Travers 139: Disconnect illustrated

Saratoga Springs, New York

So while the august owners of Big Brown await the creation of a phony grass race at Belmont Park or more likely Philadelphia Park to accommodate their bloated egos, feed the bankroll without taxing their overblown animal, the rest of the three-year-old division will gather at the Spa on Saturday, where one will emerge with a title that means something.

This Travers will be a bellwether for the autumn season, which will not be typical either in the weeks leading toward the Breeders’ Cup or the season-ending gathering for racing on an untested Pro-Ride synthetic surface at Santa Anita Park over which no race has ever been run.

There is only one older horse of consequence and barring a 180-degree turnabout on the part of his connections – unlikely – Curlin will not run in the Breeders’ Cup. Big Brown may run in the Classic but the unwillingness of his people to face Curlin on dirt stamps them and their horse as something less than truly deserving champion and a non-starter in the Horse of the Year chase, a title that should go to Curlin if he wins the Woodward Stakes here next week and the Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Though eight of the dozen entered in the Travers on Wednesday are winners of Grade 1 or 2 stakes, there is no apparent candidate for retirement to stand at stud at season’s end, so it appears that most if not all of these will find their way to the Breeders’ Cup synthetic Classic and in 2009 populate the handicap division, which in recent years has been left threadbare as the breeding market swallowed the best three-year-olds.

This is perhaps a serendipitous development based in a disconnect in the yearling market, which has seen high demand at the premium level, both in Kentucky and at select sales here this month, but a decline in demand among less than the most financially capable investors.

The uncertainty of the conditions over which racing is conducted is also a factor in the bloodstock market, which heretofore was dedicated to producing primarily horses with speed destined to race on dirt. This in no long the case and the soft yearling market may be affected by an unstated uncertainty concerning the sport’s future. Californians no longer seek speedy pedigrees because those, one perfectly tailored to the state’s fast surfaces, are not handicaps to success. American dirt pedigree is no longer universally suited to American racing.

The arrival here for the Travers of two California-based colts, one a prominent Derby prospect until his only race on dirt, contributes to a subplot that will hum in the background for the remainder of the season, then take on extreme importance at the Breeders’ Cup.

Pyro, the Travers favorite, finished 10th in his long start on a synthetic track in his final prep for the Kentucky Derby, an race that probably left him short for the Derby. Macho Again, the Jim Dandy winner, was no factor in his lone run over synthetic ground. Harlem Rocker won the Withers and Prince of Wales Stakes on dirt but was unplaced on Polytrack in Toronto. The new face at this level, the royally bred Mambo in Seattle, is 0-for-two on Polytrack, four-for-five on dirt.

California-based Colonel John, however, failed to make the transition from running over recycled tires at Hollywood Park and Santa Anita to dirt at Churchill and Tres Borrachos is 0-for-3 on dirt but a graded stakes winner at Hollywood Park.

Where once we had dirt horses and turf horses there is now a third type – neither fish nor fowl – that is best on synthetic surfaces.

The leaders of racing have responded to the introduction of synthetic surfaces as though this phenomenon is not obvious, perhaps because some its most influential individuals are closely aligned with Keeneland, which is now home to a Polytrack disaster that had made all main track races there during the past two years unbettable.

Still, when a graded stakes is rained off the turf, the grading is lowered, and then reviewed after the fact. Is it not, then, appropriate to remove or at least downgrade the grade of any race with a grade established over a long term on dirt when it is no longer run on that surface? The conditions have been changed. This is becoming more an issue as horses fail to translate form between dirt and whatever synthetic surface they may encounter at a particular track.

Removing the grade of every stakes run on the main track at Keeneland, Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar -- though entirely appropriate – in not an idea that would enjoy even a modicum of support from the sport’s hierarchy.

The Travers, which on paper is wide open, may not have a major impact upon the 3-year-old divisional race but will provide another illustration of the disconnect between dirt and synthetic form and more evidence that racing on anything but dirt should be dismissed as inconsequential. --PM