Why are terms like "plodder" being attached to the performance of Student Council in the Pacific Classic? And why the assertion that "poly changes racing too much"?

The sheets showed Student Council and Awesome Gem with very competitive figures, if not the outright best figures, in the race. And SC's figures came most recently at CD on dirt while AG's came on artificial surfaces at DMR and HOL. I think a good case can be made that SC and AG just ran back to those figures (assume we'll see later on what TG assigned in this race). So why the thinking that the Poly made the difference here. Maybe it enhanced the chances of some of the horses and degraded the chances of others to some extent. But terms like "plodder" would seem to be misplaced. And saying that "poly changed the racing too much" would seem to be a misscharacterization of what the figures indicated and horses (SC and AG) demonstrated.

The DMR surface is obviously not as fast as dirt surfaces and most likely rewards stamina more than most dirt surfaces. But just because the time for the Pacific Classic was slower and a speedball didn't win it wire to wire, why do we have to jump to the conclusion that the winner was a "plodder" and somehow less worthy?