Michael Dickinson walks in almost-birdlike fashion, purposefully accentuating each step to make a point. “See? There are two things you don't want. You don't want it hard, and you don't want it cuppy.”
Dickinson, standing on the synthetic Tapeta surface he invented, and with Dubai's sprawling Meydan grandstand as his backdrop, digs a toe in. “This is very easy on horses. And look at that hoof print”—he points to a perfect print on the ground—“it gives the horses something to push off on, like a sprinter leaving the blocks.” He crouches down with a foot behind him, ala Usain Bolt.
Dickinson is the first to admit no track, synthetic or otherwise, is perfect, but the 64-year-old former champion trainer is in Dubai this week to make sure Meydan's Tapeta surface is performing as it should during Saturday's Dubai World Cup program. Dickinson and his team, which includes his wife Joan Wakefield, formally the head of Tapeta Footings (“I'm just the tea boy,” says Dickinson); and Miguel Piedra, Tapeta's quality control and maintenance supervisor, have been huddling with Meydan's track superintendent Javier Barajas all week to achieve that goal.
Dickinson, wearing shorts, white socks and sports shoes, spent yesterday morning trackside at Meydan, talking to horsemen and watching how the World Cup-card contenders moved over the Tapeta. When training hours are through, he, Wakefield, Peidra and Barajas gather in the seven-furlong chute at the track to discuss if any tweaks are needed.
“Unlike my wife, this track will do whatever we ask,” Dickinson quips. “If you want it harder or softer, we can do that.”
Two massive John Deere tractors make several passes over the track, tamping down the malleable surface. Even compressed, it has plenty of give underfoot. Another tractor comes in with a custom harrow attached. It makes a rattling sound a bit like a massive eggbeater. A row of rollers preps the surface. A series of rigid metal strips rakes it. Finally, two more rows of rollers groom it into the recognizable block pattern characteristic of many synthetic tracks.
“We're testing various depths today,” explained Dickinson. “They won't use this chute Saturday, so we're doing a little last-minute experiment to make sure it's perfect Saturday night.”
Piedra and Barajas follow the harrow with penetrometers, long metal rods with handles and a pressure gauge that show how much force is needed to push through. Every few feet they drive the penetrometers into the Tapeta. “After a while, you can just tell by feel,” said Barajas, who worked on Arlington Park's grounds crew for 30 years, the last 13 as track superintendent, before leaving in 2009 to take this position at the Dubai Racing Club.
(Barajas, who is also the track super at Cantebury Park, followed in the footsteps of his father, who before him was the turf foreman for 35 years at Arlington. Asked if his own son would stay in the family business, Barajas smiles with affection. “No, he's kind of a geek. He wants to do astronomy.”)
Dickinson clearly trusts his team. Piedra was the foreman of Dickinson's racing operation for over 10 years, and worked daily with the Tapeta surface at Dickinson's majestic Maryland training center, called Tapeta Farm. The extremes in Maryland and Dubai are quite different, which has presented some challenges.
“The second year we were here the temperatures got up to 50°C (122°F), and we had adjust some things,” said Dickinson. “We added high energy, heat-resistent fibers, and that helped a lot. And we added quite a few fibers last summers, so this is a slightly different track to last year. It's tighter, so there's more stability and more bounce.”
Synthetic surfaces have been the center of a heated debate in America in recent years, and last month, it was announced that Del Mar would replace its Polytrack surface with conventional dirt for the 2015 season. This year, no American-trained horses will compete in the $10 million, G1 Dubai World Cup—the first time that's ever happened.
Asked if he is frustrated no top American horses made the trip for the world's richest race, the inference being none did because of concerns over the track, he squints and reminds that an American horse, Animal Kingdom, dominated last year's renewal. He flips open his World Cup media guide and points to several years where Americans where either lightly represented, ineffective or both.
When the track was conventional dirt, there were wins over talented American horses by the likes of Singspiel (Ire), Almutawakel (GB), Dubai Millennium (GB), Moon Ballad (Ire) and Electrocutionist. “Remember, it's not just the track,” he says. “We all remember Cigar and Silver Charm, but there were a lot of American horses that didn't win. Game on Dude came and didn't run well [12th of 13 in 2012], but then he didn't run well in two Breeders' Cups, too. And let's face it, it's a big risk for any trainer to come here [from the U.S.] This is a long way to come to find out your horse can't run without medication.”
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