Polytrack Is Horseracing's Version Of The Toyota Prius

HRTV is re-broadcasting past Breeders' Cup broadcasts during the down time in the early morning hours. Yesterday the 1986 B.C. was shown. Jockey Chris McCarron was off all of his mounts with a broken leg suffered just days before the B.C. In 2009 television will shy away from showing a horse suffering a fatal breakdown, in 1986 they showed the breakdown that led to McCarron's injury 4 times! Snap, snap, snap, snap! This led me to reflect on cultural changes over the last few decades and the realization that racing is in worse shape than I previously thought. Not only is racing feeding the slot machine gambling vice that will succeed it, but racing is completely unfit for the new consumer morality that holds sway today.

For hundreds of years western civilization operated under the Christian moral order; the morality of the Old Testament Hebrews, the philosophy of Greece and the law of Rome. Virtue was a product of the love of God, the love of family and control of self passions. If you fulfilled these three requirements your conscience was clear. After the sexual revolution of the 1960's the moral order was out the door. Science was tabbed to run the show and it was scientifically proven that Darwinism could run the show better than a supernatural power, or so the social engineers thought. All of that stifling moral order self control that kept your pants zipped and passions in check was for old people and prudes. A new secular moral order based on unbridled sexual passion and consumerism was launched. It was from this new moral order that were blessed with things like Polytrack and organic brown rice pasta.


God became money, the family became your roommates or television watching mates. In the new morality self control was only limited by the extent of your means. A new morality replaced the old moral order. I will call it "consumer morality", or basically technology and social engineering in the place of the moral law written on our hearts. For an example of this new morality you only need to go to a grocery store and see consumer morality in action, the outlet "Whole Foods" is a chain based on making their customers feel morally good about themselves. When California mandated that tracks install a synthetic racing surface, they did this action with nothing but moral benevolence in their hearts.

This new morality is all about divorcing the repercussions from the action. You can consume as much as you like but make yourself feel better and choose the organic product. You can live really far from your job but choose the hybrid car to hurt the environment less. It is okay to cheat on your wife, but be sure to wear a condom and make sure your tryst-mate is on the pill. We can bomb a country in the Middle East and spread death but we are doing this to encourage "woman's rights". The new morality requires no effort. It is all about feeling good about yourself by doing what you what you wanted to do anyway, but doing it in a way that integrates technology to shield the world from the effects of your consumerism.

Polytrack is racing's big foray into this new morality; it was an attempt to mitigate horse breakdowns by applying technology. Judging by the reaction of the fans and the trainers this new morality has not worked well for racing. The breakdowns have not only continued but a new type of "soft tissue injury" has emerged. The fans crowded into OTB's and other wagering venues do not seem to share this "consumer morality" that much of the suburban middle class has embraced. If polytrack gets in the way of their golden rail speed bias angle there will be hell to pay. Parimutuel wagering on synthetic racing surfaces has disproportionately crashed, while handle on old style dirt like Saratoga has suffered more modest losses. There seems to be a moral crisis among American horseplayers when it comes to synthetic surface wagering; they do not share the altruistic goals and have not supported the endeavor. With horses getting hurt and bettors abstaining racing has a problem. Racing has not been able to divorce the repercussion of horse injury from the action of racing.

With so many options for entertainment or gambling vice why would new "moral consumers" choose a sport that brutally maims animals from time to time. They would choose to do something like skateboarding or if they wanted to gamble the choice would be poker where the only organic damage is the trees felled to produce the cards(can someone say fair trade organic playing cards!).

This leaves racing with only one core customer, the immoral degenerate. The bourgeois consumer moralists are going to shun racing due to the occasional horse breakdown and the lack of "feel good" appeal. What racing is left with is those that are filled with vice, and those that go from one debauchery to the next without a care in the world. That is why racetracks and OTB's are filled with old men that burst with profanity, suck on cheap cigarettes and could care less about what you think of them. They are vestiges of a time long gone. The new consumer morality did not stick to these people and they likely would not have participated in the old order either if they were born 40 years ago. This is why the Prius is the rarest car in the Aqueduct parking when they open the meet later today.

Yankees Postpone World Series Due To Conflict With Aqueduct Opening Day

The Bronx- Citing sluggish ticket sales due to competition in the sports leisure market, the Yankees have postponed game one of the World Series to Thursday. Harold Z. Steinbrenner the managing general partner summed up the situation "there was no way we could go up against an attendance juggernaut like opening day at Aqueduct, even with poor weather they are going to fill the Ozone Park grandstand with 60K; while weather was a consideration only a fool would go up against opening day at Aqueduct " It seems like the parimutuel juggernaut once again has held sway in the sports world. The Yankees will be relegated to opening the series on Thursday. When asked why the Aqueduct meet is so long NYRA prez Charlie Haywood had this to say " our fans can not get enough of Aqueduct, it is an urban oasis of parimutuel splendor". The Yankees will be looking to capture their 27th World Series title when play opens on Thursday, the team from Philly will be looking to win consecutive titles.

