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Captain's Blog - 9th May 2011

I think the Kentucky Derby that took place on Saturday night was illuminating. It was not a particularly fast renewal and nor was the winner really impressive, but for someone who has been struggling to deal with the correlation between dirt and synthetic racing this race provided some enlightenment. The winner Animal World entered the Derby field with a synthetic profile. He was previously unproven on dirt and had the profile of a polytrack horse who may struggle on the Churchill Downs surface. He handled it fine though and was a worthy winner. His ability to win at this grade on dirt may simply tell us that he has been a dirt horse all along and that this surface brought about improvement in him.

I am not sure though that he had to improve much to win and it is my contention that his win had everything to do with the tempo of the race and that the surface switch was on this occasion irrelevant given the pace that the race was run at. In essence the race was run at a polytrack tempo. The early fractions were steady, believe me a shade over 48 seconds for the first half mile in the Kentucky Derby is a crawl and then the pace gradually increased over the next half mile. This is not how dirt races are run, this was a polytrack race in all but name and it should be no surprise that a horse who is familiar with racing at the slow quick tempo of a polytrack race won. Dirt races are usually far more attritional than this year's renewal of the KD, they are characterised by their furious early fractions that would normally take the polytrack gliders out of their comfort zone early on.

With the evidence of this year's race I am beginning to think that the difference between poytrack and dirt is not so much the difference between the actual make up of the surfaces but is more about the different pace scenarios that take place on the two surfaces. The worry is that the prevelance of polytrack racing is beginning to programme the minds of jockeys and that when they encounter dirt they cannot adjust. I say 'worry' because I am a massive fan of dirt racing as it is the purest form of horseracing that exists and I do not want to see it disappear either by bulldozer or by back door polytrack sabotage.

There will always be horses that cannot get hold of a dirt surface but their chances of acting on it are increased considerably when they feel at home with the pace of the race and I believe this is what happened on Saturday night.

People always say that when you go to the beach the sand gets everywhere, well it would seem that when you go racing these days, one way or another, polytrack will be there! And as such the prospects of seeing a Secretariat like performance in the KD ever again is highly unlikely. By the way, the same is happening with Tapeta in Dubai where a Dubai Millenium style performance is something we are very unlikely to see again.

That is enough from me for a quiet Monday.

All the best.

Today's Selection

3:50 Redcar - Frognal (each way 9/2 William Hill )