Barry, i think that windbreaking is more important, for whatever reason, in harness racing. Thoroughbreds run all over the track, so even if a t-bred is racing from behind, he's most likely 'not covered up'.

Jocks will quite often move closers into a path on the backstretch with the least amount of kickback if they can. I think if kickback didn't matter much, great trainers wouldn't place good horses in behind a workmate and purposely kick dirt on that good horse to get him used to it. That trainer would say, "Well, i have a good horse so i don't need to train him to 'take dirt'.

Also, for every Graded race, there are 10 'cheaper' races where that closer can't handle the kickback. I think that the horses who can handle it are horses who were taught from day one to run thru the dirt by a trainer who let them take dirt in a team drill to get them used to it.

Maybe the training of kicking dirt on good horses is a thing of the past....most top thoroughbreds are totally pampered and trainers are maybe not as willing to stick that Graded animal in behind and put him in a position to take a clump in the eye, i guess i can't blame them.


I think that in main track races on traditional dirt surfaces, the pace of those races is usually fast enough so that even the closers are not fully relaxed. The closer's, especially in sprints, are running hard and 'tiring' at the end.

Lets take a typical sprint race in So Cal. 22, 45, 110 means the front runner, assuming he won, went 22, 23, 25. In a typical race of the same fractions where a closer wins, his individual clips may be 24 (approx 10 lengths behind), 22 (gained 5 lengths and went fast) and then came home in 24 to win in 110. So, the closer went 24, 22, 24 which means he was slowing down even though he was 'closing'.

The polytrack is a mystery to not only Barry, but to most jocks too. They ride like they have no idea how fast or slow they need to go to ride a good race. I think a combination of the BG being a Derby prep and plytrk led to the ridiculously slow pace. I was watching the BG thinking, "how can this frontrunner get beat?" But then a little voice said, "its polytrack, anyone can get beat regardless of how slow the internal pace is"