From a statisticians viewpoint the evidence is overwhelming that Polytrack is safer. The Turfway experience showed that catostrophic breakdowns dropped from 24 to 3 at Turfway and only went sligthy up to 5 when they meddled with it to make it more dirt like. In any case the Poly numbers for both seasons are much better than the dirt despite the fact that there were more entries in the Poly races. The results are similar for other tracks installing the new surface.

The rush is because horses are breaking down at an alarming rate when we have something available that has been shown to a high degree of statistical significance that it can prevent them. How many more horses have to die before a proven safer surface is brought in. The decissions are on a track by track basis but every track that has installed Poly looked very carefully at the results of the previous tracks to race on it before installing it and they all liked what they saw.
Just to give an example of how new drugs or medical procedures are tested and approved for use. Subjects are divided into different groups where one gets the new treatment and another gets the traditional treatment or a placebo. If partway into the experiment it is clear that the new treatment is significantly better than the others, the experiment is stopped and everyone is swithced to the new treatment for ethical reasons. When lives are at stake delays kill. When lives are at stake, quick desisive action is needed if the evidence supports it. The only problems with Ploy has been when the people mess with the correct the formula to make it more dirt-like in its early speed properties and even then, it's still safer than dirt.

Bob