Pennington Freed The Slaves/Play Of The Day

There was a time when I was beholden to the New York Jets football team. When I was a kid in Flushing, New York I lived in the shadow of Shea stadium. On Saturday I could be found atttending mass at St. John Vianney but the Sunday mass was in front of the television watching the Jets game. It was not just a television show for me. It was a passionate experience, and I was emotionally behind the Jets. The Jets were the extension of some sort of tribe that I thought belonged to.

The Jets never won a super bowl in those days but the hook was that they played in exciting games. There was that bi-lateral offense assault against the Dolphins in 1986. This game was pure sports excitement as both teams scored touchdown after touchdown and racked up stats that have yet to be surpassed. It was a huge thrill when the Jets went on to win in overtime 51-45. There were other great games like the miracle in the Meadowlands in 2000 which was selected as the greatest Monday night game ever. We could go on and on about the exciting moments following the Jets. If the Jets were anything they were exciting; tons of offense, and thrilling games. Jets fans had character, if you could stay loyal to this hard-luck loser with a multiple Super bowl winner playing in the same venue, you had proved your noble and loyal bent. But then came Chad Pennington.

Chad Pennington seems like a fine person, to his credit he seems like a man worthy of respect. However his one great knock is that he is a total bore to watch as a NFL quarterback. Going from the excitement of Ken O'Brien-he could have been great if he didn't take so many sacks- to the cannon of Testaverde left me accustomed to excitement when watching the Jets. When the ultra-conservative dump pass strategy of Pennington emerged, I yawned. The Jets offensive attack became the equivalent of going to the track and betting $2 show on every favorite. It was sometime during the 2002 season that the NFL lost its hold on me. I began to see it for what it was; a medium to get the male demographic watching television commercials. The games now seemed boring and mindless. The players were faceless mercenaries who changed teams over other year chasing dollars. I was done with it. Chad Pennington freed this slave.

In honor of Pennington freeing the slaves we will play his equine namesake in the Mohawk. The namesake has a nice lone speed inside post set-up.

Belmont Race 9 (pp link under stallion E Dubai)

Win #4 Pennington

Stats
48 16-7-5
strike rate 33%
cumulative return 117.50
$2 ROI $2.45

NYRA Sues Al Gore

Ozone Park - NYRA has taken the unprecedented step of suing Al Gore in New York Federal Court for fraud. Citing his work in "An Inconvenient Truth" NYRA has directly tied the fraud of climate change to decreased parimutuel handle that has placed NYRA and their 'Global Warming" extended turf season in peril. NYRA head Charlie Hayward "we bought into the global warming propaganda and it has cost us; we extended our turf season clear into December and now we have an obsolete condition book. It is mid-October and it has already snowed twice and we may have to shelf turf racing for the year " Promising not be fooled again by bogus environmental policy NYRA will revamp the 2010 condition book to reflect the post sun-spot colder weather conditions. The 2010 turf season will be moved back to late April while terminating some time in early October.

Going To The Beach Play Of The Day

The focus shifts out west to Keeneland and Santa Anita this week. Both tracks have great cards for Saturday while New York racing devolves into something only the most hardened of degenerates could withstand. In the Shadwell Mile Justenuffhumor looks like the best miler on this side of the Atlantic and be anxoius to see him win his first GI. However the real sultry action is at Santa Anita this weekend.

In the Del Mar Mile we have the first and second choice both front end runners. The favorite is Cowboy Cal. His gambit is running on the front end. The second choice also likes to run on the front end; that horse Monterey Jazz is a "need the lead" type of runner. With two of the most powerful horses dueling on the front end perhaps someone from the back of the back could take advantage a favorable pace scenario. A logical winner is Whatsthescript with Allicansayiswow providing longshot appeal. I like the sequence of races here and will start a pick three covering Skyrush, Global Hunter, Monterey Jazz, Allicansayiswow, Cowboy Cal and Whatsthescript.


