A Championship-Worthy Surface?

A permanent surface - or home - for the Breeders’ Cup? Almost as hot as the Zenyatta v. Rachel Alexandra debate (which, quite frankly, seems to be settling into a demand that both receive shared Horse of the Year honors), is the question of the synthetic course of Santa Anita, and Joe Drape's suggestion in The New York Times that it become the permanent home of the travelling championship series.

In the photo, European-trained Man of Iron edges out American entry Cloudy's Knight in the Breeders' Cup Marathon.

Santa Anita, the beautiful Art Deco racing palace in Arcadia, California, has played host to several Breeders’ Cup Championships, including the two most recent years’ events. The southern California audience is always appreciative of good horses; the weather is, climatologically speaking, fantastic for horses; and the Oak Tree Racing Association, whose racing meet hosts the two-day event, have proven to be valuable partners to the Breeders’ Cup organizers.

And despite two beautiful days of horse racing, the stands packed with frenzied fans and horseplayers (more than a few packing colorful signs urging on racing’s own Hollywood star, Zenyatta), critics still point to Santa Anita’s Pro-Ride synthetic track surface and say, “No good.”

The casual observer would say that it is hard to argue with the numbers. The most recent study of racing fatalities in California shows synthetic tracks, in place since 2006, standing at 1.70 per 1,000 starts, versus 3.09 per 1,000 starts on the old dirt courses.

In other words: in about one thousand races, one horse less will die on a synthetic track, than on a dirt track - a forty percent decline.

But this is the horse business, where old habits die hard, and in fine stables you will still find that used motor oil is the hoof dressing of choice, or that pressing hot needles into damaged shin bones is considered an acceptable remedy for rapid healing and bone growth. You can argue that motor oil is a carcinogen and ought not be rubbed into a horse’s coronary band, where it will surely be absorbed into the circulatory system. You can argue that pin-firing is an obsolete method of counter-irritant and possibly even that bucked shins are not a necessary right of passage for a horse entering hard training, but a sign that the bones were green and unprepared for the workout. You can argue it, but will anyone listen? For those who are convinced, there is no turning back.

In The New York Times, Hall of Fame trainer Richard Mandella sums up the synthetic track argument: “It’s like gun rights. You have people deeply opposed on either side and no conversation is going to change minds.”

It’s a striking feature of American racing, this obsession with dirt, even as two hundred years of racing has made little difference in the safety of the surface. And its argued inadequacies always seem to show up just when thoroughbred enthusiasts think that they’ve got a home run, a real star, to captivate the television audience and bring them back begging for more.

In 2007, horseracing fans roared home Curlin, the eventual Horse of the Year and winner of the Dubai World Cup, as he crossed under the wire in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Monmouth Park in New Jersey. Curlin, a flashy chestnut colt, had achieved fame already in his gutsy stretch battle - and loss - to tough filly Rags to Riches in the Belmont Stakes. He was the kind of horse you could pin up a poster of. Here was a good-looking colt to snag those horse-crazy girls while they were still young and impressionable!

As Curlin walked into the Winner’s Circle, a dirt champion for his owner, the adamantly anti-synthetic Jess Jackson, a horse named George Washington was quietly euthanized on the backstretch, ankle broken.

To follow up the death of George Washington with two injury-free, fatality-free years at Santa Anita ought to have placed favor purely in the synthetic camp. As written by Julian Muscat in The Independent (U.K.) two years ago, "A fatality-free renewal would surely represent the last rites for traditional dirt. The Breeders' Cup, already creaking from international competition, can ill afford another scene that saw Curlin's connections celebrate their triumph while George Washington lay prostrate in the shadows.”

There are, of course, other variables in the accomplishment of Santa Anita’s tragedy-free Breeders’ Cup weekends. Significantly, there is the drug and steroid ban, which has grown in power and size, to emulate the more stringent rules of European racing. All the 2009 winners would eventually test clean.

But the synthetic surface can also lay claim, many contend, to the rising number of European entries - and winners - at the Santa Anita editions. In 2008, they won five of the fourteen championships, and in 2009, they won six.

One of the biggest surprises and longest shots of the weekend, Vale of York, came bounding up in an out-of-nowhere nose to win the Juvenile, and many are attributing his promising win to training on synthetic tracks at home in - where else? - Europe.

The Breeders’ Cup is one of the few days of racing that is televised on broadcast networks - second, of course, to the Triple Crown races, and the fatalities that have marred these three races, all run on dirt surfaces, are part and parcel of multiple arguments: the medication issue, the age issue, the breeding issue. The Triple Crown can keep all those issues, for now, as the New York Racing Association has announced that it has no plans to change any of its tracks, including the mile and a half oval at Belmont Park, from the traditional dirt to synthetic, and Churchill Downs has not committed to altering any of its tracks outside of Arlington, which converted to a synthetic surface, and so far has inconclusive data on reducing the break-down rate.

The Breeders’ Cup organizers, then, are left with this: after a quarter of a century, it has finally become a truly international event, an affair that attracts the best horses in the world to the United States, to run against American horses on a level playing field. To achieve a beautiful, clean, safe event like the one run this year, they had to go to Europe for the best practices in drug bans, in testing, and, one can argue, in surfaces. That they achieved a fair surface for European horses to compete with American horses is undeniable. Can they achieve a fair surface for American horses? Not, it would seem, until the synthetic nay-sayers can be convinced that the tracks across the country can be better, safer places for horses to run on.

