Re: Are Racehorses Improving, Part One-- Track Speed (632 Views)
Posted by:
TGJB (IP Logged)
Date: November 11, 2003 04:12PM
The point is that assumptions about tracks or an individual track staying the same over the years are invalid. Porcelli indicated that tracks in general have more sand, but that wouldn't necessarily make them "sandy" in Bafferts estimation, even assuming he was right about Belmont being sandier than others. And yes, an individual track may or may not have added sand, or may have added it in different quantities.
As an aside, Elliot Walden told me that CD went to a lot more sand some time back, but added clay again starting the year Monarchos won. He said you could see the difference in the color, and certainly the Derby times got faster, although I would have to sit down and look at the times and figures to work out the correlation.
When I first started making figures tracks used to get much slower when it rained, which it now appears was because of high clay content. Most now either get faster with rain or don't get much slower. This also probably has a lot to do with Ragozin's unwillingness to give out good numbers on off tracks-- back when he started more horses just spit it out in the muck, and races collapsed more often.
TGJB