in Triple Crown Free Picks

Horseracing bettors have to get on board in this new age of the synthetic track and stop crying about how slow the times are, how the track differs from the morning to the afternoon, how the speed is compromised or how this is all confusing.

Of course, it’s going to be confusing for bettors, trainers and horses. This is the biggest change in racing in the last 50 years at least - and the ramifications are not even close to being realized. It’s here - Cushion Track are not going away any time soon, so the faster bettors try to delve into the new phenomenon and attempt to get an edge, the sooner they will win in bunches.

People have complained about the recent Pacific Classic and about how the 6-furlong split of 1:14.81 or the final time of 2:07.29 is meaningless and ridiculous but those that complain sure have a short memory.

It was only back in April when some of the same people put down the results of the Blue Grass Stakes, also run over the Polytrack at Keeneland.

The race that day was run like a turf race, but that is what happens on the synthetic. Some said the results were phony or would not hold up but all that really transpired is that Street Sense, who was beaten a nose in the Blue Grass, went on to win the Preakness Stakes, take the Jim Dandy and parlay that form to the score in last week’s Travers.

Instead of fighting the new thing, embrace it. The truth of the matter may just be that the Blue Grass experience for Street Sense just set him up perfectly for the grueling mile and a quarter of the Derby. He was a fit horse and he proved it at Churchill Downs and continues to prove it today.

This is an angle that must be addressed. Watch runners that are fit enough to carry their stamina on the Polytrack and then move to a conventional surface.

This angle will be in play if any runners from Bay Meadows or even go the entire vacation route and travel back east.

It would seem logical that those runners will have a solid foundation and will be EXTRA tough going a distance of ground.

This brave new world is a work in progress, but players have to pay strict attention to the runners that are handling the synthetic surface and the ones that are not.

At Del Mar this year, it has been nearly impossible to go wire to wire going long on the Polytrack while the turf course has been kind toward speed - especially as the meet has gone on and the grass has been pounded down.

Players have to do the work. Get out the charts, look at the weather patterns, adjust to where the winners were coming from, roll up the sleeves and learn.

In this sport, if you can’t learn every single day, you are not really trying.

So hunker down, open the eyes, open the mind, and work.

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