JB,

They have run less than 300 races on Del Mar poly, hardly enough for anyone to definitely nail down whats actually happening performance wise. Any research on dirt surfaces may not be relevant to this very different del mar poly.

It's possible that horses are just unable to perform as well as their norm, is what I inferred, not that the figs are wrong.Incidentally,I have read several artcles on how energy return to a running human/animal affects its overall performance and they all confirm the same thing.

Mike