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Thursday, January 03, 2008

Rain, Rain, Stay Away

- Anyone have a tarpaulin, say, about a mile in diameter?

8 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Gotta love those goverment mandates.

Was there any mention of such mandates for NYRA?

Anonymous said...

Curlin scheduled for 1/2 mile workout. Still no official word on his future, but it sure seems likely he'll race in 2008.

Anonymous said...

And looking back .. Santa Anita decided to award the $8M synthetic deal to Cushion Track (Equestrian Surfaces of Burnley, England) why?

I went back to the DRF article reporting on the award and it was rather bare as to the distinct merits of that firm's offerings over others.

You have four major players in the arena (in no order): Polytrack; Cushion Track; Equitrack; Tapeta Footings

I haven't heard one whine regarding the Mad Genius' offering from Maryland (Tapeta) which has been installed in Middle East and the broiling Mid Atlantic without issue.

GGF officials and horsemen appear to so far love the stuff from Tapeta. Del Mar had some issues with their Polytrack but no runoff issues, neither with Polytracks at Turfway or Keeneland; both of which have more rain then So. Cal could dream of and yep - no water draining issues.

I hope SA gets the track fixed for the rest of the meet without issue to the quality of racing or further disruptions.

NYRA had no mandate for synthetic surfaces and only suggested in their bid to explore it. Empire and Excelsior likewise only suggested exploration as I recall. Capital Play you can bet would only invest a nickle if it brought in more money.

Utterly no need for Saratoga to ever convert to polytrack. I'm not saying the synthetic surface doesn't have its merits and in fact is great for some other tracks. However as I recall Spa this year had zero breakdowns on the main track in 2007.

Teresa said...

Glimmerglass: Frankel's filly Indian Flare broke down on the main track--reportedly a broken pelvis. That's the only one as far as I know.

SantaBarbarian said...

SoCal is going to get walloped by three storms this weekend. The Storm coming through on Friday eve/Sat morning is supposed to be packing hurricane force winds and 5-10 inches of rain.

I don't think the ponies will be let out to do backstrokes this weekend.

Anonymous said...

I am aware of NYRA comments about perhaps replacing the Inner and the Belmont Training Track.

My concern is Albany mandating the installation a la CAL.

Alan Mann said...

I seriously doubt that we'll see anymore mandates until the existing installations play out for a couple of years at least.

Anonymous said...

teresa, thanks for the correction with Indian Flare.

Indeed while she did finish the Ballerina Stakes at Spa and galloped back before collapse and ultimately did die after being removed from the track.

A sad and freak occurance to be sure.