Mine That Bird looked absolutely over the top in a very disappointing West Virgina derby run. He looks like he has no shot whatsoever in the Goodwood Stakes GI. The DRF even picked him to win which should be good for some sucker money in the wagering. Since the derby winner will be one of the favorites the Goodwood becomes a tremendous wagering opportunity. The logical one looks like Colonel John but I will spread a few deep in pick 3s covering Parading, Gitano Hernando, Richard's Kid, Monzante along with the Colonel. With Mine That Bird sure to be off the board this is a good race to play exactas and trifectas.

The last leg of the pick 3 is the Lady's Secret GI. This race will anchor my pick 3 play. While Zenatta has assembled an undefeated record this year her campaign has been a bit like the Harlem Globetrotters. Every time she races she gets to beat up on the same old Washington Generals. This time the Boston Celtics are coming to town and my money will be on the Celtics er. Cocoa Beach. Cocoa Beach is the first real challenge Zenyatta has had to face all year and I am going to gamble that she is not up to it. The single is Cocoa Beach. The reward in the pick 3 should be generous.

Santa Anita Race 6 Power 3 - 2,4,7,9,10 / 3,4,6,7,8 / 1

Santa Anita Race 8 Win #1 Cocoa Beach

Stats
47 16-7-4
strike rate 34%
cumulative return 117.50
$2 ROI $2.47

The Interpatation Of Saturday's B.C. Preps

The day had a wet forecast looming over it like a terminal prognosis. It thinned out the crowd and dimmed the spirits of those in attendance. However the early part of the day was dry, and it looked like the meteorologists were going to be completely wrong about a wet day of persistent light rain. They only thing they were wrong about was the intensity of the rain. Instead of light rain Belmont was walloped with a biblical strength drenching monsoon that quickly turned the fast track into brackish stream. The rain was cold, it was intense and it dominated the races, effecting times and results. The big story to emerge from these races was not a breakthrough performance and brilliant equine form but the utter dominance of the heavens over the results on Saturday.

The first stakes race of the day proceeded without any weather related interference. The heavy favorite Music Note was able to break out of the Pletcher trap set for her on the rail and draw off to a facile win.

While the horses were in the paddock for the Vosburgh the heavens opened up. A few miles to the north a powerful burst lightning illuminated the sky and deep growling thunder shook the grandstand. Within a matter of minutes the fast track was inundated with water. However the results were fairly formful with GI winner Kodiac Kowboy catching Fabulous Strike late near the wire.

The Flower Bowl was the wettest of the days races. This race was run in the most intense portion of the storm. The rain was coming down as hard as rain can fall from the heavens. It surely dominated the results here. Very slow fractions and an undoubtedly slick grass effected the results. However reason still held sway here. The winner Pure Clan is a Grade I filly and was the second choice in the wagering. I can only imagine that one or more of her competitors did not take kindly to being pelted with rain or the slick conditions under hoof.

The Turf Classic was also run in a driving rainstorm. Rarely are turf races run in these conditions. Visibility was poor as we could barely make out the runners on the backstretch. If someone told me that Interpatation was going to win this race wire to wire I would thing that they were delusional or quite confused. Fortunately for Bobby Barbara they would have been right. In a result that defied all reason we witnessed a horse in the winners circle who had not won in over two years; his last score in a ungraded race at Philly. Somehow Interpataion outgamed the best American older horse in training.

You would need a super-duper ego or passion fueled desperation to arrive at this interpretation pre-race. This result was in the spirit of outlandish interpretations like Freud's proclamation that all men are driven by the want of sexual relations with their mama. This is the race where the heavens and the deluge of water had the greatest effect. This was a strange race, run under perilous conditions. It was like have a yacht race in a typhoon; the conditions had greater effect on the results than the competition.

The Jockey Club Gold Cup was run over an extremely sloppy track. The absurdity of the Turf Classic was followed by a reasonable result. Summer Bird who has confirmed his affinity for wet racing surfaces outgamed Quality Road late for the win. This was a slow and tiring wet surface so it makes sense that the only horses in the field confirmed to like 12 furlongs was best in the lane at 10 furlongs.


Once again this years Breeder's Cup betting will be complicated by more surface questions. Significant horses like Gio Ponti and Summer Bird will have big questions associated with their handling of the pro ride surface. Will there be a transition issue out of these very wet races. Sometimes reasons yields to the absurd in racing as the results of the Turf Classic illustrated. Take these results with a grain of salt and consider the challenge of going from a brackish river of extreme rain and mud, to the arid strip of polymer, rubber and sand at Santa Anita. Compared to Belmont last Saturday; Santa Anita might as well be a synthetic planet somewhere between the moon and Venus. These are two extreme surfaces where just about anything can and will happen.

