Palm Meadows to Reopen Main Track for Training Feb. 9

Training will resume on the dirt track at Palm Meadows Training Center Feb. 9 following longer-than-anticipated repairs to the track surface, 1/ST Racing's executive director of Florida racing operations Billy Badgett said Feb. 8. Turf workouts there resumed Wednesday.

Work on the track surface has been ongoing this month to repair what Badgett characterized as several "soft spots," including one about an eighth of a mile before the finish. Dennis Moore, track superintendent at Del Mar, Santa Anita Park, and for Thoroughbred racing at Los Alamitos Race Course, flew in from California to consult and assist, Badgett said.

Palm Meadows, Gulfstream Park's satellite training facility in Boynton Beach, Fla., has a 1 1/8-mile main track, a seven-furlong turf track, and a one-mile, L-shaped jogging track, which borders the main track. The latter surface has been utilized by horsemen for jogging their horses while the work on the main track was underway.

No horses have breezed over the Palm Meadows main track since Jan. 30.

A shuttle was provided in the midst of the track surface reconstruction at Palm Meadows for horses to breeze at Gulfstream, Badgett said.

"Unfortunately, this is kind of bad timing during the Championship Meet," said Badgett, who noted that track-surface projects are usually undertaken in the summer. "But the horsemen received it really, really well, and we'd rather err on the side of caution—longevity-wise (and for) the safety of the horses."