"Why U.S. bettors have not had the same experience as their British counterparts is a mystery to me. The fact is that serious punters in Britain and Hong Kong or wherever bet more adventurously than Americans. It is arguable that form on synthetics is generally closer to turf form than to dirt, so anyone who can handicap grass races and bet on them successfully should have no fears about betting on synthetics."

Re: Presque Isle Downs stats: "Three fatalities from 800 races and 6332 starters in 2010. We have had no equine ambulance runs at PID since it opened 4 years ago, not even to take a slightly lame horse off the track."

"The richest horse race in history was staged in Dubai earlier today, and it was a $10 million advertisement for how synthetic surfaces can make a complete mess of so-called world-class championship racing. For all that it proved about the quality of the contestants either individually or as a group, the results of the Dubai World Cup might as well have been drawn out of a hat."