Local B.C. Preps Are A Huge Dud

The last few weeks I have been looking forward to "Super Saturday" at Belmont. Now that the card has been printed and the plans solidified I feel like I have a juvenile case of Christmas morning buyers remorse. That toy looked so good in the Toys-Я-Us flyer, but now that it is open it is quite the bore. This Saturday's Belmont card is not only a bore, it just may be defective. Those are not a gaggle of small parts, those small parts are the small fields we are forced to play with. What factors have contributed to the sharp decent of graded race quality at Belmont? Racing has attempted to expand by division and has compartmentalized the competition into too many small parts. Too many tracks, too many surfaces and too many divisions.

Thirty-one betting interests over Saturday's five Grade I races equals an average of 6 per race. It must have pained P.J. Campo to publish this card. At least three of the races will have a formidable odds-on favorite. Gio Ponti will be 1-9, Fabulous Strike looks like 2-5 and Music Note should be 1-5. Not only are these races unbettable but they are boring to watch. This is not about some degenerate needing action, it is about an entertainment venue having the attraction of a pet rock. Racing this boring is like watching old re-runs of the "A team"; no matter what happens you know what the result is before they start; so why watch? Racing intrigue thrives on competition and uncertainty. Horses need to brought together; now the 14 B.C. divisions and multitude of tracks are keeping them apart.

Never to receive much luck from the heavens NYRA also drew the cold and rainy combo from the weather hopper; conditions that are sure to further decimate attendance. Those that stay away will have plenty of company. Nothing speaks to the failure of racing more than the attendance numbers for a non-TV day at Belmont Park. These five Grade I races will bring out an estimated 7-8K in attendance. The second biggest race card in New York City and attendance is a more pathetic number than the field sizes. Some politician will try to fix this with slot subsidies. This is no answer but I understand that it is almost compulsory to install them to "keep up with the Jones'". A game with no fans that depends on slot subsidies will not survive. In the same way that a family on long term welfare will disintegrate into moral degeneracy a game on welfare will disintegrate too . The slots band-aid can not support a sport that has no public interest. Sooner or later the rug of slots welfare will be pulled out from under the game which will expose a wasted carcass. More must be done to restore the game to a healthy size.

Why are these field sizes being decimated? Could it be redundancy in stakes races? Deserted tracks putting up sizable purses to run races that nobody watches or cares about? While Belmont runs the Beldame, Philly Park will host the Cotillion the same day. Instead of a clash of Careless Jewel and Music Note; the race fan can sleep through two odds-on borefest five filly fields. While Belmont runs the Jockey Club Gold Cup, Hawthorne will run the Hawthorne Gold Cup at the same distance. If those cups are not empty enough some of the liquid has to be sent over to the Hoosier state for the Indiana Derby. Another competitor for dirt route colts that could have ran in Chicago or New York is the Ohio Derby also run the same day. Don't forget the Meadowlands just opened up and they too will run a series of stakes races that competes with the Belmont program.


The frustrating part is that it seems like there is nothing anyone can do about these fields getting chopped into smaller and smaller pieces. The market pressure is there to fold some of these tracks and restore field size. Handles have crashed as horseplayers head to the exits and funeral homes. However slot welfare is keeping many of these venues propped up and field size remains depressed. We can only watch from the sidelines as the intrigue and fans are sucked out of the sport like a door was opened up on a pressurized airplane mid-flight.

A really good example of a short field borefest is Sunday's Kelso at Belmont. This Kelso Mile is an underwhelming race. This race looks like it competed with the Cliffhanger at Meadowlands for entries , which also has a smallish field. Combine these two heats and we have a decent prep for the B.C. Mile. Decent races are hard to find in the era were tracks like the Meadowlands are propped up by Atlantic City subsidies causing all races to have small fields and zero intrigue.


The leading B.C Mile Prep in New York will at best produce a 40-1 chance if the connections choose to enter the B.C. Mile. It it did not help that the B.C. also sliced and diced this group by introducing a dirt mile. Not only are races getting split but whole divisions are getting split. Further divisions are being opened along surface lines. The three surface split among turf, poly and dirt horses has exasperated the situation. It is almost like a perfect storm has taken shape. A combination of too much slot subsidized racing, too many B.C. divisions and the new poly surface has sliced and diced the fields to a point critical point where human interest is lost.


Expanding racing by division is a horrible trend that must be reversed. The results have been dramatically terrible. Perhaps some of the dirt mile bound horses could have stayed on the turf and ran in the Kelso. The people in charge should return to their business school education and review the chapter on mergers. Someone needs to take the lead and show this industry how to merge these fields instead of expanding to an unsupportable size.