February 4 - "What else can go wrong?" said Santa Anita President Ron Charles today. Racing has been cancelled since Wednesday last week when in order to ease a constant drainage problem that has been plaguing the existing synthetic course a polymer binder is being applied. The original plan was to have the work done in time to continue the meet on Friday. Rain continued to fall on Saturday and Sunday, so now Charles says they have to just wait for the rain to stop so that they continue the project.

This is the 8th day of racing lost. Besides the rain, there is an excessive amount of standing water on the track, and there are some very soft areas too. For safety sake it was decided to cancel today's racing too. Charles said that he thinks that the jockeys were very relieved that they wouldn't have to race in these conditions.

Rainouts in racing are generally quite rare, but a consequence of an extremely wet winter has caused the extraordinary amount of cancellations.

Pro-ride, an Australian based company is overseeing the application of the new synthetic surface. Founder of the company, Ian Pearse, showed in a recent presentation how the track would look and feel after the project has been completed. The new track should be much gentler on the horses which is why it is important that the new surface is applied correctly.

The track remains open for simulcast betting but there is likely to be no live racing until Friday earliest, if not later.

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2011/12/09 12:47:43 AM