Santa Anita Park has announced that its natural dirt main track will be
amended on Tuesday. Sand will be added in order to correct an apparent imbalance
of silt and clay, which is believed to have been caused by recent heavy rains.
“The racetrack may have changed during periods of heavy rain, and we want to
get it right back to where we started,” Santa Anita President George Haines
said. “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.”
Santa Anita replaced its synthetic main track with an all natural dirt
surface prior to its current winter/spring meeting, which began on December 26.
The new surface has undergone continuing soil analysis, which measures
percentages of sand, silt and clay.
“We’ll get busy after training hours on Tuesday,” Haines said. “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 p.m. (PST).