Track Maintenance a Successful Science at Belmont Park

There are a few elements in effective racetrack maintenance at New York Racing Association venues that have remained constant in the past decade.

Visit Belmont Park in the morning for workouts or during the afternoon for races and, much like a scene from 10 or even 40 years ago, you'll see tractors harrowing the racing surface and trucks dumping thousands of gallons of water on the 1 1/2-mile oval.

Yet those two vestiges of the past are now parts of labor-intensive work that has evolved into a science and features the kind of technology that fits in perfectly with a digital era.

"This is a science. It's no longer picking up the dirt in your hand and deciding what you should do," said Glen Kozak, NYRA's senior vice president of facilities and racing surfaces. "If you have the experience and have been around it long enough, you might listen to your gut at times, but it's nice to have the science behind it."

When historic 114-year-old Belmont Park opens April 26, the fruits of the labor put in by Kozak and a crew of about 100 workers to prepare the sandy main track and two turf courses for another year of racing will be on full display. Whether the track will be fast or sloppy is out of Kozak's hands, yet everything else about working on the surfaces and having them in a safe condition for racing is part of a finely tuned operation that has embraced state-of-the-art technology and uses it to refine and modernize work that is as old as the sport itself.

"Sometimes people don't know what goes into everything we do," Kozak said. "It's not like we go down to the Home Depot and buy 10,000 pounds of clay. Everything is tested and finely screened."

As much as the work to prepare Belmont Park picked up steam prior to the April 3 opening of the main track for training and reached a crescendo in recent days, it was part of a year-round, 24/7 maintenance effort that involves much more than harrowing and watering.

"We'll do general maintenance before a meet begins, cleaning the drainage and the catch basins," Kozak said. "We'll screen the tracks for any foreign material. We measure everything and enter it in our computers and database. There's a due diligence on our part."

As part of that due diligence, monitoring is now an operative word in track maintenance at NYRA's three facilities—Belmont Park, Aqueduct Racetrack and Saratoga Race Course—and nothing is left to chance.

After gleaning readings from cutting-edge instrumentation, even the most trivial detail about a change in track condition, moisture level, holes in the cushion, or work on the racing surfaces is entered into a database. The information is then electronically shared by Kozak and as many as seven outside consultants through software. There's also thorough on-site testing before the start of each meet, led by Mick Peterson, executive director of the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory and director of AG Equine Programs at the University of Kentucky, followed by constant checks and re-checks to make racing as safe as possible.

"Before any meet begins, Dr. Peterson or his crew will be here to do ground-penetrating radar tests. They will also use a mechanical hoof tester (a Biomechanical Surface Tester) to check how hard the racing surface will be on a horse's legs, and they will grab samples of the cushion to analyze it and tell us about the content of our sand, silt, and clay," Kozak said. "You can listen to the way horses are getting over the track, but it's nice to have the instruments that tell you the moisture content in a track or how much evaporation there has been in a day. This way, when you water the track, you're not guessing if you need a quarter of an inch or three-tenths of an inch of water. You have science that wasn't used before."

The effectiveness of this approach is best reflected in the equine fatality rate at Belmont Park that was well below the national average of 1.68 deaths per 1,000 starters in 2018. At Belmont Park, there were six fatalities from 6,142 starters for a mark of .98 per 1,000 starters.

"Glen and his crew are an invaluable asset to the horsemen at NYRA," said three-time Eclipse Award-winning trainer Chad Brown, NYRA's leader in wins the last four years. "He himself is very approachable and has a tremendous feel for all of the surfaces at every NYRA track. His finger is on the pulse at all times."

A key element in the care of the NYRA surfaces involves the use of a Maintenance Quality System in which measurements and other readings are entered and can be viewed electronically by Kozak or any of the consultants to make sure the proper criteria are maintained at all times. 

NYRA also works with Mueser Rutledge Consulting Engineers, Brookside Laboratories, Soil Mechanics Drilling Corporation, DCS & Associates, and Hummel Associates, among others.

"On iPads, we log everything that goes on out there, and that's beneficial. It's important to have the historic data so that when we have rain events, we'll know how quickly the track will recover," Kozak said. "We put a GPS on all of our tractors and trucks so that we know how fast they are moving, where they are on the racetrack, and exactly where soil samples are taken."

Kozak came to NYRA in August 2008, and in that time he has noted the tremendous change in the mechanics of his job that have played an integral role in keeping safety at the forefront of his concerns. 

"Years ago, I might have written in a notebook that it's 68 degrees, sunny, 14 mph winds, water as needed. Now everything that happens to the racing surfaces is documented. We know if 3,000 gallons of water is put on the track, where the tractors have been harrowing the track, which way they are going, and what type of harrow they used. 

"It makes everyone more accountable. We're changing the culture to one where we can always do more to make things safer for the horses and the riders. It's a constant battle, because things change every day and you can't get complacent."

Communication has also improved. NYRA now uses text-message alerts to inform horsemen about items such as the condition of the racetrack, when it will be sealed, when races have been moved off the turf, and delays in harrowing the surface.

"The feedback from the jockeys and trainers is important," Kozak said. "They are not shy, and we want to communicate with them. That's the kind of relationship you want."

NYRA's desire to conduct racing on first-class surfaces can be seen in other ways, such as the 2017 improvements at Aqueduct when the inner dirt track was replaced with a second turf course, a new drainage system for the turf courses was installed, and the main track was converted to a limestone base. More recently, a decision was made to stop using recycled sand for some repairs and rely solely on new sand for Belmont Park's cushion, and this past winter plastic covering was placed over the turf courses at Belmont Park and Aqueduct to keep them in better shape for spring racing.

Taken as a whole, all of the advancements and changes underscore the commitment at the executive level of NYRA and in the field by Kozak's staff to do all of the necessary behind-the-scenes work, while blending modern technology with an old-fashioned work ethic, to maintain the highest levels of quality control.

"NYRA has made safety and caring for the racing surfaces a priority. We'll always hear complaints, but the work we did at Aqueduct in basically a four-month time frame says a lot about the organization," Kozak said. "Our guys who work on this track are farmers at heart who appreciate the equipment and what they are doing. It's a heck of a lot easier when you have people who want to be here and who eat and breathe this job."