Saudi Organic Racing Surface Inimitable in U.S.

When you offer a $20 million purse for a single race, some rather obvious reasons explain why participants will rave about the event.

Yet for the American horsemen involved in either of the two runnings of the $20 million Saudi Cup at King Abdulaziz Racetrack, there has been a part of the experience they have universally applauded—and it has nothing to do with the race's ritzy financial considerations.

Some of the sport's most famous trainers and jockeys have gushed with praise about the racing surface at the Riyadh, Saudi Arabia racetrack, labeling it one of the best dirt courses in the sport.

"It's a great track with a great surface. I love going over there and riding on it," said Hall of Fame jockey Mike Smith, who has finished second in both editions of the Saudi Cup, most recently with Charlatan last month. "The kickback is really kind. The materials in it keep it from balling up, and it doesn't beat a horse down. When a surface feels that soft, it's kind on the horses as well."

Trainer Bob Baffert, who was second with Charlatan and fourth with Mucho Gusto in the inaugural running, also gave a big thumbs up to the surface.

"It's deep but soft. It's a kind surface, and the horses come back fine," Baffert said. "We might have to come to Saudi Arabia to find the best tracks for the United States."

So has the desert of Saudi Arabia produced an oasis for American racing?

Unfortunately, the answer is no.

While the track is perfectly designed for the climate in Saudi Arabia, experts say the weather in New York City, or Hallandale Beach, Fla., or even Los Angeles would make a similar racing surface impractical for a major United States track.

"It might work at Wyoming Downs," said racetrack expert Dr. Mick Peterson, referring to Wyoming's average monthly rainfall of 1.2 inches.

Peterson is director of the Racetrack Safety Program and professor of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering at the University of Kentucky, and executive director of the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory.

Instead, the current trend in track management and equine safety in the United States centers on keeping racing surfaces consistent over every inch of ground and having nearly identical surfaces at each track in a particular circuit.

What works so well for King Abdulaziz is an organic element, mostly wood bark, which is no longer used at major American racetracks.

Peterson said he tested the soil at King Abdulaziz and found it to contain roughly 4% organics and the other elements in American tracks, silt, clay, and sand. Peterson said there was a 9% concentration of clay and silt with the remaining 87% sand.

"The sand there is almost identical to the sand at Del Mar," Peterson said. "The only difference is that it has a little higher quartz content,  and that means you don't have to keep adding sand as often."

The sand at the Saudi track is natural, while some U.S. tracks use a crushed version of sand.

"Using natural sand is a big difference," Baffert said. "Some tracks use man-made sand, and it's coarse. When you mix the wood chips with the natural sand it gives the surface a nice bounce."

The current King Abdulaziz surface was designed by Bob Turman, who was the track superintendent at Bay Meadows before bringing his talents to the Middle East in 2013 and overseeing the construction of a new and safe surface. Before last year's Saudi Cup, Turman said that there were only three catastrophic injuries through five months of training and racing with 6,450 starters.

"That type of record," said Turman, the track manager at King Abdulaziz, "is typical for recent years. When I first came out here, I loved the sand. It's very kind. It has a tendency not to be compacted so easily, and that's a real plus. We water it at night so the moisture has a chance to soak through the surface and not evaporate."

Water is the key element as too much of it can wash away the organic material, making its use in America problematic.

"Organic material is a problem because it changes rapidly. It breaks down and washes away," Peterson said. 

Peterson said organics were once common in most California tracks, and he was initially a fan of their use. Still, he found that the inconsistencies in the racing surface that they can spawn played a role in equine injuries.

"What I love about the organics, and I thought at one point it was the best thing ever, was that they are perfect because they buffer the moisture. If it gets too wet, it absorbs it. If it gets too dry, it releases moisture. It's like a sponge. That's super valuable," Peterson said. "But if we added organic to, say, the Oklahoma training track (at Saratoga Race Course), it would be a fiasco because of all the rain. It would break down so fast; it would then get slimy. In Saudi Arabia, you don't have to worry about that because it doesn't rain in the desert.

"We don't use organics now because it was too inconsistent. If you added bark at the start of the Del Mar meet, you had a different track by the end of it as the bark washes away. It might be good for a couple of days but not for a prolonged period, and that's not the game we are playing in North America," he added. "It helps that they don't race as often in Saudi Arabia as they do at U.S. tracks. It's like when people talk about why Royal Ascot has such a great turf course. If we raced as infrequently as they do, we'd have great courses too."

