Mark Casse interview

[tenfurlongs]

Interesting reading..

www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/were-not-going-to-have-to-worry-about-tradition-were-going-to-be-history-q-and-a-with-mark-casse/?fbclid=IwAR0-mhZy2zDTuPWoQqSp7TEfUKAVz_bcxtOLIrrmDLKUDYOQ8_RSAWeXgao_aem_AWUCzEdQSZjtFARlk0b_lhiEPh5T0VV3UQiJJFQCS9XCphVfK0UP1iiuUXuBKGQewr8&mibextid=Zxz2cZ




TW

[cherokeescot]

Great interview with facts to back up his views but if guys like Mark Casse can’t change things who can ?

[mysaladdays]

I'll give an opionion and hope I don't get darts thrown at me. I agree with much of what Casse says.



I remember this:
www.thoroughbreddailynews.com/meydan-to-return-to-dirt-surface-shared-archive/

Seems we talked them into this because we were sending horses over there and couldn't win, US horsemen voted with their feet and stopped going, so Dubai (stupidly, IMHO) ripped out their tapeta track.

Also look to person(s) whose entire legacy rested on the fact that they were unable to handicap synth/aw/tapeta. The same person who advised millions of followers to completely leave Zenyatta off their BC Classic ticket....(off the ticket ENTIRELY, not just from the w/p/s spot.) A horse who had won 19 of 20 races before the race, a horse who became 2010 American Horse of the Year, Champion Older Female in 2008, 2009, and 2010. I just happen to believe that when your bias against a surface (that is your own fault/achilles heel/weakness and you can't learn to handicap it ) extends to this kind of pronouncement, it's time to do some self-searching maybe.


Someone might also look at horses "running new tops". Maple Leaf Mel and NY Thunder for instance, is there a possible relationship between that and fatigue.

But let's put it this way:    I have little interest in allowing anyone who markets and sells a product to influence these decisions, in other words.  That includes commercial breeders.     There is no way that they aren't baised in a certain direction that serves their legacy, pocketbook, or sales. To me this is just common sense and I will never be a lemming in that direction.   

Horse safety should be left to those who deal with living horses, 7 days a week, track maintenance, veterinarian stuff, grooms, exercise riders, jockey, and well educated engineers/material science guys who know the science of surfaces, and have the tools to understand it and troubleshoot it.  etc. because horses aren't widgets or numbers.  Stay In Your Lane.  


There's more than one thing that caused us to rip out most all the non-dirt tracks across America. But when somebody like Casse says (about NY Thunder) "I've been doing this for 40-some years. It was the most sickening thing that I'd ever witnessed in racing" Maybe he has a point to make.

[mysaladdays]

My "stay in your lane" probably includes bettors, and I am one. Some do not want to learn new things and have a well-worn comfort level that we can get "stuck in"



I can compare it to computers, I learned DOS before there was anything called a GUI (graphical user interface). Then, over the next 40+  or so years, I had to learn at least 8+ incarnations of windows operating systems.  Then apple operating sytems.    It is a struggle each and every time you buy a new device. But in order to use these tools, I had to do it. That includes cell phones, android and apple.... really just tiny computers.

We have no choice but to participate and move in the history of our time, or we get left behind. We don't have to like it. Training, breeding, medications, etc. have changed a whole lot since the 1970s.  This isn't the same game as it used to be.  

Not being able to handicap on multiple surfaces is not the fault of the surface.