[King Glorious]

Originally Posted by Kasept

It's totally unfair to chide Santa Anita management for the situation there.

As Jerry Moss said at the CHRB meeting the other day, the manufacturer(s) are the ones who promised outlandish things that have not come through. CushionTrack Footings screwed this composition up by trying to get cute with the temperature concerns in Arcadia vs. Inglewood, and the fine silt they added to the Santa Anita surface has been acknowledged as the culprit and as a mistake. Santa Anita had no choice but to believe the installer when they said that what they were going to mix as the surface was going to be 'right'.

In fact, had SA management NOT sensed a problem early on last fall, they would not have been in position with Ian Pearce (sp?) of Pro-Ride to make the ammendments they are going to make to get through the meet. Pro-Ride began testing and playing with the CushionTrack mixture late LAST YEAR... By doing that they were ready to offer the polymer binder add-in to ameliorate the drainage situation...

I don't think Santa Anita is totally blameless here though. While I agree that it's mostly the manufacturer's fault, I think Santa Anita should have gotten assurances that the surface was going to be exactly the same as Hollywood's. My problem with the installation of this stuff has always been because it was basically untested under different scenarios. Well, SA had the advantage of getting a somewhat tested track and instead, let the company get away with using them for further experimentation. I understand the thought behind changing up the composition of the track for the expected different weather conditions at SA but the problem was that nobody knew how the new composition would hold up so they should have went with the one that worked. Maybe SA was told that they were getting exactly the same thing as Hollywood but from all I've read, that doesn't appear to be the case.

I also feel that SA could have been a little tougher in their stance and not given in to the CHRB. Stronach was against the stuff and I'm sure that had he held his ground and said no to having to install it right away, they could have gotten more time to do testing and maybe could have gotten things right the first time.