One other thought on poly vs. dirt performance

[covelj70]

One of the trainers we use insists that horses need to be fitter to run on the poly than on the dirt.  He insists that even now that mostly-dirt trainers from the east coast continually underestimate how fit a horse needs to be to run on the poly.

With that in mind, isn\'t it possible that one reason that horses going from poly to dirt seem to be doing well is that they are coming into the dirt race fitter than the other horses.  Almost the equivalent of training with ankle weights on and then getting to take them off for the race (I know this is a stretch, just meant to illustrate a point).

If there\'s any merit to this, this could explain why Baffert\'s horses run better on dirt than on poly.  He trains horses for speed, not stamina.  That\'s what the whole Bullet Bob deal is about with his very zippy morning work regime.  This speed training is obviously effective for him on the dirt but on the poly where you need to have more stamina because the track is more tiring, his horses aren\'t running well.

Thoughts?

[fkach]

Another possibility.

You are further illustrating the point I have been trying to make. You can\'t look at a few isolated cases of horses moving up sharply on the surface switch from synth to dirt and attribute the entire figure move to the relationship between synth and dirt figures (a process issue) or anything else. There are often multiple factors that may have contributed to the move in any given specific case - like your theory on Baffert. It\'s a complex issue that IMO must be analyzed on a case by case basis (from multiple directions) until there is enough evidence to understand what\'s going on.

[HP]

It could also be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  A trainer may not like poly and use the poly races as a training tool to launch the horse on dirt.  A trainer could think the horse will handle dirt better than poly but race the horse on poly to get him into shape.  It\'s useful to know which trainers are doing well with surface-to-surface moves, but it\'s probably dangerous to extrapolate general conclusions at this point...  It could reflect more on the trainer\'s attitude than anything about any inherent ability of horses to handle a surface or surface switch.  HP

[miff]

There is also the issue that horses move very differently over the various surfaces.Figure compression may answer some performance issues but a runners physical attributes/makeup may determine at what level he can perform over it.

Turf/synth/poly all have horses moving on top of the surface(they go into that surface app 1.5 inches on a normally.

Dirt runners often find themselves powering through up to 3+ inches  of cushion.Some trainers say say that dirt fitness isn\'t the same as poly fitness. As Cov mentions, the farther a horse travels on these artificials, the more tiring it becomes(more so than dirt reportedly)

From the rather limited sampling of the synth era, I think like all tracks, the most important factor is how each individual horse moves over a surface whether it is dirt, turf,synth.There appears to be certain breeding which does well on the various synths compared with their dirt results.

Many horsemen/players are pretty much of the opinion now that poly equals turf and vice versa, synth/cushion also, to a lesser extent.As long these surfaces remain rather unkind to early gas,I\'ll mainly sit out.

Mike

[ronwar]

Being on the left coast, I somewhat agree with this assesment.  Which makes Big Brown an automatic toss in the Classic, especially with his training regimen of late.

Even trainers that don\'t care to run on the stuff, do not mind training on it.