Horse Racing Commentary: Note to Bruce Headly – Switch Surf Cat to Dirt

July 24, 2008

Well Armed won the San Diego Handicap pretty convincingly in front running fashion last Saturday. The runner up Surf Cat seemed to be struggling a bit to maintain his position near the quarter pole but hung tough and gradually closed ground on the winner, gradually diminishing the margin of victory to just a 1 ¼ lengths. Then again, maybe Well Armed is just that good and so Surf Cat perhaps didn’t look as remarkable as he has in the past while facing softer competition, and Surf Cat did break just a half step slow but it still may not have been enough to run down the winner had he broken more alertly.

I don’t think Well Armed is necessarily a better horse than Surf Cat, but I think if they face each other under similar circumstances, that is on a synthetic track routing, Well Armed will beat him 4/5 times.

Surf Cat has run his very best figures over conventional dirt surfaces rather than synthetic, and seems to be best at around 7F to a mile. 1 1/6 is well within his range, but he may be reaching the upper limit of his effectiveness going that far. I do believe 1 1/8 and certainly 1 ¼ is well beyond his best distance. Bruce Headly might be well advised to try shipping him to Saratoga, perhaps for the Forego Handicap (G1) on August 30th.

It has been noted that often turf horses have been able to translate their form fairly well to synthetic, and in general, better than from turf to regular dirt, which means that the synthetic surface is more similar to the grass than is a regular dirt surface.

On average, a horse that runs a certain Beyer Speed Figure on dirt will translate to approximately the same Beyer on a synthetic track, therefore, when a horse such as Surf Cat is observed to receive figures that are less than what he had been receiving on dirt, it is a signal that perhaps polytrack and cushion aren’t his favorite surfaces. Just a quick scan of his Beyer’s reveal that he hovers around the high 90’s to low 100’s on synthetic surfaces, whereas he seems to be in the 105-110 range on dirt.

Well Armed, the winner of the San Diego Handicap, is sired by Tiznow and according to the book of 2008 Sire Stats, Tiznow is an “A” synthetic surface sire, and has run well over that type of track. Curiously enough, Surf Cat’s sire Sir Cat is an “A+” synthetic sire, but his past performance lends support to the argument that once a horse has run over a surface a couple times, any indicator of how a horse is supposed to run, or is likely to run becomes almost meaningless.

Some horses love synthetic surfaces, some tolerate it, and some run very badly over it after having run well on the dirt. After watching him run on synthetic surfaces for his last five races, I am convinced he doesn’t love it. He can handle it ok, but doesn’t have an affinity for it. Surf Cat is targeting the Breeders Cup dirt mile but the horse that wins that race is going to have to have an affinity for cushion track, not merely tolerate it.