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SAN DIEGO — Opening Day for the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club is this Wednesday, and for the fifth straight year the horses will be racing on the controversial synthetic track — a mixture engineered to protect the horses from catastrophic injuries.
According to the Thoroughbred Club, the engineered track is working. It only lost five horses during last year’s meet during training and the afternoon races.
“So the numbers were greatly reduced compared to where we were with the dirt track,” said Del Mar Thoroughbred Club Executive Vice President Tom Robbins.
In contrast, the Santa Anita track returned to the traditional dirt track this year with worse results. In 2010, only two horses were euthanized after injuring themselves on the synthetic track. Twelve horses had to be put down this year after Santa Anita went back to the dirt.
