Racing and Wagering on Polytrack

[Barry Irwin]

Imallin, I disagree with your theory about kickback.

Speed does not mean pace.

Speed is when a horse gets into high gear and turns the heat up a notch or two.

Kickback does not bother good horses.

Horses that need the lead in most cases are there because they a) have no class, b) have no courage or c) were trained improperly as youngsters.

It is, in fact, easier for a horse to come from behind than to set the pace, because they can relax while a horse does the dirty work and breaks the wind (so to speak).

I tend to agree with Andy Beyer (as I usually do, except when he writes about the Arabs!).

Personally, I do not enjoy racing on the Polytrack because, with few exceptions. horses look lousy moving on the crap. Except for Octave and Silent Name, I have not seen too many beautiful movers on the stuff.

What makes a good dirt horse is one that has power, the power to run through the dirt. Turf horses, by and large, skip over the top of the stuff. Exactly what they do on Polytrack is a mystery to me.

[NoCarolinaTony]

Barry,

What is your trainers opinion of the stuff? Would be interested to hear what he has to say. I\'ve talked to a few trainers at Kee last week. It\'s either love or hate, which is what we see on this board.

NC Tony

[Ill-bred]

Barry Irwin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Personally, I do not enjoy racing on the Polytrack
> because, with few exceptions. horses look lousy
> moving on the crap. Except for Octave and Silent
> Name, I have not seen too many beautiful movers on
> the stuff.

Hi Barry, did you see the Keeneland two-yr-old sale? They all looked great!

Actually not ALL of them, but it definitely made some horses look good.

[imallin]

Barry, i think that windbreaking is more important, for whatever reason, in harness racing. Thoroughbreds run all over the track, so even if a t-bred is racing from behind, he\'s most likely \'not covered up\'.

Jocks will quite often move closers into a path on the backstretch with the least amount of kickback if they can. I think if kickback didn\'t matter much, great trainers wouldn\'t place good horses in behind a workmate and purposely kick dirt on that good horse to get him used to it. That trainer would say, \"Well, i have a good horse so i don\'t need to train him to \'take dirt\'.

Also, for every Graded race, there are 10 \'cheaper\' races where that closer can\'t handle the kickback. I think that the horses who can handle it are horses who were taught from day one to run thru the dirt by a trainer who let them take dirt in a team drill to get them used to it.

Maybe the training of kicking dirt on good horses is a thing of the past....most top thoroughbreds are totally pampered and trainers are maybe not as willing to stick that Graded animal in behind and put him in a position to take a clump in the eye, i guess i can\'t blame them.


I think that in main track races on traditional dirt surfaces, the pace of those races is usually fast enough so that even the closers are not fully relaxed. The closer\'s, especially in sprints, are running hard and \'tiring\' at the end.

Lets take a typical sprint race in So Cal. 22, 45, 110 means the front runner, assuming he won, went 22, 23, 25. In a typical race of the same fractions where a closer wins, his individual clips may be 24 (approx 10 lengths behind), 22 (gained 5 lengths and went fast) and then came home in 24 to win in 110. So, the closer went 24, 22, 24 which means he was slowing down even though he was \'closing\'.

The polytrack is a mystery to not only Barry, but to most jocks too. They ride like they have no idea how fast or slow they need to go to ride a good race. I think a combination of the BG being a Derby prep and plytrk led to the ridiculously slow pace. I was watching the BG thinking, \"how can this frontrunner get beat?\" But then a little voice said, \"its polytrack, anyone can get beat regardless of how slow the internal pace is\"

[fkach]

>I was watching the BG thinking, \"how can this frontrunner get beat?\" But then a little voice said, \"its polytrack, anyone can get beat regardless of how slow the internal pace is\"<

One thing that IMO a lot of modern riders do wrong with lone speeds is to slow the pace down so much, they allow all the other contenders to get into a striking position at the top of the stretch without being used at all.

I think it is smarter to slow down the pace as much as you can but to still keep open lengths between you and the next batch of horses.  Once a horse is going slow and is very relaxed, I doubt there is much incremental benefit from slowing it down even further. However, there\'s a big difference between having 4 sharp horses within a length of you and having several lengths at the top of the stretch if you are fresh in either case.

IMO, Angel Cordero rode front runners properly. When Pat Day, Julie Krone and a lot of the other \"chokers\" came along and had great success, everyone started copying that style of backing the pace up as much as possible when they had the lone speed. They blow dozens of races that way.

[imallin]

Great call fkach!
You can go too slow. By the time the frontrunner is \'asked the question\' the closers are up on the banked part of the track gaining momentum. If that leader would have opened up on the turn instead of keeping him under a hammerlock, it may have been a different scenario at the finish.