Wayne Agrella , go well

Very sore and concussed but he does know Rocky at least. In hospital overnight...

Above message From Dorrie

Get well soon Wayne the track awaits you...

Polytrack taking flak...and Greyville about to start racing...:S

Very sad when some one gets heart ,get well soon.

Sorry to hear this. Get well soon Wayne.
I am not a fan of Poly, have heard similar stories from Randjes. However, I have not experienced Poly first hand, so will have to wait and see if this all weather , turnover guarantee is as good or bad as they say...

95% of tracks were Poly when I was in Newmarket and found them to be very good on the horses legs. We did not have many problems. I am happy with the Summerveld one at the moment. Havent heard anything to the contrary.

Hope Wayne recovers soon and I'm sure he will be telling the Doctors and nurses exactly what he thinks.
Difficult to blame his injury on the poly. Would be interesting to see stats of injuries to horses on poly in PE, since its inception. Would also like to see stats of horses that break down on sand and grass tracks in PE. Immediately a horse injures itself on the poly, we hear about it, but never when it happens on the sand training tracks. Every training track has it's positives and negatives. All sand tracks at Fairview have been flooded since Sunday, so poly was some trainers only option to prepare their horses foe the Wednesday meeting.

I was told lastnight that they are not happy with the poly in JHB also ?

Craig Eudey

Can you confirm if training methods differ from the UK to SA? Obvious on the lime kilns they do but more so on the Poly....I spoke to a few UK trainers and they love it. The Winter series was a success this year with quality horses on the Poly and the eating on easter friday a rip roaring success.

Easy, most of the work in the UK is different. They tend to do longer more controlled work on their polytracks. Mike has on a number of occasions warned people(trainers) to make sure their horse's are 100% used to the poly and not over extend them too soon as being a light track the horses skip over it and can almost go too fast if the track is set that way and then injuries will occur. I gather there are different settings for work and racing for the Poly The figures I was given from USA were that injuries had been cut down by 80% but the Americans with their basic sand racing base did not like the Poly. True or not, that is what I was told.

Craig,


sounds to me like its a case of getting used to the new surface and adapting to it.


correct, the yanks hated polytrack but for different reasons.

USA racing is all about pace pace pace......the speed is on most of the time in most races. The same CANNOT be applied to polytrack. For example Lingfield the winners seldom come from the front. It was assumed that horses would lead start to Finnish most races and that has not been the case. Now lets look at our own Gosforth Park....that was a course wilth a short run in and horses won from the front or handy a high %...Greyville pretty similar. Polytrack is different.

Ok, thanks. As they say you learn something everyday with horses.