Dirt flies as horses race across the track. Fans cheer as their favorite thunders down the track, dashing hooves toward the finish line.

That sight and sound has disappeared from some North American racetracks, which have replaced the traditional dirt with a synthetic surface made of wax-coated sand, fibers and recycled rubber.

It cushions hoof strikes and limits kickback that could fly in the face of chasing horses.

From owners to trainers and jockeys to bettors, there is a fierce debate as to whether synthetic surfaces are a possible answer to creating safer training and racing conditions.

The death of 12 horses at Churchill Downs, including two on the day of the Kentucky Derby, last month reignited public outrage over what horse racing is doing to prevent catastrophic injuries.

Investigations into Churchill’s deaths are ongoing, including autopsies on the horses and surface soundings along the route.

Synthetic surfaces, known by brand names such as Tapeta and Polytrack, are gaining popularity in some major racing circuits.

Gulfstream Park in Florida added Tapeta in 2021 to match its clay and grass courts. Woodbine, near Toronto, switched from dirt to polytrack and then tapeta in 2016.

In 2015, Polytrack became the first track in North America to be installed at Turfway Park near Cincinnati, and was replaced by Tapeta five years later. There is a Tapeta track on the tiny Presque Isle Downs near Erie, Pennsylvania.

Statistics from The Jockey Club’s Equine Injury Database show that the surface with the fewest deaths per 1,000 horses is synthetic.

From 2009 to 2022 there were 534 fatalities on synthetic vehicles from 482,169 launches, or 1.11 per 1,000 launches. During the same period, there were 6,036 off-road fatalities from 3,242,505 launches, or 1.86 per 1,000 launches. And on grass, there were 1,032 fatalities from 728,445 starts, or 1.41 per 1,000 starts.

The overall fatal injury rate was 1.25 deaths per 1,000 starts in 2022, up from 1.39 the year before. According to the EID, this is the fourth consecutive year the rate has fallen and the first time since the database began in 2009 that the rate has been below 1.3 deaths per 1,000.

“In my opinion, synthetics are safer,” said veteran trainer Mark Casse, who estimates he starts about 1,200 horses a year on sand, grass and synthetics in the US and Canada.

However, it has not caught on everywhere.

California race officials ordered the switch from dirt tracks to synthetic tires in 2007. Santa Anita, the now-defunct Hollywood Park, and Del Mar north of San Diego spent millions ripping up their dirt tracks in what turned out to be a failed experiment.

Golden Gate Fields in the San Francisco Bay Area is the only California track that still uses synthetic circuits. Eight horses have died on this route this year – three of them had musculoskeletal problems; the others had different reasons.

“If there hadn’t been so many problems early on in California, we would probably all be racing on synthetic tracks,” Casse said, citing the steep initial learning curve associated with installing and maintaining such pads.

Drainage issues cost Santa Anita race days and subsequent installation of a different brand of plastic failed in extreme temperatures. The materials also wore out quickly under heavy use and often more pouring was required to maintain the right consistency.

“I think there were a lot of mistakes, but we’re a lot smarter now,” Casse said.

Dirt still reigns in Louisville, Kentucky; Baltimore and New York, where the Belmont Stakes will be played to conclude the Triple Crown on June 10th.

But change is underway.

In March, the New York Racing Association announced plans to build a 1-mile (1.6 km) synthetic oval at Belmont Park. When completed next spring, it will complement the existing 1 1/2 mile main field track and two grass pitches.

“This is exciting,” Casse said. “It’s a big step.”

Glen Kozak, NYRA’s senior vice president of operations and capital projects, said, “The new racetrack represents an investment in the future of Belmont Park, increasing horse safety, supporting field size in inclement weather, and providing riders with another year-round experience offers training opportunities.” ”

In late 2022, NYRA installed a tapeta surface on Belmont’s pony track, which is primarily used for horse jogging. It provided data on how a synthetic surface behaves in the New York cycle of freezing and thawing temperatures and snow and rain.

An advantage of synthetic surfaces is that they provide a consistent track in all weather conditions. Rain doesn’t force races to switch from the grass to a sloppy field course. Horses that specialize in walking on grass generally have little trouble on artificial grass and can still be competitive.

Hall-of-Fame trainer Shug McGaughey had success walking horses on synthetic material at Gulfstream last winter, although he’s not convinced that the surface is the be-all and end-all to preventing failure.

“I don’t think that will make them go away, but I think the stats show they’re safer than our regular dirt roads,” he said.

Steve Asmussen, North America’s premier trainer with over 10,000 career wins, has a harder time assessing his horses’ strengths and weaknesses and deciding which races to put them in when training on synthetic horses.

“Personally, I have a little trouble getting a clear idea of ​​how good a horse is when I’m training it on synthetics,” he said. “For me, it seems to put them all in the same place.”

The track surface is only one factor that contributes to the safety of horse and jockey.

The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, the sport’s new national governing body, began its anti-doping and drug control program in late May, making next week’s Belmont Stakes the first Triple Crown race under its jurisdiction.

HISA’s racetrack safety program began last year and includes track surface maintenance and testing requirements.

