Laurel track renovation expected to take three weeks; racing moves to Pimlico

A project to replace the entire cushion of Laurel Park’s one-mile main track will likely take no more than three weeks, officials for the track and its parent company told horsemen during a conference call on Friday afternoon.

Work on the project will occur on a nearly 24-7 basis, the officials said, with daily breaks that will allow horsemen to gallop on the parts of the surface that are not being replaced. Track officials said that they will send daily and weekly reminders to horsemen about the training hours, due to the uncertainty over the work schedule.

In addition, Laurel will be offering four shuttles daily for horses to ship to Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore for workouts, the officials said. The schedules for those shuttles will also change throughout the project, the officials said.

The project to replace the surface was announced on Thursday. As a result of the renovations, racing has been canceled at Laurel and will move to Pimlico beginning next Thursday, two weeks earlier than Pimlico’s meet was scheduled to begin. The parent company of Laurel, 1/ST, also owns Pimlico, the host of the second leg of the Triple Crown, the May 15 Preakness Stakes.

Tim Keefe, the president of the Maryland Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, said on the conference call that he was cognizant that the renovation project will inconvenience horsemen, but he said that management at Laurel and at 1/ST have assured him that “no expenses are going to be spared” in the effort to replace the surface and set up better monitoring systems for the condition of the track.

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“It’s not ideal, but it’s better than the alternative,” Keefe said.

The announcement of the project and the cancellation of another weekend of racing came just one week after Laurel had returned to live racing following the cancellation of racing over the two previous weekends due to an outbreak of equine herpesvirus at the track. The backstretches at Laurel and Pimlico were both placed under 21-day quarantine because of the outbreak, a setback that occurred after a year of dealing with new protocols related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr. Mick Peterson, a racetrack-surface specialist who is the head of the Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory at the University of Kentucky, has been hired to assist in the project, and he said on the conference call that Laurel Park is not unique in dealing with surface problems after a winter in which large areas of the country dealt with a brutal winter storm in February.

“Winter racing on a dirt track is challenging, and it’s clear that in the Mid-Atlantic region that some winters are more challenging than others,” he said.

Steve Koch, the senior vice president of racing for 1/ST, said that the project would take at least two weeks, but he gave horsemen the three-week duration because of delays that invariably arise in a project that has such a large footprint.

“I know your patience is going to be critical for us,” Koch said.

Chris Bosley, Laurel’s track superintendent, said that the track has already identified a new supplier that will provide a “really consistent, locked-in blend” for surface material in the future. He also said that he is working with Peterson and Dennis Moore, the senior track superintendent for 1/ST, to put in place new protocols that will test the consistency of surface materials that are routinely added to the track throughout the year and to make better use of monitoring systems already installed at the track, such as an on-site weather station.

“It’s so we make sure we’re doing it right and don’t have to keep going back to it,” he said.