Santa Anita Extends Main Track Closure Another Day

Santa Anita Park announced to its horsemen Feb. 26 that its main track would be closed for a second day of training Feb. 27 as the surface is evaluated for safety, because an increased amount of equine fatalities during its meet that began Dec. 26.

Mick Peterson, the director of Ag Equine Programs at the University of Kentucky who studies the Santa Anita main track composition on a monthly basis and has traveled to California to help with the evaluation on-site, said the reason for extending the main track's closure for training is to allow for "ground-penetrating radar" tests and so that the track can be "fully mixed."

After a day where the main track's top cushion layer was "peeled back" to examine the track's base, however, Peterson said he is "not seeing any problems." The track was initially scheduled to be closed for two days of training (Feb. 25-26), before plans were altered Feb. 24, when trainers objected to the closure for Monday on such short notice. During Monday training another horse was fatally injured, the third in three days of training on the main track.

BALAN: Santa Anita to Close Main Track to Evaluate Safety

Peterson said he is working on the assumption that there is an issue related to the greater-than-normal amount of rain California has experienced this winter, which has led to "segregation" of the track's material.

"Segregation is when fine material (top-layer cushion) moves to the inside rail with the water as it's washing across the surface," Peterson said. "It's not something that normally happens in California, because you never have rain, but it's something you fight constantly at other tracks. I was just at Fair Grounds, and it's a daily challenge."

Peterson compared the process to the National Transportation Safety Board analysis of a plane crash, in that there are multiple goals.

"We have two responsibilities—to find out what happened and to fix it so it doesn't happen again," Peterson said. "We've taken samples before and after the mixing. We know what happens when we get a lot of rain on the surface—there's segregation of the surface. We're assuming that was the problem and we're fixing it."

Peterson praised Santa Anita for its long history of providing dirt samples, and said he even has samples from Santa Anita dating back to before the synthetic track era in California, which began in 2007. Santa Anita switched back to a dirt main track in 2010. 

"Talk about baseline data," Peterson said. "Nobody else has data like that. It makes it so much easier to do inspections. Here, I know what to expect and what they're expecting."

Tim Ritvo, the chief operating officer of The Stronach Group, confirmed Peterson's reasoning for extending the pause in training and said the decision was made with the interest to proceed with of an abundance of caution.

"He's the expert. We just want to be sure," Ritvo said. "In light of what happened recently, we want to be cautious. It's not just simply about making sure the track is perfect. We're also looking at a lot of other procedures."

Since the beginning of Santa Anita's season Dec. 26 there have been 19 equine fatalities during racing or training, but they have been relatively spread out into different categories. From the 11 fatalities that have occurred because of injuries during racing, six have come from injuries on the main track and five have come on the turf. Of the eight fatalities from training, one was classified as a "sudden death" by the CHRB, meaning it was not related to a physical musculoskeletal injury. The other seven were from injuries sustained on the main track, and none were associated with injuries on the training track.

Ritvo also said Santa Anita is in the process of forming a committee of people involved with various aspects of racing—a rider, trainer, California Horse Racing Board commissioner, veterinarian, etc.—to assess on a weekly basis how the track surfaces are performing "regardless of how things are going."

Racing is scheduled to resume at Santa Anita Feb. 28.