Woodbine has a brand new racing surface, TAPETA, and horses and riders got to try it out Friday morning in the first training session held on the new all-weather strip.
Created by Michael Dickinson, Tapeta (means carpet in essence) is one of several all-weather surfaces that arose a decade ago along with Polytrack, Pro-Ride, Cushion.
Woodbine’s Polytrack has a good, long life but it was in need to replacing and after much discussion and consulting with horsepeople and experts, the decision was made to put Tapeta on the famed track rather than dirt.
On Thursday, a set of 2-year-olds and a couple of ponies took a spin on the Tapeta before it was opened for training today (March 18).
The 2-year-olds who were the first to gallop on the Tapeta were a pair – Boys Club and Pierre Mince – trained by Michelle Love.
“It was like galloping on memory foam,” said Love enthusiastically. “You could not hear them gallop at all.”
By the time the Polytrack was removed last year, the surface was described as chunky and deep and it stuck heavily to legs and feet of horses and humans. The Tapeta certainly is fresher and cleaner and looking more like the Polytrack did when it was first installed.
One trainer/rider said this morning that the Tapeta surface was on the “firm” side and with the cold temperatures coming again tonight (-10) that could keep the surface tight. It may be later in the spring when the ground warms up and the surface gets to soften.
RIVER MAID, an allowance filly trained by Robert Tiller, was one of just over a dozen horses to work on the stri this morning and she came down 4 furlongs in 48 flat.
More interviews to come as horses and humans get to know the new surface.
CAREN returns to action
Multiple stakes winner Caren, a Sovereign Award finalist for Canada’s champion 2-year-old filly of 2015, is set to make her seasonal debut in Saturday’s $75,000 Any Limit Stakes at Gulfstream Park.
It will also be the first time on conventional dirt for the Robert Marzilli-owned bay, whose sire, Society’s Chairman, earned his lone graded stakes triumph at Gulfstream in the 2010 Appleton (G3).
“It’s going to be a new thing, but she’s breezed good enough on it,” Gulfstream-based trainer Michael De Paulo said. “We’ve never really pressed her in any of her works, but until you run on it you never know. We’re expecting her to run real well.
“She’s won from 4 ½ [furlongs] to a mile and a sixteenth. Her form is pretty good,” he said. “It’s funny, she’s bred to turf and the only race she got beat was on the grass. She’s a pretty nice horse.”
Caren won five of six starts and earned $340,818 in purse earnings at 2 including four stakes on Woodbine’s synthetic surface, the Shady Well, Nandi, Victorian Queen and Princess Elizabeth. Her loss came in a third-place finish to Catch a Glimpse in the Natalma (G2) on turf.
Catch a Glimpse, bred in Kentucky and trained by seven-time Sovereign Award-winner Mark Casse, won both her starts at Woodbine last year including an allowance prior to the Natalma. Other 2-year-old filly finalists are Ami’s Mesa and Grade 3 winner Gamble’s Ghost. Winners will be announced April 8.
“She’s up for a Sovereign Award and we’d love to say we should win it but she got beat in the Natalma and the horse that beat me won the Breeders’ Cup,” De Paulo said. “Did I know she’d be that kind? We were hoping she’d be a good Ontario-sired horse. She’s won a Canadian-bred stake, too, which is less restrictive. When you run against Sam-Son [Farm] up there, they’ve got horses by Smart Strike, A.P. Indy, whatever, so the Canadian-bred races sometimes are fairly difficult. The Ontario-sired ones are the easiest but she’s been able to run in both.”
Caren will break from post five in the six-horse Any Limit field at co-highweight of 120 pounds with Florida-bred stakes winner Ballet Diva. Luis Saez will be up for the first time after being ridden exclusively by Jesse Campbell.
EMMA-JAYNE WILSON FEATURED ON AMERICA’S BEST RACING – INSIDE THE JOCK’S ROOM
Jockeys Flavien Prat and Emma-Jayne Wilson take America’s Best Racing’s readers inside the jockeys’ room in 2016. Prat rides on the Southern California circuit after launching his career in his native France, where he was named champion apprentice in 2009 and won a Group 1 race in 2013. He also won the Grade 1 Bing Crosby Stakes in 2015 in his first full year of riding in the U.S. Canadian Emma-Jayne Wilson rides at Woodbine in Toronto after being named champion apprentice jockey in both the U.S. and Canada. She earned her first Grade 1 win aboard Interpol in the Northern Dancer Stakes in 2015.
Throughout the series Prat and Wilson share insight into all kinds of questions including how they became jockeys, what goes on between races, whom they admire and what type of movies and fashion style they prefer.
Did you have to go to a special school or take training to become a jockey? Who taught you how to become a successful jockey?…
