While artificial racing surfaces have delivered on their promise by reducing injuries and fatal breakdowns, they have certainly gummed up the works for Triple Crown followers.

Consider Saturday’s $500,000 Lane’s End Stakes (Gr. 2) at Turfway Park. There was a time when an easy victory in the 1 1/8-mile race would have had the winner’s connections looking for hotel rooms in Louisville on the first weekend in May. But unless Derby fever bites trainer Graham Motion and owner Donald Adam hard, Adriano, the comfortable winner of this year’s Lane’s End, will not be in the starting gate for the main event at Churchill Downs on May 3.

Motion said before the race that he probably would not enter Adriano in the Kentucky Derby even if he won the Lane’s End, which he did impressively, cruising past the wire 2 ½ lengths in front of Halo Najib despite being geared down by jockey Edgar Prado.

Even after that impressive display, Motion and Adams sounded skeptical about the prospects for a Derby run.

“I think we all agree that he’s probably more of a turf horse,” Motion said.

"We'd have to think long and hard whether that would make sense. … If we were to do that and he were to do poorly, it might set him back," said Adam, a Houston banker who bred the colt and races the son of A.P. Indy under the Courtland Farms banner.

The reason for their reticence is that Adriano’s best races — a 3-length maiden score at Saratoga and an entry-level allowance victory at Gulfstream Park on in January — have come on the turf.

A Fountain of Youth fiasco
His lone try on the dirt — the surface on which the Derby is decided — was a disaster. He finished ninth, beaten 17 lengths by winner Cool Coal Man in the Fountain of Youth Stakes (Gr. 2) on Feb. 24 at Gulfstream Park.

Since Turfway’s Polytrack artificial surface resembles turf much more than it does dirt – visual cues notwithstanding -- horses with running styles and leg action suited for the lawn tend to thrive at the Florence, Ky., oval. Horses who do their best running over the dirt can get over it, but many don’t seem to be able to show their best stuff.

So knowing that, can we make any sense of the Lane’s End?

The first thing to note is that there were no world-beaters in the 11-horse field.

Favored Halo Najib hit the board in the Hutcheson (Gr. 2) and the Iroquois (Gr. 3) stakes, but his only win since his maiden score came over a suspect field in a non-wagering event for Florida breds run at the Ocala (Fla.) Breeders Sales Co.’s training center, which has a Safetrack artificial surface.

So ever though Adriano looked good doing it, it appears he didn’t beat much on Saturday.

Next, let’s compare Adriano’s race to the two previous Lane’s Ends run over the Polytrack surface.

2008   :23.03   :47.18    1:12.57   1:37.87   1:50.20  Adriano

2007   :22.78   :47.24    1:11.62   1:36.73   1:49:41  Hard Spun

2006   :23.56   :47.38    1:11.88   1:38.10   1:51.11  With A City

The early pace and final time this year were slower than those of Hard Spun’s 2007 victory, but Adriano finished up as fast as the eventual Derby runner-up, covering the final 3/8ths of a mile in :37 3/5.

By contrast, 2006 winner With A City, a 48-1 long shot, chased a pace that heated up in the middle of the race, and then plodded home, covering the final 3/8ths of :39 1/5.

So that suggests that Adriano ran pretty well, if not quite as good as Hard Spun did last year.

MORE FROM HORSE RACING

Horse racing Section Front

Racing's Year of the Girl Zenyatta beats the boys in Breeders’ Cup Classic Quality Road bucks violently, scratched from Classic Conduit repeats as $3M BC Turf champion Long shot Furthest Land wins BC Dirt Mile Goldikova wins 2nd straight BC Mile Vale of York stuns at 30-1 in BC Juvenile Dancing in Silks pulls shocker in BC Sprint California Flag cruises to win in BC Turf Sprint Pounced wins Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Horse racing Section Front   Add Horse racing headlines to your news reader: