable bias and inaccuracies used to support it.
Bob
fkach Wrote: (bravely)
-------------------------------------------------------
>>> First let me say I\'ve grown to be a huge animal
>>> lover in recent years. The other day I spent $175
>>> for a exotic pet vet to save my $3.99 pet African
>>> clawed frog.
>Cobra venom? Myectomy? Lidocaine and Vitamin C? Some new miracle drug the >harness people got their hands on? Was the white Daimler auto seen in Nassau >County yesterday?
I\'m not sure what she gave him, but he worked 6F in 108.3 yesterday. ;-)
Fkach
..better keep it on synthetics, it might break down otherwise.
Mike
Bobphilo,
Bay Meadows said no to the CHRB and they made it stick. If SA,et al had done the same, California racing would be much better off than it is now. Would more horses have broken down in that event? I don\'t know and you don\'t know either. You\'re a zealot and you have been one going all the way back to when this issue was first discussed on this board. Zealotry is never a good thing. It\'s mindless.
Enough. I\'m done with this. In the end no one changes anyone\'s opinion anyway.
One more thing, allusions to civil rights and gay rights legislation have no place on a horseracing website. Try to have some perspective.
fkach –
A few points:
First, you seem to think that the best strategy for synthetics would be to test a few synthetic surfaces, find one that works, and then install them more globally. The problem is that each installation presents a unique set of issues. Hollywood had installed a Cushion Track and run two successful meets over the surface before Santa Anita installed theirs. Perhaps remembering that the last Breeders Cup at Santa Anita was run in oven-like conditions, the people at Santa Anita asked the vendor to make sure the surface would withstand temps up to 110 degrees, whereas Hollywood had required only 90 degrees. The changes in wax and sand that the vendor made to meet that specification are now thought to be the root of the drainage problems that Santa Anita is confronting.
At Del Mar, the jelly cable normally included in Polytrack had to be excluded to deal with Coastal Commission concerns about copper run-off.
These are multi-million dollar construction projects. The cookie-cutter model doesn\'t apply. Each construction project is slightly different from others that preceded it, and construction projects (whether they are buildings or race tracks) sometimes go awry for unforeseen reasons.
Second, it\'s not like California racing was doing great before synthetics were mandated. Del Mar was getting terrible press for the number of breakdowns that were occurring. Field sizes were small and getting smaller. Trainers were complaining that it was difficult to get owners to send horses to California because owners didn\'t want their horses running over hard California tracks. The mandate was not something that Richard Shapiro and the CHRB dreamed up on their own. A lot of trainers and owners were pushing for it.
Third (and finally), with the exception of recent developments at Santa Anita, the experiment seems to be going pretty well. See Ron G.\'s post in the Emergency CHRB Meeting thread. I don\'t know if big bettors are abstaining, but if handle is up despite the loss of big bettors, that means small players are playing more. That\'s a positive development for the industry. Without small players to feed on, the whales would soon become extinct.
BitPlayer,
In regards to your comment about there being unforseen problems with construction etc in these types of Projects I do not disagree.
But for those fans who like to forgive (which includes me), that is why they like to see scalps laying on the ground from those who FU(KED UP,
Or otherwise they tend to believe they are always being lied to again by the same group of people.............
SC -
I\'m not scalp-averse. (I\'ve never met Frank Stronach, but given the management turnover at Magna, I\'d guess he\'s not either -- unless his own scalp is in question.) From what I\'ve read, Cushion Track made promises they didn\'t keep. They should suffer the consequences.
bit player,
I have no opinion on which, if any of the synthetics, is best for any track in America. If all the tracks have unique needs, so be it. Then several synthetics will be required.
My view is that if an industry is going to try something new, it should test it in minor markets for a long enough time to answer all the important questions about the long term economics, durability, maintenance, implications for breeders, long term implications for the health of horses and jockeys, the reaction of big bettors, implications for owners, etc...
I never had any problem with Woodbine, Turfway, and other similar tracks being used as test markets to answer some of these questions.
I had a problem with SA, DMR, HOL and KEE rushing into it and being used as test markets because there is a much bigger downside to failure and little or no incremental gain in knowledge over using some of the other smaller markets.
If Finger Lakes was having this problem, no one would care much but we would have learned the same lesson. If NYRA puts a synthetic surface on one of its training tracks for a few years you won\'t hear a peep. But no corporation chooses to test a replacement product in its most important markets and puts the whole company at risk unless there is no way around it.
In addition, IMO, this whole argument about horse safety is 90% a crock of crap. I probably care more about the horses than 95% of all the people in the industry. IMO, if the health of the horses was really the primary issue, we\'d be running drug free like Europe and Asia and these surface conversations would be a sidewhow.
I don\'t mean to sound so abrasive and know that a lot of people have good intentions, but I think this was/is an unnecessary fiasco. I\'ll drop this now because my view is clear.
Bally Ache Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Bobphilo,
>
> >
> One more thing, allusions to civil rights and gay
> rights legislation have no place on a horseracing
> website. Try to have some perspective.
Yeah, I think that was when I knew Bob had gone off the deep end. Yes, implementing synthetic dirt surfaces for horses has the same moral imperative as protecting someone\'s right to vote or live freely...scary that you have so little rational thought left. I\'d figure you were joking except you\'re on every site saying the same thing.