‘The maintenance personnel is one of your most valuable assets’

EDITED PRESS RELEASE

Churchill Downs track superintendent Jamie Richardson and Dr. Mick Peterson, director of the University of Kentucky’s Racetrack Safety Program and executive director of the industry’s non-profit Racing Surfaces Testing Laboratory presented a conversation on racing surface best practices at the Association of Racing Commissioners Inc. annual meeting on May 7. 

Peterson said having a safe racetrack takes more than a healthy budget. The most uniform track in 2024 from all those he tested? Ohio’s Thistledown, he said.

“It was the crew, it was the knowledge of the crew, and the way they were using the equipment,” Peterson said. “The other good tracks were exactly what you expected; NYRA, Churchill, Keeneland — round up the usual suspects. Far less of this is budget, and a lot of it is how the equipment is used and, frankly, leadership.

“… There are some very, very high budget racetracks with exceptional equipment that have much inferior outcomes, and there are some with very, very small budgets that have fantastic (results),” Peterson said. “So it’s really about people… The maintenance personnel is one of your most valuable assets. This is an apprentice-oriented occupation. You don’t get a degree in racetrack maintenance. What you do is learn from the best practices, and what we’ve also seen are some really talented people from smaller racetracks end up with really good opportunities in new places. Because they learned. They’re good at their jobs.”

Return to the May 13 issue of Wire to Wire