This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

Santa Anita Renovations Entering Home Stretch

The work is designed to eliminate some structural issues the track has had in the past.

If this were a horse race, they would be rounding the home turn right now and readying themselves to slog it out to the wire.

Renovations to main track, which has been closed to training since July 11, are penciled in for completion by Tuesday, said Ted Malloy, track consultant to MI Developments, which owns the racecourse.

Malloy said that, as of Wednesday, workers began laying down the new composite surface that will consist of a greater percentage of sand in comparison with the old.

Find out what's happening in Arcadiawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“We’ve taken up six inches of top material and taken it to the parking lot and mixed it with sand to reduce the amount of clay within the track,” said Malloy, referencing the parking lot behind the racetrack that for weeks now has been the hub of activity on the project.

The high percentage of clay comprising the old surface, in conjunction with unusually high levels of rainfall this winter, has been widely regarded as the reason for the large number of break downs during the track’s winter-spring meet, with the California Thoroughbred Trainers reporting the removal of 40 horses by ambulance during the Dec. 26 to April 17 race meeting.

Find out what's happening in Arcadiawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

However, Malloy is confident that the new surface will eliminate the problems that plagued the track at the start of the year.

“There’s no problem with this mixture,” Malloy said. “It’ll be perfect. In fact, it’ll be perfect about a week after it’s down.”

While tests taken on the track last January showed that the combined silt and clay content rose as high as 19%, the new mixture is expected to be 87.5% sand and 4.5% clay, with the remaining 8% consisting of silt.

He said that they had made preliminary tests on the new surface in the seven-furlong chute in order to identify how the mixture would react under certain conditions and said that, “it had acted just as I wanted it to act.”

With racing set to resume with the inaugural Santa Anita Autumn meet (in place of the traditional Oak Tree meet), track officials face an anxious wait between the time the first hooves alight the virgin track and September, when the meet returns.

Which is why George Haines, Santa Anita's president, said that they will be testing the new surface “continuously” to ensure that the track maintains the correct consistency. He also said that trainers will be “asked to use restraint” with their horses until the new track has had time to settle down.

Haines added that of the material removed from the track, half has already been mixed, and that they are now ready to begin the process of laying it back down.

Training at Santa Anita had been confined to the inner training track since renovations have began, though with Hollywood Park remaining open for training and the coincidence of the start of the Del Mar summer meet, horse traffic has been kept to a minimum during mornings.

Editor's note: Daniel Ross works as an exercise rider at Santa Anita. This story for Patch was done with the cooperation of the racetrack.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Arcadia