Synthetic Racing Makes Promising Debut at Gulfstream

In the entertainment industry, re-boots of old television shows is the current fad.

Horse racing is in the midst of its own renaissance, so to speak, with an innovation that was viewed as a game-changer about a decade-and-a-half ago but became an afterthought in more recent years.

All-weather surfaces are once again a hot topic of discussion in the industry. Gulfstream Park spent about $10 million to add a Tapeta Footings surface in September, published reports have mentioned Laurel Park as a possible site for an all-weather surface, and in several years, once the New York Racing Association finally completes renovations at Belmont Park, there should be a fourth, synthetic surface there to go along with two turf courses and a dirt main track.

The times, they may be changing, but they can also have a familiar ring to them.

"Things are going great with the Tapeta surface," said Mike Lakow, Gulfstream Park's vice president of racing operations. "In the beginning it was a little bit deep, and a little bit slow. But the Tapeta people said it needs time to settle and that it's safe. They told us to keep watering it and let it settle and that's what happened. The horsemen really love it."

To date, Gulfstream Park has run a little more than 330 Tapeta races since Sept. 30 with an average field size of slightly more than eight horses, and those numbers reflect a new perception about the all-weather surfaces.

Go back to 2008 when synthetic surfaces were at the height of their popularity and the major California tracks as well as Keeneland and Arlington International Race Course conducted racing on a synthetic surface instead of dirt. It was viewed as a safer surface, but it was also problematic due to an inability to handle certain extreme weather conditions and drainage issues. Not helping was that other major circuits stuck with their dirt tracks, making those tracks outliers.

By 2010, Santa Anita Park returned to dirt and by 2015 Del Mar and Keeneland had followed suit, leaving only Arlington and a handful of small United States tracks as well as Woodbine in Canada with all-weather surfaces in North America.

But in the ensuing years, the surge in grass racing, improvements in the texture of the materials and better construction along with usage at training centers such as Fair Hill have opened eyes to its benefits, especially in a different role from the past.

At Gulfstream, and NYRA in the future, the all-weather surface is not viewed as a replacement for dirt. It's a complement for it and an avenue for use when rain washes races off the turf course. With turf horses often handling all-weather surfaces equally well, at Gulfstream Park the ability to shift traces to the Tapeta course not only preserves the track's lone turf course but helps maintain field size.

As an example, three turf races were moved to the Tapeta course on the Feb. 6 card with a total of six scratches. Had those races been moved to the dirt track, that total probably would have doubled, at the very least.

"We were off the turf (the week of Jan. 19-24) and the races held together," Lakow said. "Favorites are also winning at a high rate so it's not like a foreign surface where you can't pick a winner. It's the exact opposite."

On the Feb. 6 card, the six Tapeta races averaged a field size of 8.3 with two winning betting choices and five horses that paid $8.40 or less.

Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse is one of the Tapeta fans. He's currently third in wins with 19 at Gulfstream's Dec. 3-April 3 Championship meet, and 12 have come on the Tapeta course.

"Look at how well things are going on the Tapeta surface at Gulfstream," Casse said. "I'm excited about it and I hope New York gets it. It's a great surface. It's a safe surface. It's a fair surface. You can win on the lead. You can come from off the pace on it."

Florida-based trainer Dave Fawkes has been surprised by his success on Tapeta. He enjoyed immediate success over it in the fall and of his seven winners at the current meet, four have been on the all-weather track.

"I have enjoyed good success on it," Fawkes said. "I have seen a few soft tissue injuries and some body soreness when they come back, which is pretty typical for the Tapeta and the others. I've found if you take a take a horse that was running longer you can shorten him up and run on Tapeta and you'll get a good result. You take horses that need seven furlongs and run them five furlongs on Tapeta and they'll be fine because they are running slower. I also picked horses who had success on the turf and ran them on Tapeta and that has worked out well. Horses are different and not all of them like it, but some horses are getting over it really well."

For some of the horsemen currently based in Florida, such as Graham Motion, Chad Brown, and Todd Pletcher, what's happening at Gulfstream is serving as a preview of what they can expect to see in New York in a few years.

Motion, who trains at Fair Hill, is a big fan of the all-weather surface and will welcome its addition in New York.

"I'm a big proponent of it," Motion said. "It gives you a tremendous opportunity to run when the races are taken off the grass. Gulfstream might be running a risk of overplaying how they are so quick to come off the turf, but they also have a turf course they are trying to protect. New York has more options with two turf courses and it's a different scenario. I think it makes so much sense to have it in New York. It will be a game-changer. I love the option of having it and if they had it in New York during the winter I would probably keep more horses there. At Gulfstream, running the lesser horses on Tapeta and saving the turf course makes so much sense and the turf course is in better shape because of it. They have a year-round turf course at Gulfstream and it needs a break."

