Remington Park celebrated its 35th birthday on Sept. 1 and when the track opened in 1988, it did so with a synthetic racing surface called Equitrack. Coming decades after Tropical Park had installed an additional surface that was synthetic, Tartan Track, the Equitrack at Remington marked the first time a synthetic track was used as a main track in the United States. “I remember it vividly,” said Matt Vance, executive vice president of Remington and the son of the track’s first president, David Vance. “We were the pioneers – in North America, anyway. They had Equitrack on the training gallops in Newmarket. That’s where Dad and Mom went to first look at it, and I’m pretty sure they took Dennis Moore. I even think Jack Van Berg went with them, too.” Matt Vance said he believed Japan had been using a synthetic track as a racing surface. Equitrack was in place from the launch of Remington, but was removed in 1991. :: Bet the races with a $250 First Deposit Match + $10 Free Bet and FREE Formulator PPs! Join DRF Bets. “It was a very unique substance that ideally was an all-weather surface that did not get muddy, a lot like the synthetics today,” Matt Vance said. “It was a great surface when it was cool weather. When it was in the 50s and 60s, we would see very fast times.” Silver Icon equaled a world record for 6 1/2 furlongs on Oct. 1, 1988, at Remington, when he won an allowance in 1:13.60. He shared the mark with Native Paster, who ran the same time on Sept. 4, 1988, at Del Mar. “Silver Icon was the Equitrack superstar in the early days of Remington Park,” track spokesman Dale Day said. Day said Ron Goodridge trained Silver Icon at the time of his world record. “Silver Icon loved the Equitrack,” recalled Donnie Von Hemel, a member of the Remington Park Hall of Fame. “It had rained, cooled off, and he bounced around there like he was on a trampoline.” The newness of synthetic-track racing in the United States gave Von Hemel-trainee Clever Trevor an interesting distinction. He was likely the first horse to win a Kentucky Derby prep race on a synthetic track when he captured the inaugural Remington Park Derby over the Equitrack in March 1989. “It was a sand-based track, and the sand was coated in this polymer,” Von Hemel said. “It was different in the morning than it was in the afternoon. The sunlight, UV rays, made it slower than it was in the morning. What you would be training on first thing in the morning, by afternoon, when the hot sun was shining, it was more of a testing, or tiring, racetrack.” The interest level was high when Remington’s parent company, DeBartolo Racing, launched with the Equitrack. “It was unique,” Von Hemel said. “Remington was opening up with a surface no one had run on before. “It was the beginning of what’s out there now.” Matt Vance said the draw of the synthetic surface was safety. Edward DeBartolo Sr. “and the team were ahead of their time,” Vance said. “The safety factor played a big role. It was a very safe, forgiving surface.” Remington’s main track is now a dirt surface, but Equitrack is never far from reach for Vance. “I think I’ve still got a bucket of it somewhere in storage here,” he said. ◗ Roylynn Von Hemel, the matriarch of a racing family as the wife of retired trainer Don Von Hemel and the mother of trainers Donnie and Kelly Von Hemel, died Aug. 19 in Hot Springs, Ark. She was 81. The Von Hemels married in 1959. “It’s been a really trying time for dad – and all the family,” Donnie Von Hemel said. ◗ Remington is scheduled to build a new chapel on the backstretch, and the structure also will have an area dedicated to accommodating racing community events, Vance said. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.