Who Else? Zenyatta

A Breeders' Cup recap can't start with anything else. Here is a picture of Zenyatta (courtesy of ESPN.com), crossing that invisible line in the sand (synthetic sand, they'll remind you) ahead of America's top turf horse, Gio Ponti, and with the rest of the best American colts in shambles behind her. One ear on Mike Smith, one ear pricked forward. No attention to spare for the horses she has left reeling in her wake.

I had to wait for the replay to hear Trevor Denham's call: "Un - be - lievable!" as I was too busy screaming myself hoarse to hear it live.

The beginning of the race was rather more thrilling than anyone would have liked. An incident-free Breeders' Cup, what a marvel! And then in the load for the last race of the event, the feature race, the king-maker (queen-maker), no one seemed particularly eager to load - after all, the gate for a mile and a quarter race at Santa Anita is directly next to the barn entrance, and it's half past dinner hour by post time for the Classic - and Quality Road said, "No."

Some horses say no with a wink and allow themselves to be shoved into the gate with a shrug. These are the sorts of horses that duck out of crossrails because it is entertaining. They don't particularly want to dump you, but gosh - it is funny the way you yell and flap your arms when you're losing your balance! Can you do it again, please?

Some horses say no with a sharp buck and a few kicks, and allow themselves to be shoved into the gate after a determined gate crew grabs hold of ear and tail and whip and sends them in. These are the sorts of horses that duck out of serious fences because they simply don't want to jump. They want to dump you and they are deeply pleased with themselves when you hit the ground. Dirty, we call these horses, and while they're easily cowed by an assertive rider, a novice can't get anywhere with them.

And some horses say no with expletives. They'd sooner kill you than go in the gate, and even if you're clever enough to blindfold and disorient them, they know once they've gone in and they're going to tear the place down.

Quality Road was the latter horse at the Classic. He had hands over faces, he had hearts pounding, he had tears welling. The crowd had come to see Zenyatta demolish the field, not to see a good three-year-old tear himself to pieces in the starting gate.

The look on his face from the start was more than the usual mulish expression of the naughty horse. Anyone who has dealt with Thoroughbreds can tell you - when you see that face, you better keep that horse in motion, because if he is allowed to halt, he will explode.

Quality Road exploded in a million pieces, outraged, kicking out sharply, aiming at the gate crew. No one could get hold of an ear - he would have flipped over if they had. They finally got a blindfold on him - turned him in a quick circle - got him into the gate - and he lost his mind.

I almost hope we didn't gain any newbie viewers for the Classic this time around, because heaven only knows what they were thinking. The gate isn't ideal, we all know that, but it's all we have besides the jog up starts that the steeplechases have, and that's less than perfect, as well. It seemed to take a quarter of an hour for the last Grand National to get away.

Eventually, after the gate shook and shuddered under his blows, after the blindfolded colt broke through the front gate and managed to stumble out, shuddering and kicking, after the crewman who caught him managed to slide the blindfold off, the trembling, adrenaline-charged colt was led away, stripped of tack, and diagnosed with a scrape. The rest of us? Palpitations.

And in the aftermath, the anti-climactic realization that the greatest race of the year was yet to be run. The horses were backed out of the gate and, surly, re-loaded. Zenyatta was back in Spanish-walk mode; Mike Smith had to let the crew load her before he could climb up on the gate, reach over her broad back, and gently step a toe into the right stirrup of her polished saddle. There was a creeping knowledge that anything could happen. Quality Road had been the acknowledged pace in the race. Zenyatta seemed off her game, unhappy in the gate. All the variables and unknowns - Gio Ponti, the turf king come to synthetic; Einstein, the elder statesman, who'd blown himself out in a work earlier in the week; Summer Bird, the champion of the summer (as long as Miss Alexandra wasn't in the equation) loomed even larger.

They broke.

Zenyatta broke last.

No one watched the race. Did anyone watch the race? I didn't. I watched Zenyatta. I watched her loping along, lengths behind the pack, with a loose rein and floppy ears, out for an afternoon gallop, with all the enthusiasm of a foxhunter freshening before the fall meet. There were fractions - slow early times, I remember that. And yet the race was won in just over two minutes - in very good time - which means that the last few furlongs - the short Santa Anita stretch run - must have been very fast indeed.

She was on the rail at the final turn, making her move. Mike Smith shook out his reins and away she went. Between horses - between, instead of around the pack! - and suddenly her way was closed to her. Mike asked her, "Go to the right, please," and she took a hard right, galloped around the horse in her way, and found herself five or six wide, with all the path before her wide open, and less than an eighth of a mile to go. And she went. With ears pricked, in great leaps and bounds, all seventeen hands of her afloat in mid-air, she went.

The crowd roared, went wild, lost their minds. She paused to listen and savor the love. Mike gave her a few taps with the stick: "This is urgent, dear, you must go faster." And faster she went. With an ear on Mike and an ear pricked towards the finish line, she went.

The drama of two minutes before was forgotten. Quality Road, in disgrace at the barn, forgotten. All that was left was the mare of a lifetime, the Horse of the Decade, as Mike Smith would call her. There was no love left for Gio Ponti, second to the Queen, for the third place finisher - does anyone even remember who finished third? His connections, no doubt. But when you fall to a champion, you truly fall from view. The best that can be said of you is, "Second to Zenyatta," and for those who saw her run, that is high praise indeed.