The post Artificial surfaces gaining traction at main horse racing tracks appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

If you walk past the nondescript, light brown building on 1336 Grove St., there isn’t much reason to stop. San Francisco is full of architectural gems and this facade is pretty simple. There are no bright colors, no Victorian flourishes, no splashy sign – just a small logo that was stuck on the glass doors for a construction company. But if you tilt your head back and take a look at the top of the center of the building, you will see a decorative horse head sticking out.

This emblem is a nod to what this ordinary commercial building once was – a horse stable, one of many former horse stables hidden in town. These buildings were an integral part of any neighborhood in San Francisco in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the pre-auto era, local residents who wanted to get around in private but had no space to house their horses kept horses in community stables that were centralized in the neighborhoods.

For those who could not afford their own horses, horses, coachmen and wagons were rented in these historical paint schemes. These early versions of a taxi company flourished in San Francisco during the gold rush and, according to Bonnie Spindler, had the best business in the country, ahead of New York City. Spindler, a real estate agent and Victorian expert, said it might be because the city still owned farms and grasslands to build such a thriving business, but business in general was booming at the time.

1336 Hainstrasse

Screenshot / Google Maps

An 1876 article from the San Francisco Chronicle said the first livery stall in the city opened in 1851. The second was founded just a few years later and was located on the south side of California in Montgomery in what is now the financial district. Before long, “the supply matched demand across the city, and the stables shot up like mushrooms in the morning until we have at least three quarters of a hundred today,” the article says.

This reporter describes other stables such as the Dexter Stables on Bush Street near Sansome, which housed 90 horses and 15 carriages. 332 Bush St., Healy and Fagen’s livery, founded in 1862, owned 68 horses. At 408 Bush St., Mr. Martin’s stable contained 88 horses. Another was on Sutter Street, across Kearny Street. Another was at 126 Ellis St., which was reportedly charging $ 30 a month, or about $ 739 in today’s dollars.

The Chronicle reporter describes a particularly well-known paint job called The Fashion Stables on Sutter Street near Sansome that the owner declined to disclose because “we might have to pay too much tax if we got the height our full income, was the answer, accompanied by a knowing smile. “

Stable Cafe, 2126 Folsom St.

Screenshot / Google Maps

For the wealthiest in society, they might have had a private carriage house built outside of their property. This was reportedly the case at 2126 Folsom St., currently the location of the Stable Cafe and Malcolm Davis Architecture’s office in the Mission. The clue is a wooden beam protruding from the roof of the building – workers would have used a pulley system to lift hay into the attic while the horses were stored below.

Davis, who has owned the building since 2006, bought it from owners who had looked after it since the 1970s. They shared stories of how the building used to be the private coach house of James Phelan, the Mayor of San Francisco from 1897 to 1902. While city records prior to the fire and earthquake of 1906 are nearly impossible to track down and verify, Davis was told that The building was constructed in the 1870s and only narrowly escaped the fire.

Seeing the unique building for sale, Davis couldn’t help but fulfill his dream of turning the hayloft into an office that he believed would be the perfect location for his architectural practice. “I loved the exposed half-timbering, the plank floors, the high ceilings. It just has a lot of character, ”he said.

He later expanded the lower area to include a large kitchen, which is now the café, and the adjacent parking lot is used as an event area. He said that cafe-goers and event guests are constantly asking about the history of the space.

The high ceilings and wide open spaces of a horse stable lend themselves well to a building conversion, and a feature story by Curbed in April 2018 shows the transformation of an old horse stable into a modern office building. The Jackson Square building at 915 Battery St. was reportedly “constructed of wood salvaged from the ships that clogged the bay when the enterprising 49ers stormed into town,” and although no one is sure when it was built its original use was as a horse stable. Since then, it has served as an antique shop and architecture firm and is now home to the Scenic Advisement investment bank.

220 Dolores Street

Screenshot / Google Maps

“The team worked really well together, and we all agreed that we wanted to keep the original purity of the building intact,” said interior designer Tineke Triggs, Principal at Artistic Designs for Living, Curbed 2018 of the renovation. “We kept most of the original details – including what appeared to be horse bites in some of the beams.”

There are also former horse stables alongside older houses on larger lots, often referred to as carriage houses, like the one we featured in Guess the Rent in June 2021. Some smart homeowners have chosen to convert this space into a loft apartment rather than a garage into a loft apartment, but kept the barn doors. According to historical research by the San Francisco Planning Department: “Many of these buildings have now been destroyed, but some still exist and are used as garages, ancillary apartments or small apartments. In some cases the original house may have been demolished and replaced, and a coach house or other outbuilding remains in the back yard of the residence built later on the parcel. “

The document also mentions that former residential stables were particularly vulnerable to redevelopment, with many being replaced by residential or commercial buildings, particularly along Franklin and Gough streets.

220 Dolores St. has this telltale sign – a wooden beam that likely once helped lift bales of hay to a second level – on his carriage house, which can be seen from Alert Alley. As one of the “Tanforan Cottages”, the house was built around 1853 and is one of the mission’s oldest residential buildings and is listed on the California Register and the National Register of Historic Places.

But most of the former horse stables and carriage houses are not protected and not that obvious. San Francisco is a city with a lot of old buildings. So the next time you look at an old building, look for clues.

915 battery St.

Screenshot / Google Maps

The post Previous horse stables and carriage homes are hidden throughout San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.