NC Tony you have hit upon exactly what i am talking about. When horses don't fire on that surface they don't even give you a 1/2 mile of run. They sulk(as you put it) and just give up immediately. To me this indicates that this is NOT a surface this as closely related to a real dirt track as they would have you believe(the makers and marketers of the surface). I see horses in great form who make the switch to the Turfway track and just flat out do not run.
I find it hard to believe that places like CD and NYRA(whatever it becomes) will ever switch to this surface.
When I watched Stream Cat and Beau dare(?) win those two year old stakes races this past fall I knew this was gonna be trouble. Neither one of them has duplicated those efforts before or since on real dirt tracks yet both look great on turf. I know thats a very limited sample of one day but I see the races setting up very strangely there. I'm seeing horses who have always shown speed simply not firing out and as a result you get races where a speed duel looks like a big possibility and it turns out to be a parade with a single file lineup. Horses win and lose, horses run good and bad races. This we know. But to me the biggest indicator I ever got that a horse wasn't grabbing a particular surface was when they failed to show their usual speed out of the gate. I see this happening constantly and there is no way that anyone is gonna convince me that many, many horses are not taking to this surface whatsoever. I'm also not convinced that this surface by itself is gonna avoid breakdowns to the extent that they claim it will.