Aidan Butler | Horse Racing Free Tips

Renovated Laurel Dirt Surface Reopens For Training Tuesday Morning

The four-month reconstruction of Laurel Park's dirt surface, which included the replacement of the cushion, base and substructure, officially ended Tuesday morning on schedule when horses once again began training over the track.

The multi-million-dollar track renovation by the Maryland Jockey Club included the installation of an entirely new cushion on top of a newly laid base with subsurface drainage improvements. The main dirt track was closed on April 11th after necessary remediation was identified as part of ongoing maintenance.

Dennis Moore, Senior Track Superintendent, 1/ST RACING said, “Using the opportunity of the temporary pause on racing this spring to invest in a complete main track rehabilitation has resulted in a superior racing and training surface at Laurel Park which will serve in the best interests of year-round racing in Maryland for many years to come.”

Trainer Jose Corrales, who galloped approximately 15 horses on the track Tuesday, said: “The feedback for the whole morning from what I hear, because I listen to everybody from different stables because I stay by the gap, and the feedback was [the track] was very good, very even. I didn't hear one negative thing today. You would expect it could happen, but there was not one negative thing from anybody or any of my riders. They did a very good job, and it looks very even, even though yesterday it rained like crazy here.”

Trainer Anthony 'TJ' Aguirre Jr., who gallops his horses, said, “I was really happy the way they were skipping over the track, switching leads. No stumbling problems or loose footing problems. And I thought it was really good for as much rain as we got. I thought it had a good amount of cushion.”

Matt McCarron, who gallops for Rodney Jenkins, said, “I give them a thumbs up. What I found most striking was the consistency. That was the biggest difference I saw. It was consistent throughout.”

While the main track at Laurel Park was closed, the Maryland Jockey Club also enhanced the turf course irrigation infrastructure for more consistent water application and improved the turf drainage with an aggressive deep-tine aeration program. Both initiatives are ongoing investments to enhance the long-term consistency of the turf.

“We would like to thank the Maryland horsemen, jockeys and the backstretch teams for their patience and support while we affected this important remediation of the track surface,” said Aidan Butler, Chief Operating Officer, 1/ST RACING. “The investment made by 1/ST RACING and the Maryland Jockey Club reflect our company's commitment to delivering best-in-class racing and training for our stakeholders in Maryland. Today, we are thrilled to welcome horsemen back to Laurel Park as we prepare for what is shaping up to be a competitive and entertaining fall meet.”

Laurel Park's fall meet, with a $3.525 million stakes schedule, featuring the Jim McKay Maryland Million, begins September 9th.

For more information on the Maryland Jockey Club at Laurel Park, visit www.laurelpark.com or follow on social @MarylandJockeyClub.

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‘Way Bigger Than We Originally Anticipated’: Laurel Track Work To Stretch Into Summer

Officials from The Stronach Group announced June 14 that the track renovation at Laurel Park will take longer than originally planned. On a webinar for horsemen, track management revealed that while they had hoped to resume stabling and workouts on the surface in early July, early August is now the target after excavation revealed more serious issues with the base. Dennis Moore, senior track superintendent for 1/ST RACING, reported that it appears a “high plasticity clay” was added to the base at one point “which should have never been there.”

The clay retained water, which was a particular problem since a spring ran under the track surface. The spring originally had a French drain system to remove the water, but that was plugged up at some point.

“It was really just a wet sloppy mess,” said 1/ST chief operating officer Adian Butler. “You don't need to be a track engineer to understand there's a lot of water underneath there.”

The clay has been removed and there will be some regrading done around the quarter pole as well as some surface consistency adjustments on the backstretch.

Additionally, Butler said there were two active sewer lines discovered underneath the track's homestretch, as well as one inactive stormwater drain. The entire base of the track will be replaced and ultimately the pipes discovered there will need to be filled with a solid material so that if they crack, the material above them won't shift.

“It's way bigger than we originally anticipated … we're not going to do this unless we're going to do it properly,” Butler said.

The base will be completely replaced, and Butler could not rule out a need to do additional renovations in two or three years.

In the meantime, the track is replacing boards and doing extensive painting and power washing in the barn areas, and continuing to battle the rat issue.

