Another breakdown at Turfway

[todko]

1st race. 3 horse. Goes down hard in the backstretch. That's 2 breakdowns in 2 days.

For the first time, Turfway is having to deal with cold weather. Woodbine has seen it's share of breakdowns too. Maybe it's the vertical drainage system. If the drainage system gets clogged with fiber, tire chunks, spandex, whatever -- the water will have no place to go -- it will most likely pool and freeze -- produce hard spots underneath the poly surface.

The track has less than 2 degrees of banking.

Last year, we had abnomally warm weather. We had days of 60 degrees in January. Poly didn't have a true winter test last year.

What makes you so sure it's the tracks fault??? How do you know that it isn't the trainer sending a sore horse out that shouldn't be running?? Polytrack is NOT going to keep a sore horse from breaking down.

[pmayjr]

Guys... in the bend it's gonna take years of speculation, denails, and trends to truly see if Poly is any safer than dirt. I'm still drinkin the kool aid right now that the stuff is safer.

Three days in a row at Turfway there has been a breakdown.
Wow, this stuff is just great.
Blue Eyes, I agree with what you are saying, running sore horses will break em down. But this stuff won't stop it either, its a con game like the balc construction paper the Nigerians sell you(washing solution costs extra).

[The Bid]

hahaha, we will send you 15 million, but you need to pay us 100k for the bleach to clean off the money. What buffoon will go for that deal, sign me up

Originally Posted by oracle80

Three days in a row at Turfway there has been a breakdown.
Wow, this stuff is just great.
Blue Eyes, I agree with what you are saying, running sore horses will break em down. But this stuff won't stop it either, its a con game like the balc construction paper the Nigerians sell you(washing solution costs extra).

And that's exactly what I'm saying. Polytrack never claimed to keep horses from breaking down. Three days in a row of horses breaking down. You know what that really means? It means Polytrack doesn't ward off the butcher trainer. The butcher trainer "thinks" his sore horse won't break down on this surface. A few years ago a friend of mine was killed at Turfway. Had Polytrack been installed could it been avoided? I doubt it. It was clearly the trainers fault that horse broke down. Of course, the track took the blame but not everyone knew the true story behind the horse and trainer.

[repent]

score one for the good guys.

this crap is not only toxic, but it is only marginally safer than real dirt.
Im sorry, but horses' lives are not important enough to spend $10M on a bunch of toxic crap.
I say the more breakdowns on polytrack, the better.
those morons spent $10M for NOTHING.

Repent

[The Bid]

Riders delayed Turfways second raced today due to bad surface. Couple reports from guys Ive spoke with was the track was horrible.

Getting balled up in the feet, and just not even.

Stuff is revolutionary

[repent]

well,
whats really cool about this crap is that it freezes into clumps when it gets cold and then it melts into goo when it gets hot.
really adaptable stuff.

of course is some labatory in KY, it performed great when the air conditioners cooled the air to 65 degrees.
if we can just control the weather, this stuff is going to work great.


Repent

[The Bid]

What else can polytrack be used for? I wonder if we can all put our heads together and think of a few practical uses for millions of dollars in poly that will be ripped out in the next couple years.

[repent]

put it in the fridge and have polyclump fights with it.

for those of us that dont have snow down here in the south, we can just build a polyman with it during winter.


Repent

[The Bid]

Very good idea repent... Maybe it works in a cat box? Maybe it would make a nice driveway in the country?

[Zaf]

As Roger Stein says "they could be running on cotton balls and you are still gonna have some breakdowns". Its a part of the game that breaks all of our hearts

[repent]

Originally Posted by The Bid

Very good idea repent... Maybe it works in a cat box? Maybe it would make a nice driveway in the country?

lol,
yeah but then you have to worry about the cats digesting that crap.
PETA would be furious!

lmao, a $10M country driveway that sticks to your tires in the summer.
they should make the idiots at KEE install the crap in their driveways just so they get to live with the joy of polycrap all year long.