As opposed to organics, what's viewed in the United States as a key to maintaining safe racing surfaces is technology that allows track superintendents to monitor their racing surfaces' depth and consistency constantly.

Beyond that, in recent years, spates of injuries at the start of meets have given rise to tracks that form a circuit trying to develop nearly identical surfaces so that horses face minimal changes when shifting from one track to another.

"We'd hear how horses get hurt more often at the start of a meet, which tells us they are having trouble adjusting to a new surface," Peterson said. "It wasn't something you'd find in a scientific journal. We did it because it made sense."

Peterson said that concept has played a major role in reducing equine fatalities at Del Mar, where track superintendent Dennis Moore mapped out structural and surface changes in 2017 that led to it mirroring Santa Anita Park and having considerably fewer fatalities. Moore also works at Santa Anita.

"Del Mar and Santa Anita are as close as you can get," Peterson said. "If horses are getting hurt at the start of the meet then you have to make a track like Del Mar similar to what the horses ran on at Santa Anita, because that's where most of the horses come from. What Dennis Moore did is he changed the banking, he changed the base, fixed the cushion, and tried to make it as close as possible to Santa Anita. What happened was their goal: that horses would show up and couldn't tell the difference between each track, and it made Del Mar one of the safest, if not the safest surface in the country."

According to The Jockey Club's Equine Injury Database, after having seven fatalities on the main dirt track in 2015 and 10 in 2016, Del Mar's numbers dropped to four in 2017, followed by two in 2018 and one in 2019. There has only been one fatality at Del Mar's summer meet since 2018.

At the New York Racing Association, senior vice president of operations and capital projects Glen Kozak echoes Peterson's belief about uniformity and is working toward commonality at the circuit's three racetracks (Aqueduct Racetrack, Belmont Park, and Saratoga) as well as its training tracks at Belmont Park and Saratoga (the Oklahoma training track).

NYRA is currently rebuilding the Oklahoma track, aiming to make it a mini version of the main track at the Spa for this year's meet. 

"We want to have the same draining, the same material for the base, and the same cushion at the tracks and training tracks," Kozak said. "This way, when a horse transfers from the training track to the main track you have consistent bases and cushion. The same materials are used on the Aqueduct main track, Belmont training track, and both Saratoga tracks. They are all designed from the bottom up the same way. We're trying to keep the consistency. We try to maintain the same moisture levels and maintain an even and consistent track, which is why you will see slower times in the winter for both the Aqueduct main track and the Belmont training track. Our goal is to make it so that there's not really a transition when horses go from track to track on the NYRA circuit, which will cut down on fatalities."

The current project at Oklahoma involves adding a limestone base, which is currently in use at the Spa's main track, Aqueduct, and the Belmont Park training track.

The famed Oklahoma oval is also being widened with changes to the turns to create a pitch similar to the main track and had some trees removed due to the shade they created, leading to inconsistencies in some parts of the track.

NYRA's first limestone racing surface was the inner-track at Aqueduct, which was replaced in 2017 with a second turf course.

"We put more work into maintaining the tracks, but it's a much more consistent surface so we can avoid variations in the base. What we are using now for the base is a much more stable and consistent product," Kozak said. "We put a clay pad above the limestone material so it is more forgiving than pure limestone tracks. It allows us to avoid heaping, which you could get with clay tracks, and it's much, much more durable for the activity we get on our tracks."

Kozak said the typical composition of a NYRA surface is 86% sand and the rest clay and silt. 

"Saratoga gets more clay than others, that's why it looks like it's a different color than the other tracks," Kozak said. 

While Kozak calls Belmont Park "the outlier," that should change at some point in the near future. For the last few years, there has been talk of yet-to-be finalized renovations at the facility, which will most likely include new racing surfaces.

In addition to the NYRA tracks, racing surfaces in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey also have limestone bases, giving the region the kind of beneficial consistency that is becoming the new normal.

All in all, it's that consistency that also explains why Peterson believes looking at a different continent or region is not necessarily the best way to build a safe racing surface.

"You have to adapt to your environment," he said.