Championship Confusion Nothing New

- Gary West, writing in the Dallas-Ft Worth Star Telegram, writes of the synthetic problem facing this year's Breeders' Cup, making the case that this year's (and next for that matter) Breeders' Cup World Championships cannot be considered as such.

Everyone agrees, all the coaches and all the fans, that the game played Jan. 8 in Miami will determine the national champion of college football. About the selection process leading up to the game and about the teams involved there may be, and probably will be, passionate disagreement.

But about the game itself and what it means nearly everyone agrees. And that agreement confers championship importance. In fact, championship status depends entirely on such agreement. Without it, there would be only championship confusion.

That’s precisely where horse racing finds itself, in a state of championship confusion. The sport’s championship event, the Breeders’ Cup, may not in fact determine many championships at all, simply because the races, or at least eight of them, will be run on a surface that precludes agreement about their significance.

As you know if you've been visiting this site, I've been unabashedly in favor of the synthetic track endeavor, for the almost utopian notion of the injury-, bias-, and slop-free racing it aspires to, if not for the actual and mixed results thus far. I've probably at some point accused the most virulent opponents of being whiners.

But I also have to be honest, and admit that I totally agree with what West says. I'd be most ambivalent about Go Between as Horse of the Year even if he were to thrash both Curlin and Big Brown, and anyone else who ships in for the race. The marked differences in form and preference we've seen between many of the synthetic surfaces and natural dirt was not part of the package I'd hoped for. I think that's been the biggest failure of the experiment thus far.

However, the problem of the climactic races being rendered ambiguous is not at all entirely new; just manifested in a different way in a different era. For one thing, the fact is that there have always been stark differences between the California tracks and those in the east. It was common to hear trainers hesitate to ship horses out west due to their reputation as being rock-hard, fast, and speed favoring.

In addition, and of even more significance, was the difference in medication rules before New York permitted the use of Lasix in 1995. Before that, it was the only major racing state to ban it. And since the road to the championships went through Belmont's Fall Championship meeting before the Breeders' Cup came along, the titles were almost always decided Lasix-free. That changed however in 1984, when the first Breeders' Cup was held in California. Steven Crist, reporting for the New York Times the week leading up to the inaugural event, laid out two possible scenarios:

Scenario A: The races are thrilling, competitive contests among the best horses in the world, and are won by such popular stars as Slew o' Gold and Chief's Crown. The races determine national champions and yield a horse-of- the-year titleholder. A larger audience than has ever watched racing on television tunes in for an unparalleled four hours of live network coverage. The races rekindle national interest in thoroughbred racing, and the Breeders' Cup rivals the Kentucky Derby as the racing event of the year. From now on, the rest of the racing season is a prelude to the series, and horses' entire careers are geared toward winning a Breeders' Cup race.

Scenario B: Because most of the horses will have been flown into unfamiliar surroundings and onto a tricky race track, and because California has extremely permissive rules that allow horses to run with the benefit of form-altering medications, the races yield meaningless upsets. Inferior horses win the fat purses, and the championship picture is unchanged. The magic of television fails to stretch 13 minutes into a sufficiently captivating four-hour broadcast to hold anyone but diehard racing fans. The Breeders' Cup is a bust, and horsemen decide that the existing racing calendar is perfectly sufficient to showcase and prove their horses.

Well, I'd have to say that Scenario A seems to have largely prevailed. Chief's Crown won, and though Slew O'Gold fell a bit short, that was attributed more to a bad hoof than anything else. I can't think of any race that was more thrilling than that first Classic. The Breeders' Cup is still here, and yes, most of the racing season is now just a prelude.

However, that certainly didn't erase the stigma many fans attached to Wild Again's Classic win, which may have cost Slew O'Gold Horse of the Year, awarded to John Henry despite the fact he'd only won on grass. As Crist reported the next year:

Some fans were bothered that Wild Again raced with the benefit of both the analgesic phenylbutazone and the diuretic furosemide in last year's Classic, and that all his victories had come over hard, speed-favoring tracks.

No doubt we'll be hearing some of the exact same language should Go Between defeat worthy eastern rivals in the Classic. As with the rules regarding Lasix, the industry will no doubt some day move to make dirt surfaces more uniform nationwide. My preference is that someone comes up with some mixture, whether dirt, wax, or some concoction of both, that fulfills the goals with which the synthetic project was launched. Whatever it decides, chances are that some new dichotomy will emerge to cloud the picture again. But hopefully, it will be a more worthy solution than New York having given in and legalized the medication other than the other way around.

