It's worth mentioning maybe that if a horse has won on firm going and/or soft - heavy going, did it win because it enjoyed the ground or did it win despite the ground. Watching the action of the horse and also it's expression during the race and after crossing the line will tell onlookers quite a lot. Also, if you get a chance to see it, immediately after the race, moving in a circle, that can be very revealing.
I think Hughes made a number of points of which some were well aimed and some perhaps were not. I feel his basic point about watering is a correct one. For my sins I know a little bit about growing and preparing grass surfaces. In times of drought you must add water but in most conditions it's healthier for grass to seek its own moisture and for its roots to burrow down to do just that. To be continually watered will mean the roots never take that firm grip of their substrate and will be too near the surface. If one wanted to make a cricket pitch where the top came off during the game one would water incessantly for weeks before that strip was used. Then a bit of rolling in the days and week before the game to get the moisture out (because that is the key thing a roller does) and hey presto you've got a dodgy track. You live in France and you know they don't irrigate (it’s not allowed) their vines for the same reason that they want the roots to seek out moisture further down: the reason in the case of wine being that dry grown wines have more character and reflect the terroir. Go to the New World and 95% of grape growing is irrigated, yet (not so strangely) the best wines of the New World seem to come from the dry grown producers (eg Mount Mary and Yarra Yering in Victoria's Yarra Valley are both unirrigated yet generally recognised as the best wines of the region). Nature is a wonderful thing and seeks out its own solutions. Intervention is not always the right way. In the wild a horse would have to run in all conditions. I think the incessant watering of racetracks has done two things (1) produce poor surfaces that are dangerous and (2) produce softer going than naturally would be the case. Hughes makes a very good point for the first and although you state you can roll them out I doubt that (in fact rolling may not be too good an idea at all). The mechanism he describes of micro-erosion of soil is feasible and no amount of rolling will get rid of that once it's established. I think you'd have to take the top off and start again, which it seems Yarmouth is to do. He's right about how Yarmouth used to be used as an introductory track for good young horses (Cecil, Stoute, Hobbs, Thomson Jones etc.). That has stopped and the racing is very plain now. From what I have seen it's almost a rarity to see Firm ground these days and I can't remember the last time I saw Hard. There is little doubt that racecourses feel it is their job to produce a Good or at worst Good to Firm racing surface. Horses can only be tested in the milieu that they find themselves and so we will applaud and revere the horses that win on those surfaces, and they will become the genetic material that the racehorse of the future will become based on. If they always run on Good ground then we will eventually skew the breed to being horses suited to Good ground. I think this has happened. I followed a horse called Buoy in the early '70s. After winning his second race (the Predominate Stakes) he was jarred up so missed that year's Derby, which he might have run well in. He later won the Gt Voltigeur and was surprisingly 2nd in the St Leger (he should have won). As a 4yo he won the Coronation Cup and a couple of other good races. Hern said he had the most perfect action and Mercer said (and you'll hate this) ‘if we raced on the M1 he'd be unbeatable’ (no doubt hyperbole but a point made, as Hughes does, that a well actioned horse can handle Firm or harder). So your point about caring about young horses is absolutely right but their point that horses with good actions can act on firm going is almost certainly correct. So skewing the breed to Good ground horses may be skewing the breed to less well-actioned horses. Is this a good thing? My own feeling is no and that the breed has been weakened. Your own cheval-fatal, Ribot, could run on any going and did so. (He could also seemingly run over any distance and still be superior). I’m sure Richard Hughes knows a good deal more about horses than I do and has been around them all his life. Being the son of a NH trainer and married to the daughter of a Champion flat trainer I don’t think he is going to countenance the ‘damaging’ of horses and in fact is generally regarded as a very sympathetic rider. You are obviously a very caring person Ron and in your position would never want one of your horses injured but whereas you have horses there is a world of thoroughbred racing that is now being manipulated to my mind a touch too much. He is right about Hong Kong and in all my visits to the tracks I’ve never seen a horse injured or break down. Yet they all run maybe 6+ times a year. Being a jockey he will know the dangers he is facing and I think that point is well-made; the example of Warwick is a good, if dire, one where they need to water even more now to make it safe to race, so the drugs have stopped working! This is ludicrous. The point that the breed is being weakened is difficult to prove, but horses don’t seem capable of running over the full range of going and they certainly don’t run as much as they used to. I think it’s instructive that horse 1 (by Alcide) in my example ran 3 races in less than 5 weeks all on Firm ground (horse 2, who was a grandson of Ribot by the way, in just under 7 weeks ran in and won 4 races, 3 of them on Firm ground). You wouldn’t get that today. I wonder why?
