NEWS
Santa Anita cancels racing on Sunday, Monday
Posted: Sunday, January 27, 2008 12:17 PM
Santa Anita Park canceled live racing on both Sunday and Monday due to heavy rain and continuing drainage problems with the synthetic Cushion Track surface.
The $250,000 Santa Monica Handicap (G1), originally slated for Sunday, has been rescheduled for this Saturday.
The cancellations were the third and fourth in five days. Monday’s cancellation is the seventh live card lost this year at Santa Anita, which also canceled live cards on January 5, 6, and 7 after unrelenting rain and drainage issues left the racing surface uneven.
Santa Anita installed Cushion Track in 2007 at a cost of more than $10-million after the California Horse Racing Board ruled that all California tracks must convert to synthetic surfaces.
When the drainage problems surfaced, Santa Anita’s main track was closed from December 3 through December 22 while the track crew stripped away and remixed the synthetic surface and cleaned the asphalt base.
Santa Anita Park President Ron Charles subsequently said the track still did not drain properly as evidenced by seven cancellations this year.
Charles said Santa Anita is anxious to amend the surface with the Australian-based Pro-Ride polymer binder.
“We will be working on the track Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, regulating the track in preparation of putting in the Pro-Ride polymer binders,"Charles said. "We will resume racing Thursday, and expect to continue Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
“After Sunday’s races, Ian Pearse [managing director of Pro-Ride] will begin working on it and his best estimate is it will take four days to install, and as soon as he’s done, we believe we will know whether we will be racing Friday, February 8 or Saturday, February 9.”
Paul Harper, technical director of Cushion Track Footings, said in a release earlier this month that Santa Anita’s drainage issue was the first encountered with the surface. Harper said the objective was to provide a track similar to the Cushion Track surface at Hollywood Park with the ability to withstand temperatures up to 100 degrees.
Harper said the focus on high temperature was, in hindsight, a mistake that almost certainly compromised the surface’s ability to drain vertically.
