Are dirt racetracks better or worse then turf horse racing tracks.?

Question

Here in NZ im pretty sure 100% of our gallop courses are turf.

what are your veiws on dirt racetracks for horse racing? Do you think they are better or worse then turf?

Answer 1

I like them better.I do not like the polytrack surface at all

Answer 2

Turf is the safest.  Then synthetic surfaces (Polytrack and Cushion Track and those other blends of sand, carpet fibers, old tires, and wax).  Then dirt.

The thing is, our biggest races in the US are on dirt.  That's the surface of choice here.  And our top dirt horses can't transfer their form to the turf... most of them can't transfer their form to the polytrack.  We're trying to make things safer for the horses, but it completely changes all of our traditions to suddenly shift to the synthetics.

Answer 3

you are correct to say that nz races on turf as does oz, except geelong in Victoria they have there turf track but also they have a thorough track (its basically a synthetic dirt track)

however a lot of training is done on dirt and sand, and in Australia such horses as (he's no pie eater GR1 winning 3yo), (Maurice GR1 winning 2yo) have both broken bones cantering and walking on dirt training tracks and subsequently they had to be humanely destroyed. (both were colts and had huge prospects at stud!)

the sad thing is these tragedy's happen every day but we only here about it when it happens to a champion.

personally i dont think it matters what you race on, tragic accidents will happen no matter what your racing on and thats the sad truth of it!

Answer 4

Maybe they can create a compromise track and call it a t**d track.