Track reboot 3.0 begins Oct. 11

Construction work will begin Monday, Oct. 11, to replace the synthetic track at Santa Anita Park with dirt, track officials announced today (Thursday, Sept. 30), with plans to have the new track ready for training by Dec. 6, less than three weeks before the start of Santa Anita’s regular annual winter/spring meeting that starts Dec. 26.

Previous estimates put the cost of the project at $6 million.

Santa Anita President George Haines said that Frank Stronach, chairman of track owner Magna International Developments, has made it “abundantly clear” that the new track will be a “state of the art, all natural dirt surface that our best customers feel most comfortable with and that a majority of our owners, jockeys and horsemen feel more comfortable competing on.”

Safety for horses and riders is the top priority, officials said. It was a concern by horse owners over safety that led to the California Horse Racing Board’s refusal to let Oak Tree Racing run its meet at Santa Anita next month as usual. It was the CHRB that ordered all major thoroughbred horse tracks in California to switch to synthetic tracks in the first place in the interest of reducing the number of horse injuries. Santa Anita installed a synthetic track in 2007, which had to be nearly completely replaced in 2008 at a combined cost of many millions of dollars.

Even after all that, because that CHRB mandate is still in place, Santa Anita had to request a waiver from the CHRB to return to a natural dirt surface.

Haines thanked the City of Arcadia for expediting permit requests and said project manager, Ted Malloy, who has overseen the installation of multiple tracks in the U.S. during his 38 years of experience, has met with horsemen and is near achieving a consensus as to what the composition of the soil is going to be. Malloy said the biggest challenge is the right mix of soils.

The surface will be similar to those at Gulfstream, Churchill Downs and to the Oklahoma track at Saratoga.

“We’re going to put nine inches of a mixture of sand and clay on top of an eight inch base,” Malloy said. “We can then harrow the cushion out of it and we can make it compacted enough that it’s going to sustain the weight of a horse going 40 miles per hour. This will enable us to make adjustments to the cushion as needed, depending on weather and traffic conditions.”

In the event of significant rainfall, Malloy said that unlike the current synthetic surface, Santa Anita’s new main track will not, for the most part, drain vertically.

“This will be a traditional dirt surface in the sense that it will be a mixture of clay and sand and most of the water will be sheeted to the inside (rail) and the rest will evaporate. The dirt surface that was here a few years ago had quite a bit of clay in it and when it was sealed (with heavy equipment), it became very hard—which is something we want to avoid.”

Malloy also noted that in order to get the desired mixture for the top nine inches, the soils that are delivered to Santa Anita will be mixed on-site.

“We need to mix the top layer here. We’ve been able to find most of the materials locally, but the clay may have to come from a source that’s a little further away. This way we can directly oversee the mixing process and make sure it’s exactly what we need.”

Haines noted that Santa Anita has conducted an exhaustive search in order to find the best dirt to run on.

“We are going to be using the best soils available and we are very confident they are going to meet our needs,” said Haines. “It’s imperative that we get the right materials and the right mix of materials, as we anticipate having approximately 2,000 horses a day training over this surface, in addition to running eight to 10 races a day.”