Odds and Ends

- Florida's Pompano Park harness track has established a new rule restricting the use of the whip.

New to racing in North America, the rules call for drivers in any type of race to never be allowed to put the reins in one hand in order to strike a horse with a whip at any time during the race.
.....
Penalties start at $100 for the first offense, but there is also an additional ruling that allows for anyone found to be whipping a horse excessively at any time to be fined up to an additional $1,000 and be suspended from competing and/or ejected from the property. [US Trotting Association]

However, a commenter on the USTA's new Harnessphere social networking site (something I imagine the incredibly passionate and hardworking folks on the NTRA Online Task Force may want to look at), wonders if the penalties have enough teeth.

Are you telling me that getting close to the wire in a stretch duel one of the drivers is not going to one handed whip to get the win? I don't think the $100 fine will even be a thought in his mind. But disqualify the horse and you know he's not going to do it. Plus it is UNFAIR to all who bet the other horse and now lost their money because in essence the driver who beat them cheated.

Think about it!!!!! [Harnessphere]

- Like Saratoga, Del Mar's attendance and handle numbers were down; no surprise there given the economy, and especially so considering that last year's universal ADW experiment was not repeated this year.

What I'd personally be more interested in is to get the statistics on fatal injuries suffered on the Polytrack surface. Curiously, while Del Mar said the amount of overall catastrophic breakdowns “were also lowered," it has not released any statistics. Who's running their press department, Dana Perino? If anyone has any information on that, we'd all love to hear about it.

We were told that the starters-per-race held even from last year at 8.6 horses per race, which may (or may not) dispute a notion I'd heard that horses had been "beat up" on Hollywood's Cushion Track. Again, we hear a lot of vague rumors and whispers about soft tissue injuries and other so-called "non-catastrophic" injuries, and I continue to wonder why nobody seems to want to come out and say anything definitive or present some statistical and anatomical evidence of that.

I turned on TVG last evening, and I was really surprised that they didn't have the A-team out in full force with their on-site reporting and Christina Olivares and the like for closing day. I can't really figure that network out sometimes....I mean, it's not like they have much to do between now and the time that Santa Anita opens. I have to be honest that I just haven't watched TVG much lately anyhow. They generally do good work when they are on-site. But usually, the times I turn it on they just have the sleep-inducing talking heads on from the studio. I could easily go back to Time Warner Cable and live quite comfortably with the NYC-OTB channel. I don't get the prime winter tracks on TVG anyway. Without those, I'm finding its usefulness to be extremely limited nowadays.

I wrote the other day about how I pay attention to how first-timers from major barns are bet in their debut when evaluating them the next time they race. So I was skeptical of morning line favorite Midshipman (Unbridled's Song) from the start since he was 11.80 to 1 when he won his debut for StonerSheikh and Bob Baffert. So you can only imagine how much I didn't like him when he was comatose on the board for the Del Mar Futurity; the 3-1 morning line favorite, he went off as the 6-1 4th choice! Glad I didn't bet this race, as he edged out, appropriately enough, Darley's Coronet of a Baron.

The next time these two run, most likely in the Grade 1, $250,000 Norfolk Stakes at Santa Anita's Oak Tree meeting on Sept. 27, they will both be flying under the Darley banner. [DRF]

Taking Del Mar Form to the Bank (Or Lack Thereof)

- Del Mar's first Polymeet is over, but the ramifications go on for the horses that ran on it; and for us horseplayers trying to figure out what the form there will mean at other tracks. We've heard from time to time some talk about more subtle injuries than the ones that make the news and which comprise the fatality statistics. Steve Davidowitz, writing in the subscription-only DRF Plus section of the Form, reports that while some trainers were effusive in their praise for the new surface,

Other trainers also reported that many horses incurred minor back injures and hindquarter problems, in part because of the way the shallow, powdery upper crust of the synthetic surface gave way under the weight of Thoroughbreds kicking forward for traction with their hind legs.

Some Del Mar officials conceded privately that the complaints had merit, and the track's president, Joe Harper, publicly admitted that an evaluation of Polytrack has begun for the express purpose of implementing changes that will improve things for 2008. [DRF]

Davidowitz feels that the demanding nature of the surface may give these horses a conditioning edge, and writes that he will treat Polytrack races as having contributed to a horse's overall conditioning while disregarding actual finishing positions when comparing one horse against another.

