Follow-up on Penn National

An issue with the main track yesterday morning, not related to two breakdowns on Tuesday night’s card, was the reason for the cancellation of the live card last night and training hours this morning, according to both track management and horsemen at Penn National Race Course.


The addition of new material to the racing surface, which is in use year-round, to more of a “summer mix” of sand/silt and clay, was done on Sunday and Monday, but rain on Tuesday night, after the card had already been completed, made evident several areas that were problematic, according to Todd Mostoller, the executive director of the Pennsylvania HBPA, which represents horsemen at the Grantville, Pa. oval.

“There were a number of spots that were soft, with no texture, what I would call a ‘milkshake’ consistency,” he said. “Horses could run down to the base in those spots.”

After about 17 horsemen walked the track at 11:30 yesterday morning, it was decided that the surface wasn’t entirely safe, and the card was cancelled.

The surface was worked on today in order to let it dry and additional sand was put down, to allow tonight’s card to go on as scheduled.

“We tested the mix being used on the surface in advance and feel it is appropriate,” said Penn National’s vice president of racing Chris McErlean. “I really believe the issue we ran into Tuesday evening was the track could not get sealed up quickly enough after racing, and we got hit with close to 1" of rain in an hour’s time, which saturated the track and put us behind the eight-ball, especially with the weather Wednesday that afforded no way to dry out the surface.”

Both McErlean and Mostoller stated that the two breakdowns that occurred during the running of Tuesday’s seventh race, involving the horses Artist Moon and Half Moon Beach, were not connected to a surface issue.

“We have our veterinarian reviewing the tapes and interviewing people associated with the horses to get more information, but it appears there may have been some contact between the horses that caused at least one to take a bad step and be injured,” said McErlean. “We have adopted a procedure of a full breakdown review with the trainer after such incidents, and we plan to do that for these two incidents from Tuesday night.”