When horses do return to the surface, Butler and others stressed that it would be a gradual process to get up to full steam. Horses will be allowed to do light work, followed by timed work, followed by racing with extensive surface checks along the way by The Stronach Group and the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory. Butler was hopeful racing could return to Laurel sometime after horses come back the first week of August, but stressed the timeline is dependent on weather and the supply chain for the track surface materials.

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Massive Laurel Horse Move-Out Preakness Week

Difficulties with the dirt track base repair and cushion resurfacing project at Laurel Park continue to mount, with the loose-ended timetable for the work now expected to extend at least until the start of July.

Executives with The Stronach Group (TSG), which owns both Laurel and Pimlico Race Course, said during a Friday tele-meeting that they now need to pause work on the problematic and expensive project at Laurel until management can relocate of all horses stabled at Laurel to other facilities in Maryland.

This news was delivered two weeks after TSG came under fire at a Maryland Racing Commission (MRC) meeting for an alleged “accumulation of bad decisions over time” that led to Laurel's main track safety concerns not being addressed sooner by track management.

At that Apr. 22 meeting, TSG's senior vice president of racing, Steve Koch, told commissioners that Laurel would tentatively be back up and running by the start of June, with limited training allowed at the facility and horses vanned to Pimlico for timed workouts. That plan changed last week when TSG announced all horses would instead have to vacate the property.

The cumbersome logistics of orchestrating such a large horse and worker migration on short notice couldn't come at a worse time for TSG and Maryland horse outfits, with the GI Preakness S. week on the cusp of getting underway at Pimlico.

During the May 7 meeting, Koch projected a new, albeit hazy, timeline for the completion of repairs.

“At the moment, we've requested of the racing commission that the race meet remain at Pimlico through the end of June, so returning early July to be back at Laurel,” Koch said. “There's a lot of unknowns as we get into this racetrack [project and] we'll know more as this thing unfolds.”

Aidan Butler, TSG's chief operating officer, likened the moving-target time frame as a “cat and mouse” game.

Although Butler's words were meant to be figurative, as Friday's meeting evolved, it became clear that felines and rodents were literally involved in the ever-widening scope of the project.

That's because TSG will use the opportunity of having a vacant barn area to launch its most thorough rat extermination attempt to date.

Back in January, TSG executives confirmed to the racing commission that spending $20,000 monthly to try and eradicate rodents while horses remained stabled on the grounds wasn't working, largely because of the abundance of unsecured or spilled horse feed kept the rats well satiated.

Dionne Benson, TSG's chief veterinary officer, said during Friday's meeting that in addition to everything else, that means backstretch outfits will have to attempt herd their barn cats and bring them along once they get stall reassignments at either Pimlico or the Timonium fairgrounds. This is because of concerns that the cats could be poisoned by eating either the rodenticide or a rat that has consumed it.

Then MRC commissioner David Hayden suggested that all hay and straw should also be removed from the backstretch to eliminate another readily available food source for the rats.

David Richardson, the executive director of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association, said that hay and straw removal would be done if the exterminators recommended it.

Richardson asked trainers to expediate getting their requests in to the Laurel racing office about their preference–either Pimlico or Timonium–for being relocated, and to note if their stable help will need living accommodations at either venue.

TSG will provide a shuttle service to those tracks for employees who wish to remain in their Laurel living quarters, and trainers can still keep tack and other personal property secured at Laurel, so long as nothing gets stored in stalls.

To date there have been 789 stall requests: 502 for Pimlico and 287 for Timonium, meaning the majority of outfits will not make the cut for the preferred stabling at Pimlico.

Richardson said that the day after the Preakness, construction will begin on three new 40-stall barns at Pimlico, and that temporary stabling there will also be made available.

As for the housing of backstretch workers, those who opt to live on the grounds at Timonium could end up relegated to either the jockeys' quarters or some other areas that have access to bathrooms and showers, because there are currently no dorm facilities there that meet fire code requirements.

“There are still a lot of items that are outstanding,” Richardson said, underscoring the difficult nature of the transition.

TSG executives also addressed the implications of turf racing in Maryland because of the extended meet at Pimlico.

Koch said the grass course at Pimlico–which is only half as wide as the one at Laurel–will, per usual, get used “very, very heavily” on the Friday and Saturday of Preakness week.

“So yeah, there are [future] constraints on that course in the sense that, you know, how much [use] can 70 feet sustain compared to the 140 feet that we have at Laurel?” Koch asked rhetorically.

