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New York By Bob Horwood 1 Track Superintendents Job Not an Easy One John Golden Aims for Uniform Racing Course Firm Experimenting With Artificial Surface BELMONT PARK, Elmont, L. I., N. Y., May 14. Prior to Mondays Belmont Park opening, several horsemen told us that the inside rail was deep. Some of these men had obtained this opinion while astride their ponies, others took the word of exercise riders. Track superintendent John Golden, a capable, and conscientious man who accepts the hopeless task of trying to please everyone with fortitude and philosophy, tells us it just isnt so. "I could easily make the rail lightning fast," Golden says, "but that would be that worst thing I could do. The important thing is to have the surface uniform from the inside out and we make every effort to do this. There isnt a day that we dont check the depth of the cushion at intervals all around the track." The pattern of the races run during the first few days of this meeting would seem tocon-firm Goldens statement, with at least as many winners coming through on the inside as take the overland. To be sure, Tick Tock tired badly after coming through on the rail in the Toboggan and opening a wide lead, but the two horses that gained appreciably in the stretch, Cohoes and Warhead, had been much farther behind the pace and presumably fresher when they launched their moves. Its possible that those who formed their opinion that the inside was deep after riding on the track in the morning based their judgment on observation of horses working on the inside. The fact is that most horses, other than those who bear out, work quite close to the inside when the dogs are not in place, and their riders found the strip deep. But if they had been farther out, they would have found it equally deep. .While we were discussing this matter with Golden, an experienced observer remarked- that it is impossible to please horsemen. This is quite true, but you have only to walk under a few shedrows and note the number of horses undergoing treatment for inflamed ankles, cracked hooves, popped knees and sore shins to understand their attitude. The fact is that there is no such thing as an ideal dirt race track. Deep tracks, or even slightly deep tracks, put a great strain on ankles, knees and related ligaments. Hard tracks produce concussion that develops calcium, and other ills. All -tracks at times become more- or less cuppy, a condition that causes a variety of ailments. Top Men on the Job We think New York horsemen are fortunate in having two such men as John Golden and Dick Strickland supervising the racing strips. Both men do everything possible with the materials at hand, which was not always the case with their predecessors. True, stones occasionally work their way to the surface at Belmont Park, but those stones are part of the bottom soil put in there a half century ago. During July, the bottom at Jamaica sometimes becomes so hard during a dry spell that you cant penetrate it with a penknife. But everything that can be done to alleviate these troubles is being done. Not too incidentally, trainer Johnny Nerud tells us that his patron, John L. McKnight is going ahead wholeheartedly with the search for a practical artificial race track. The research facilities of Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co., among the best in the nation, are engaged in the search for the needed adhesive which will hold a surface of rubber pellets to a concrete base. "I told Mr. McKnight that I was probably crazy, because he was the first man who would listen to me," Nerud says, "but he said most of the ideas we get at Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing are crazy, but those crazy ideaTs have resulted in our best products " Handicappers might take note that Golden believes that wind is a much more important factor than water in determining the speed of races at Belmont Park. "I dont think rain speeds up Belmont more than a couple of lengths," he says, "but winds from the east or northeast move it up a lot more, blowing the horses down the backstretch and around the turn. Then, the grandstand cuts off most of this wind as they turn into the stretch, so they dont feel the force of it until theyre inside the eighth pole. Itll be the same way at Aqueduct." Adams Returns to Training Post Columnist Frank Graham never wrote a truer, or more gracious, line than his reference to trainer Ed Christmas as one of the first gentlemen of the turf. The Marylander, by the way, thinks -that the shortlived Agawam had the best racing strip he has ever seen. It was made from valley soil near Springfield, Mass., with a top cushion of earth from Connecticut tobacco farms. "It could be soaking wet in the morning and youd see dust in the afternoon," Christmas says, "and you could only hear a swish when horses galloped 10 feet away." . . . Former steeplechase rider Frank "Dooley" Adams gave up his post in the racing secretarys office to stay with the horses and is now at his Southern Pines, S. C, home, but may soon bring some jumpers to Belmont Park. More about the fabulous Adams family next week. . . . Mr. Fitz is back on the job after a bout with virus. "With the horses winning seven races while I was away, maybe I should stay home," the" old gentleman joked.
