can somebody enlighten me ........ do horses that perform well on wet tracks actually LIKE soft going or are they more psychologically predisposed to tolerating them more some other horses .......

i would have thought a natural preference for any horse would be to gallop on ground that is firm underfoot, giving them more confidence and feeling of being less threatened ....... just as i prefer, when walking on the beach the firm sand rather than the soft stuff ......

some horses are just less affected by softer going than others (hence the slower times)

I have also heard that some horses have softer hooves and as such are sensitive to firm / hard tracks.

These horses enjoy the softer tracks as it places less pressure on their hooves and therefore they generally perform better on Dead to Heavy tracks.

Some horses have a different sort of gait that helps them through the mud,,,Usually a higher striding type ..thats why some are bred to run through it like Palace music , Woodmans , Easy rockings offspring ect ..

I remember watching a horse called Cent per Cent race in a trial and noticed his action,,,his first start was on a slow and he just bolted in,,also won a another,,,i backed him again when up here in Brissie on a good track and he he didnt know what to do,,sort of jumping up and down on the spot,,,hes more educated now and has performed on the dry since..

Alot of horses just dont have the confidence to stride out (let down) as they feel like they are skating..its seems really hard or impossible to train the horse to run through it,,they either are bred to run in it (gait) or have no hangups about the shifty ground.

Rememer though a heavy at some tracks can be a different to other tracks even if the peno is the same,,Something to do with soil types and drainage ect..

Hope i've helped or i could have just confused you more

might be a long post but bear with me. it's along Mavericks path

I lived in England for a few years and one sat morning , with a hangover watched the racing broadcast on BBC. The commecntator asked his offsider , who happened to be John Francombe , fairly famous jumps jockey in England , what we needed to look for as the track was wet.
He said that you needed to look for a horse whose front legs had a loping rounded type action , not short choppy ones. I was sitting there thinking , that's bullsh*t. Anyway, I decided to play along. So the cameran showed each horse in isolation cantering down to the start. I watched all the horses , and watched the horse he said he thought would win. And sure enough it did. Admittedly it was in the market , 5/1 or something. I was thinking , Geez , maybe this blokes onto something. So I turned the sound down and put his theory to the test , and I think I picked the next 4 out of 5 winners. Most at ok odds. I was sold.
I came back to Oz , went to newcastle races one of the carnival days ( by myself, no distractions , and sober ) when it was wet. i think I won about $1000 the first day. The next day I only won about $300 . I haven't used it much since as I don't go to the races too often , and usually its been dry. I did pick the first winner on Epsom day , because of it. Then drank too much to pay attention. This is usually the main reason I don't get a proper chance to use it. It has worked on other days. eg , I backed horses I did not like on form etc because of it , and they shouldn't have won but did.

One of the main reasons it's hard to use is so many horses get taken to the barriers by the clerk , or they walk for the first 200m , and you don't get a good chance to check their action. Or they go the opposite way to the barriers from where you stand.
I have of course seen horses with short choppy actions win in the wet. So it isn't foolproof , but in my experiences it has given a good guide where you might not have had one.

I did hear Richard Freedman say that horses with short choppy actions are the ones to back in the wet. I feel more confident of the loping rounded action horses now.