Now here's another theory about the track that I found extremely interesting and wanted to throw out there for your consideration. This comes from ViewFromVegas, a forum site established by Dave Tuley, whose columns from Las Vegas for the Daily Racing Form you may recall. The poster goes under the name Crick, and he's just not any forum poster; he's a good buddy of our good buddy Walter and comes highly recommended. And, whether you agree with his theory or not, I think you'll at least certainly find it quite thoughtful and worthy of discussion, and I'd be interested if anyone has any thoughts.

Crick contends that for whatever reason, perhaps because a conventional drainage system is not necessary on Polytrack, the main track at Del Mar was not constructed with the usual banks, or inclines that you see elsewhere. That would make it more strenuous for a thoroughbred to maintain his path when negotiating the turns. So while the general wisdom was to blame the surface for the meet's various ills, contending that it became tiring as the sun beat down on it in the afternoon, Crick has another theory.

ALMOST everybody blamed the surface for (a) speed not carrying well routing, even though it carried well sprinting (b) fast work times in the morning, but much slower times in the afternoon (c) horses flattening out in the stretch.

..Let's look closer at these 3 factors, with a flat track in mind. (a) speed horses had to work extra hard around the turns, with no help from the track, they had to work doubly hard running through turns. Some horse[s] could do it negotiating one turn...most horses couldn't do it negotiating 2 turns..

(b) The workouts at DM start to get timed at the 1 1/4 [chute]. If you look at a layout of the track, this is the long straightaway that leads to the home stretch. The times were more a product of "where" they were working, than "how" they were working. Most, if not all, of the workouts were being done in a straight line.

(c) Trevor Denman is the best in the business at finding the winner of a race early. He missed more this meet than the rest of his career combined. It is because unless a horse was extremely fit, and it helped if he was a left-sided runner, negotiating the turn took so much out of them, they flattened in the stretch even though it appeared they were making a menacing move around the turn. Martin Garcia figured that out the 2nd half of the meet, and was the best jockey during that time. Yes, the polytrack was a slower surface. Yes, it required a great deal of stamina to be successful over it. It was also the fairest surface I've seen, the bigger bias IMO was the physical structure of the track, and not the surface itself. [ViewFromVegas.com]

So, he has some suggestions on what kind of horses to follow that I'll leave to you to read in detail at the above link (it's in three parts) rather than re-printing the whole thing here.

Yearling Buyers Adjust

- Some more anecdotal evidence of Poytrack having an effect at the Keeneland sale. Maryjean Wall, writing for the Lexington Herald-Reader, asked Bob Baffert and Nick Zito if they're taking a different approach.

"I am looking for a different kind of horse. I'm starting to look for a horse with a little more turf influence," Baffert said yesterday at Keeneland. "I'm looking for horses that have a little more stamina."

Ditto for Zito.

He was covering all bases when he paid $350,000 for a son of Smarty Jones out of Carly's Crown, buying the colt for My MeadowView Farms.

"I'd say this family can run on dirt or grass," said Zito. And in the new order imposed by synthetic surfaces, "You have to approach it that way," he explained. [Lexington Herald Reader]

I imagine that some people are saying 'see, it's starting already!' They speak as if the breeders that own the currently fashionable sires have some inherent right to guaranteed future success. We hear about the millions they have invested in them. But stallions are assets, and assets go up and down, just like the stock market or real estate. That's business, and, though I'm certainly not unsympathetic and I wish them all success, I don't see why breeders would warrant any special protection from business cycles. The successful breeders are the ones that can anticipate; that can pick out the first-year sires that will be fashionable in two years, or the $10,000 bargain that can produce fast horses to race. Fashions change, and if it wasn't Polytrack, it could have been something else, and the top breeders, I'm sure, will adjust. That's why they're the top breeders.

It's quite possible that in ten years, Polytrack will have become an obsolete joke, like Smell-o-vision. In the meantime, perhaps it will indeed cause a shift to a more sturdy breed. I've yet to hear anyone tell me what would be bad about that.

