Addressing the rash of breakdowns this year at Aqueduct — 13 since Jan. 8 — New York Racing Authority vice president and director of racing P.J. Campo and track superintendent Glen Kozak said yesterday they can find no underlying cause for the catastrophic injuries.
And, they said, they are confident the racing surface of the winter meet’s inner dirt track is safe.
“There has been no change in the maintenance procedure [from previous years] and no variation in the [track] cushion,” said Kozak, who has been the track super for the NYRA since 2008. “Nothing has changed from standard practice at NYRA.”
This is the first time in Kozak’s tenure here the safety of a racing surface has become an issue, and he is admittedly puzzled, especially by the fact the breakdowns have come in clusters: three Jan. 12-15, three Feb. 2-5, two Feb. 25-26, and four March 2-4.
“Nothing pinpoints [it],” he said.
“You wish something would jump off the page at you,” said Campo. “None of us wants to see a horse get hurt. It baffles us trying to make a correlation.”
Campo and Kozak both said they have heard no complaints from horsemen or riders about the safety of the track.
“The jockeys love the inner dirt,” Campo said. “They are very complimentary of how it feels underneath them.
“We’re not going to send jocks and horses out there if the track isn’t 100 percent safe.”
The one common thread to the breakdowns is the injured horses are among the cheapest on the grounds.
Four were bottom-level $7,500 claimers, and four were maiden claimers in the $12,500-$16,000 range.
“Little by little, we’re raising the bottom,” Campo said. “But you are at the mercy of the horse population you have.”