After weathering one of the most intense periods of rains in Southern California history and opening as scheduled on Dec. 26, it looks like Santa Anita Park‘s new dirt track installed only last month already needs a bit of fine-tuning. Sand will be added to the track Tuesday in order to correct an apparent imbalance of silt and clay, which is believed to have been caused by recent heavy rains, track officials announced today. “The racetrack may have changed during periods of heavy rain, and we want to get it right back to where we started,” said Santa Anita President George Haines. “The jockeys continue to be very happy with the track and it has remained safe. We know it’s playing too fast and we’re going to address that, gradually.” Last month’s track replacement represented the third major overhaul in the past few years — costing millions of dollars each time — after about 70 years with relatively few changes to the original dirt track. Issues with the previous synthetic surface resulted in the loss of Oak Tree Racing and The Breeders’ Cup last fall, which could not have come at a worse time as Santa Anita was emerging from bankruptcy. Then the rains came, giving life to the old proverb, when it rains it pours. Track handles have been off in the first couple weeks by single digit or double-digit percentages, depending on how you do the comparative math. Track officials have been monitoring track surface carefully. It has undergone continuing soil analysis, which measures percentages of sand, silt and clay. “We’ll get busy after training hours on Tuesday,” said Haines. “We’ve met with the horsemen’s leadership. We will now make a determination as to how much sand we’ll be adding. “Safety remains our number one priority and so we’ll closely monitor how horses are traveling over the surface and how they come out of their gallops and works. We’ll continue to have Michael DePew, who is a soil scientist, on site and he’ll continue to analyze samples. He will be working with our track superintendent, Richard Tedesco, on the types and amounts of material to be added.” Santa Anita will reopen for live racing on Thursday, with first post time at 1 pm.
— By Scott Hettrick
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