A.P. Poly

- Sounds like synthetic surfaces are starting to become a factor at the big yearling sales. Today's the first day of the September Keeneland Marathon, and the early returns feature - surprise - the usual suspects. As of this writing, the Sheikh and Coolmore have led the way by spending $2.4 and $2 million respectively for two sons of AP Indy. (Well, until a half-brother to Pulpit, by Dynaformer, went to the Sheikh for $2.9 million.) And interestingly, John Ferguson, representing the Sheikh of Dubai, had this to say about his purchase, out of a Group 1 winning Storm Cat mare:

"Quite honestly, a horse like that by A.P. Indy with an outstanding mare in Denebola, who not only was a great mare but the fact that she won the Marcel Boussac (Fr-I) in France on the grass. You know with this advent of Polytrack, I think in the past you were maybe looking at A.P. Indy with an all-dirt pedigree. I think, now an A.P. Indy with turf on the bottom won’t do any harm.” [Bloodhorse]

Ferguson added that the colt will stay in the U.S. And while his English may be a bit mangled here, it seems as if his point is that an AP Indy with grass in his distaff pedigree may be more attractive than in the past due to opportunities to race on Polytrack in the U.S. I know that some breeders talk as if they're going to go out of business tomorrow because of the synthetic stuff; but any change will certainly be a gradual one and, as in this case, not necessarily to their detriment.

If it floats your boat, you can actually watch and hear the proceedings live on the Keeneland site here.

Tribal Rule Rules!

- Georgie Boy came flying from dead last and roared down the Polytrack stretch with Garrett Gomez, back on the left coast to ride for trainer Kathy Walsh, with whom he is close freinds, to win the Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity on closing day. The horse ran kinda funny in the stretch, and never changed leads though it looked like he was thinking about it. So it was quite impressive, but in truth, Salute the Sarge probably should have remained undefeated; he was checked sharply off the heels of a crowded group in front of him turning for home, and charged between horses to get second.

Like the Debutante winner Set Play, Georgie Boy is by a moderately priced Storm Cat stallion; Tribal Rule stands in California for $5,000. He won only a maiden special and allowance in four career starts...and those came at age five! The Stallion Register notes that he was California's leading freshman Sire in 2006, and leading 2nd Crop Sire in 2007. And I imagine that was even before what has been an absolutely astounding week for the stud and his owners at River Edge Farm who, some day soon, might be able to afford a website. Foals of Tribal Rule won no less than four stakes races in six days, all in California! Rush With Thunder took the El Cajon at Del Mar on Friday; on Monday, Rule By Force took the Yavapai Downs Futurity, and Rockella won the Palo Alto at Bay Meadows. And then Georgie Boy topped it all off with a Grade 1 win. For a second-year, regional sire with a total of 109 foals, that pretty much rules!

- The final tally of fatalities at the Del Mar meeting was six - two in races, the rest in training accidents; that's as opposed to 14 last meeting, eight during the afternoon.

[Track president Joe] Harper said owners who typically "re-load" their stables during the latter stages of the meet told him they were stunned they didn't need to do so this year. Harper talked about X-ray machines that went virtually unused and the huge increase -- 20 percent or more -- in horses healthy enough to train each morning.

"One owner said if he brings 20 horses here, he normally brings 12 or so back home with him," Harper said. "This year he is taking 19 home, and the one he doesn't have was claimed." [North County Times]

Southern California racing will now have a 2 1/2 week respite from the synthetic stuff, as racing shifts to Fairplex.

- Shut down for two weeks by a virulent outbreak of equine flu, racing will resume in New South Wales, Australia with what is being referred to there as "phantom races." There are 835 confirmed cases of equine influenza on 119 properties across NSW and the figure is growing. [The Australian] The program, to be held on Saturday, will be closed to the public. So horsemen there will get an idea of what it's like to race at Belmont Park.

- If you checked out the video of Spectacular Bid's walkover win in the Woodward over in the right sidebar, you might have noticed the distinctive voice of Harvey Pack doing the narration. Harvey's been ubiquitous lately promoting his book May The Horse Be With You, a totally delightful read which hopefully you've already had a chance to check out. I had the pleasure of meeting Harvey briefly up in Saratoga, and am hoping to speak to him more extensively soon for what would be the first interview in the history of LATG. Harvey recently did an interview on Bill Littlefield's 'Only A Game' program on NPR, which you can link to from this page. It's a lot of fun and well worth checking out if, hopefully, you have the right audio download to do so.