Repent

[The Bid]

Rogers Beasley has to be thrilled with the current state of poly at Woodbine. All the trainers are thrilled. Also Cal Expo has contacted Hollywood in regards to Cushion track, they want to install it and water it down for the trotters. 12k claimers were getting over it in 107 when they watered it at Hollywood, should work perfect for the buggys at night

[repent]

Originally Posted by saucon17

Mix some cement in it used to fill the F ing pot holes here in Pa. they
are the size of craters.

lol,
we should email this thread to the braniacs over at KEE.

they are going to need some place to put it after next year.



Repent

[The Bid]

I dont know if thats a fact. People always say horses are so smart.......... Some are smart, but they are animals. Dogs are smart, they still run out in the street and get hit by cars. Cats are smart, they still piss on the rug. Horses may be smart, but as far as being smart enough to decide when they think they will break down, nope. I think most horses put on the track to run, will run, regardless of the level of soreness they are experiencing. Thats what they are trained to do, they dont stand in the starting gate and think.......Man this right front I have is really hurting, I better not switch to this lead or Im going to breakdown.

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by pmayjr

Guys... in the bend it's gonna take years of speculation, denails, and trends to truly see if Poly is any safer than dirt. I'm still drinkin the kool aid right now that the stuff is safer.

Where are you getting your information? It's not going to take years to figure out if it's safer. They already know that it's safer. It's not rocket science to see how your horses come back every morning. Over the polytrack, the horses come back in good shape every morning. They come back and their legs are cold and tight. There's not any doubt that it's much safer. The horses are staying so much sounder that field size is already increasing quite a bit. Even at Hollywood this meet, the average field size has gone up by about one horse per race. That's already a big improvement.

The main problem with polytrack is that there are still a lot of things that they don't know about it. They really don't know that much about how it will hold up and perform under different conditions. They really don't know that much about the best way to maintain it under different conditions. They are kind of just going by trial and error right now.

Anyway, we know that polytrack does well in moderate conditions but based on the issues at Woodbine and Turfway, maybe polytrack does not hold up that well in the extreme cold. Maybe they need to tweek the ingredients a little bit for tracks where the weather is really cold.

Polytrack is still a brand new thing. I'm sure there will be some problems with it here and there but I don't think the problems will be anything that they can't deal with. Just because there will be some minor problems here and there, it hardly means that polytrack is dead. Quite to the contrary, most trainers think it's the future of racing.

Here is what a trainer at Hollywood Park told me the other day when I asked him about some of the minor problems with the track over at Hollywood. He said, "When the cushion-track at Hollywood is at its worst, it's still better than the surface at Santa Anita at it best."

So despite some of the problems they have had with polytrack, overall the owners and trainers are very happy with it. If you want to call polytrack "an experiment", the experiment has gone very well so far despite a few bumps in the road. In other words, people in the industry are more confident now in polytrack, than they were a year or two ago. You guys are totally misreading the situation if you think that polytrack has not been a big success so far. Overall, people are extremely happy with it. In fact, it has been recieved so well thus far, that more and more tracks are now planning on putting it in. As you have heard, Arlington is probably going to put it in.

[paisjpq]

Originally Posted by Dixie Porter

FACT:

Sore horses are less likely to breakdown than horses feeling GOOD. Sore horses USUALLY try to take care of themselves. Once in a great while they will injure themselves "getting off" an injury. Horses feeling "no pain" but that are physically compromised have the greatest percentage of breakdowns (especially catastrophic breakdowns).

Lisa is usually pretty good on this stuff. The rest of you clowns are TOTALLY hopeless when it comes to training and running thoroughbreds.
That includes all trainers, owners and vets on here that subscribe to this BS.

Amazing...I completely agree with you...

on the first half anyway...not so much on the second...

Three days, three snappers, I'm tellin ya this is great stuff.