synthetic

5. SISTER TROIENNE, GP, 1/31-11th, 1 1 16 miles (turf) (Video) Beyer Speed Figure-84 (f, 3, by Munnings-Dyna Passer, by Lemon Drop Kid) O/B-Woodslane Racing (Ky). T-Brian Lynch. J-Mario Gutierrez. Horses aren't machines, but don't tell Sister Troienne. The Sweetest Chant was her fifth straight victory, each looking exactly like the one before. She's the first foal to race from Dyna Passer, a decent sort and third in the Jockey Club Oaks. More significantly, Dyna Passer is a half-sister to multiple graded winners Wolfie's Dynaghost (Ghostzapper)--a $1.3-million earner--and Sadler's Joy...

The nearly four-year rebuild of the new Belmont Park is scheduled to hit a significant milestone by the end of February, when training on the innermost Tapeta track is set to open. Glen Kozak, the New York Racing Association (NYRA)'s senior vice president of operations and capital projects, delivered that news nugget Friday as part of a broader overview of the track's $455-million reimagining during a meeting of the New York State Franchise Oversight Board (FOB). Before delving into details, Kozak underscored an overall message of "on schedule [and] on...

There has been much discussion in the press recently about the ongoing negotiations on the 2026 racing calendar in New York. In truth, we are closer than reports would suggest on reaching an agreement. Currently, there are four days for the Winter meet, four days for the Saratoga meet, and two days at the Spring meet that are in dispute. We are advocating strongly to retain these dates because we believe that a robust year-round racing calendar is vital to the long-term health of New York's Thoroughbred industry. Year-round racing...

As renovations continue at Belmont Park, The New York Racing Association (NYRA) divulged a plan July 1 to conduct approximately three months of winter racing annually at Belmont exclusively on an all-weather surface. A one-mile Tapeta track is currently under construction at Belmont, while the facility is scheduled to reopen in 2026. Lisa Lazarus, the CEO of the Horseracing Integrity & Safety Authority (HISA) provided a letter Friday to NYRA in support of the decision. The letter appears in full below. To Whom it May Concern: The Horseracing Integrity and...

At the conclusion of racing on Monday, Saratoga will have handled about $800 million for the meet, the third highest handle figure ever for the track. On-track attendance once again topped one million, and was officially at 1,055,543 after Saturday's GI Jockey Club Gold Cup Day card with two racing days to go. Yet, by just about any measure, it was not a good meet. Saratoga came into 2023 with the wind at its back. Every year the racing seemed to get bigger, the handle would grow and more and...

Horse racing is at an existential moment. Just weeks after a series of breakdowns at Churchill Downs cast a shadow over the Kentucky Derby, a wave of horrifying horse deaths at Saratoga Race Course has once again brought questions about safety to the forefront of public consciousness. This is a tragedy, as every horse that breaks down also breaks our hearts. However, I believe our sport has reached a tipping point, and I predict there will be a Silver Lining emerging from all these tragedies. In the past week, I...

Does dirt form transfer over to synthetic tracks and vice versa? And do the progeny of traditional Kentucky-based dirt stallions run, for the most part, just as well on synthetic as they do on dirt? These are some of the many questions being asked after a rash of breakdowns over the last few months has led some to call for synthetic tracks, which, statistics show, are safer than dirt and turf courses, to replace dirt tracks. While one horse and one race is not much of a sample size, the...

In the wake of a tragic stretch of breakdowns at Saratoga, Hall of Fame trainer Mark Casse joined this week's TDN Writers' Room to advocate for a switch to synthetic, a surface which he considers far safer and easier on horses than dirt, and admit that he is not as proud to represent this industry as he once was.

Editor's note: Bill Casner, a long-time participant in many facets of racing, is probably best known for founding WinStar Farm with Kenny Troutt and winning the 2010 GI Kentucky Derby with Super Saver. Among Casner's many roles in the sport have been founding director of the Race for Education and Kentucky Equine Education Program (KEEP). He has sold his interest in WinStar to Troutt and currently operates as Casner Racing. Horse racing is in a firestorm. We are at survival tipping point. The decisions that are made in the short...

It is with a lot interest that I read the two Op/Eds from Earl Mack and Bill Finley published this week about the dirt vs. synthetic surfaces, and, although the numbers speak for themselves, I think we should look at another factor. A lot more sprints are being run on dirt than either turf or synthetic. The composition of the dirt surface makes speed the best asset for horses who compete and it is common to see fractions of sub-22 seconds for a first 1/4 of a mile, and over...

After the TDN published two opinion pieces which recommended a return to synthetic surfaces, one by Earle Mack in the May 31 TDN and one by Bill Finley in this Monday's TDN, we have been inundated by comments, questions, and opinions about the relative safety of one surface versus another. Some of the questions asked for a year-by-year comparison, while other comments cited statistics that were not correct. Courtesy of The Jockey Club's Equine Injury database, here are the figures of racing fatalities per thousand starters, year by year for...

Surface tensions in our business have run pretty deep in recent years, nowhere more so than at Santa Anita. After a failed revolution, with a synthetic track, they eventually backed into a terrifying breakdowns crisis. Racing in California still has its problems, of course, not least the cloud currently over its premier barn--which, after that curious hesitation last week, instead gives its most controversial resident a home game Saturday in the GI Awesome Again S. But given our community's fury right now with another racetrack proprietor, who this week cashed...