Butler then picked up the topic: “If it's usable we will use it. Once it's through the big weekend…we're going to use it as often as we can.”

Even before Laurel's main track woes arose this winter and spring, TSG executives were on record as contemplating the addition of a synthetic racing surface there.

Butler said on Friday that with the base now exposed, TSG has the opportunity to assess what the scope of that project might look like. But he added that the synthetic option won't be contemplated until a later date–which will eventually mean more logistical headaches.

“Because there is a very high likelihood of us putting in a tunnel at Laurel, there is no way to drill under the track,” Butler said. “That will have to be a section…cut completely down through the substructure. That means later, when we come to replacing and putting in tunnels and replacing surfaces, or having new surfaces, I should say, there is unfortunately going to be some more disruption.”

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IFAR: Traceability The Next Big Task For Welfare And Aftercare Advocates

Horse traceability will be key to improving Thoroughbred aftercare and welfare in the coming years, according to global experts on the subject who gathered for a recent panel of the 2021 International Forum for the Aftercare of Racehorses.

Aidan Butler, chief operating officer for 1/ST Racing and owner of four off-track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs) himself, said that inventory control will be a critical part of The Stronach Group's aftercare strategy going forward. Now that horses are microchipped, Butler said it will be easier for track ownership to verify identities when they enter and exit track premises. Previously, not only was it difficult to verify horses' identities, but whatever gate records existed were on paper, and Butler said there was often a delay in that information being transmitted to officials. The Stronach Group is working on a software program called Racehorse 360, now in beta testing, which will give the racing office direct access to data taken at the gate, as well as allow the office to see which stall a particular horse is kept in and provide alerts when a horse leaves the property.

Butler also said that funding mechanisms are critical to the success of aftercare, pointing out that Stronach Group tracks host fundraiser days, work with horsemen to match per-start contributions to aftercare funds, provide mutuel machines that give horseplayers the option of a donation to aftercare, and also keep on-track aftercare liaisons to help trainers place horses that are ready for retirement.

The Stronach Group has also struck partnerships with nearby equine hospitals to help provide surgery or other salvage medical procedures in cases where an owner or trainer can't afford it. The goal in those cases is to help a horse suffering a major injury in racing or training become sound and able to do some kind of second career, even when returning to the track isn't going to be an option.

“There is no need and no point anymore in people not taking all of the offers we have and all of the abilities for aftercare,” said Butler.

Of course, improved traceability for horses would make all of these efforts easier, and the need for better traceability is something racing officials in other countries have also struggled with. Through the years, many American equestrians have pointed to the European equine passport system as a potential solution to better identify horses and inform subsequent owners about the horse's health and history. The passport is meant to contain information about a horse's registration status, identifying markings, vaccination history, catalogue for public sale, and race history. Simon Cooper, director of the Weatherbys General Stud Book, says however that the passport system has not done much to improve Thoroughbred traceability.

“The biggest problem I have is paper,” said Cooper. “Paper disappears. Paper is not on a database. For 250 years, we've been tracing our horses using paper.”

Cooper is often asked about the whereabouts of a particular Thoroughbred; while he can sometimes pull up their information in a few minutes, there are other times when he finds a horse has fallen off the regulatory map. He pointed out one case of a horse whose papers were turned in to his office by a slaughterhouse in another country. Three different sections of the passport were clearly faked, missing embossing, holograms, watermarks, and more. Additionally, the marking information didn't match the horse who'd arrived with the passport, making Cooper question which horse had actually been sent to slaughter, and where the horse was whose identity matched the paper passport.

There is now a push to digitize paper passports to provide regulatory and sport authorities with real time data on horse movement and health information. Cooper points out however that there will still be certain types of information that isn't necessarily recorded digitally under current guidelines. A horse's private sale, transition to a new career, a spell or rest, or time with a pinhooker/breaking farm are all likely to happen without a check-in from a regulatory authority that would appear on a digital passport. Filling in those gaps is crucial to keep a horse from falling off the radar.

Cooper said that the new digital passport will also include GPS location for a smart card to be kept with a horse's identification papers, but the stud book can only require that for Thoroughbreds in active careers as breeding horses.

To harness the power of digital passports for Thoroughbred aftercare, Cooper said racing authorities will need to issue new requirements for owners, mandating notification through the digital passport smartphone app of a horse's retirement, vaccination, movement, ownership changes, and death.

Catch the full replay of the IFAR session below.

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