I'm going to chime in my two cents here, although I probably shouldn't.

In general, I think the Beyer boys are barking up the wrong tree here. The article says they are making this adjustment to try supply figures for players so we have a better idea of what to expect from a turf runner trying dirt or a dirt runner trying turf. That seems completely misguided to me. They are two different surfaces, two different games. History has shown that many top notch dirt horses where no better than above average on grass, and certainly the opposite was also true.

To me, the premise here is flawed as there is no reason why the overall ability of a horse on the grass should correlate with their overall ability to run on dirt. Sure there may be some general cross overs as far as overall relative ability goes. I would probably take a recent G1 winner on the dirt to beat a group of $20,000 claimers on the grass. But I don't know that I would take a G1 winner on the dirt to beat a G1 field on the grass just because their dirt figures are higher. That seems silly. Two different surfaces, two different games. Just watch some tennis matches on clay vs grass.

We just went through all of this with synthetics as well. The figures didn't necessarily line up, nor should they have. So why would we want to adjust our scale to make it so? If you just looked at the numbers and didn't factor in the surface you were missing a big influence on the outcome of the race when say a top notch dirt runner shipped over from CD to race at Keeneland. You always had to ask, will this guy like synthetic more or less?

Look no further than Curlin. His 4 year old season he was maybe the best dirt horse racing on the Planet. But when they tried him on the grass he looked like he was maybe at best a G3 or G2 talent. Would he have beat $20k claimers on the grass. Probably. But should he be expected to run a 110 Beyer on the grass just like he did on dirt? I say no. Same on synthetic. When he raced on synthetic in the BC Classic he got beat pretty easily as a 4/5 favorite.

So as handicappers, if we don't think a horse's figures on dirt should line up with what they do on grass, why would the figure maker take steps to do so? And if we don't expect those numbers to line up, then why do we need to say that being beaten a half length at a mile on the grass is the same as being beaten 2 lengths at a mile on the dirt? Especially when the horse isn't probably going to be able to run the same on both surfaces.