Brown, the four-time Eclipse Award winner, says he has yet to run enough horses on the Tapeta course to develop a firm opinion on it.

"We've won some races on it and we've had some horses that I liked on it who didn't run well at all, so it's still a learning process," Brown said. "My overall feeling about synthetic tracks is that they are climate-dependent on how your horses might train or race on it. For NYRA, overall I feel it will be a good idea to have it as an option as long as it isn't taking away from something else. I think for the wintertime it would be a big help. I don't have any data on it, but I believe synthetic tracks do pretty well in cooler weather. I'm sure there are things they can learn from Gulfstream, but it will probably be a different situation from a climate standpoint. It will also change your strategy with Main Track Only entrants, so there's a lot to factor in."

Brown, who won the TAA Pegasus World Cup Filly and Mare Turf Invitational Stakes Presented by PEPSI (G3T) with Regal Glory , said he believes having the Tapeta track has helped Gulfstream's turf course.

"Gulfstream is not a turf course I particularly like with the tight turns and I'm not going to be shy about saying that, however, it does feel like there's less wear-and-tear on it so that part of using Tapeta has definitely been a success in terms of preserving the turf course," Brown said. "There's some work to do and the turf course can improve. It can be tough for horses to make up ground on it, but when you talk to management they seem committed to constantly look at it."

Pletcher, the sport's all-time leader in earnings and winner of the Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Stakes Presented by Baccarrat (G1T) the last two years with Colonel Liam , is also adopting a wait-and-see approach.

"I'm still developing an opinion on it," the Hall of Fame trainer said. "We've had mixed success on it and it's hard to project which horses will like it and which won't. Not every turf horse will transfer its form over to it. My biggest concern is how it affects filling dirt races. If we lose a horse or two to Tapeta, it could prevent a race from filling."

In New York, NYRA senior vice president of operations and capital projects Glen Kozak has spent the last four years visiting U.S. and international tracks with all-weather surfaces and researching the different types of material to find the one that best fits the needs of year-round racing in New York. 

While there has not been an official announcement about NYRA's plans, it is believed a synthetic track will ultimately be added at Belmont Park allowing Aqueduct Racetrack to close and downstate racing to be consolidated at the Elmont, N.Y., track.

While Gulfstream has carded races on the Tapeta track, indications are that NYRA will limit the usage of the all-weather track to off-the-turf races except for the winter when it will replace the main dirt track as the option for daily racing due to a lack of sunlight on the dirt course caused by the positioning of the grandstand. That is likely to span December until late March or April, though, when the grandstand is ultimately rebuilt, a smaller awning could reduce that time frame.

"You try to learn from past installations and see where you can on something and make it work for you," Kozak said. "We've done a lot of research and looked at a lot of tracks in different parts of the world. We've looked at all the Tapeta surfaces in the United States, like the one at Gulfstream, what they have changed, what their draining is and how that would impact us. It's by region how it works because in Florida they don't have to deal with the freeze-thaw cycles and snow and the ice like we do in New York."

A big step forward in the process will come this summer when NYRA unveils a Tapeta surface at its pony track adjacent to Belmont Park's training track. There are currently jogging barns at Belmont Park with Polytrack and Tapeta surfaces but since they are inside a covered structure they cannot be monitored for the impact of rain and snow. The outdoor pony track promises to provide a dry run for whether Tapeta will be the right choice for the fourth racing surface at the remodeled Belmont Park.

"The synthetic tracks that have had issues in the different regions across the United States have failed either because of materials that were not right or the type of maintenance done on it that leads to contamination of the asphalt layer underneath it," Kozak said. "So with the pony track we're going to try a different type of pad over that layer so it's a little more forgiving and it doesn't contaminate the track and you can see if a conditioner or harrow is getting close to the bottom of the track. Once stones get mixed in the tracks you see that there's no getting them out. So, I want to make sure there is a defined layer between the drainage and the synthetic surface. We can learn a lot from what happens with the pony track."

Looking ahead, NYRA faces some huge decisions with the remodeling of Belmont Park that will impact NYRA racing for decades to come. When construction on the "new" Belmont Park began in 1963, decisions that were made then might have been different had the timing been 1973 and Off-Track Betting was established. A smaller grandstand might have been built. NYRA leaders face those same type of decisions now and at this juncture the timing seems right for an all-weather surface to be part of the future inside Belmont's historic 1 1/2-mile dirt oval. 

"We have one opportunity to do this," Kozak said about remodeling Belmont Park, "and it's going to change the landscape here in New York with having a brand new main track, wider turf courses with improved drainage and new irrigation. The ability to have a synthetic surface will cover all the bases for horsemen for sure."