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,” 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.”
Santa Anita replaced its synthetic main track with an all natural dirt surface prior to its current winter/spring meeting, which began on Dec. 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,” 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.