All-weather horse racing or, in other
words, horse racing on synthetic surfaces, has been a fact of life in
Britain since 1989. The pioneering racecourse was Lingfield Park,
which raced for the first time on Equitrack – silica sand, oil and
a chemical binder mixed together to form a very firm, hard surface –
in October that year. Fast forward nearly three decades and the
all-weather programme has expanded to six racecourses. Three of them,
namely Chelmsford City, Kempton Park and Lingfield Park, race on
Polytrack, Southwell, alone, races on Fibresand and the remaining
two, Newcastle and Wolverhampton, race on Tapeta.
Fibresand
Fibresand is the oldest of the
synthetic surfaces still used in Britain, having been raced on at
Southwell since nine days after the opening of the Equitrack course
at Lingfield. Like Polytrack and Tapeta, Fibresand is based on silica
sand, reinforced with polypropylene fibres but, unlike its
competitors, contains no wax or chemical binder. The firmness of the
surface can be adjusted by maintenance procedures, such as rolling or
harrowing, but Fibresand is typically deeper, and looser, than
Polytrack. Consequently, the surface places more emphasis on stamina,
resulting in slower race times, wider margins between horses and less
trouble in running.
Polytrack
Polytrack, too, is a mixture of silica
sand and polypropylene fibres, together with recycled rubber, coated
with wax. Appropriately weighed and blended, Polytrack creates a
racing surface renowned for its uniformity and longevity. The
brainchild of farmer and builder Martin Collins, Polytrack first rose
to prominence as a surface for training gallops, such as that
installed for Richard Hannon Snr. in 1987, but was not used as a
racing surface until 2001. That year it become the surface of choice
at Lingfield Park and Wolverhampton replaced both its Fibresand and
turf courses with a single Polytrack course three years later.
Tapeta
Tapeta was designed and developed by
Michael Dickinson – the same Michael Dickinson who saddled the
first five home in the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1983 – and was first
laid at his Tapeta Farm training centre in Maryland, USA in 1997.
Essentially an improved version of Polytrack, Tapeta has the same
basic composition, but mimics the root structure of turf. Like
Fibresand, the firmness of the surface can be dictated by the Clerk
of the Course and, again like Fibresand, Tapeta sheds water extremely
well. Tapeta replaced Polytrack as the surface of choice at
Wolverhampton in 2014 and replaced the turf course at Newcastle as
part of a £12 million redevelopment of the racecourse in 2016.